Leigh St. James

Cover of Bastard Heir by Leigh St. James, book one of The Bastards of Boston

The Bastards of Boston · Book One

Bastard Heir

I may be a mafia heir, but I’m no prince. I’m the monster who stalks my prey, breaks my ‘toys’, and ruins the ‘good girls’ of my enemies.

Trigger warnings for this book

The night my father dies, my brothers and I learn the truth: we’re illegitimate heirs to Boston’s most powerful mafia families, only abandoned as infants to keep us from our birthright. Now, we’re taking back what’s ours, and Mina Zielinski is my way in.

The daughter of the Polish arms dealer, she’s been chosen to marry the heir my family kept. But since the Dabrowski took my future from me, I plan to take their prize from them. And what a sweet prize she will be…

Naive and perfectly untouched, Mina is about to fall so far from her ivory tower that she’ll weep from shame while her family hides in disgrace and the brother who took my place and was set to marry her is left with nothing.

All I have to do is win her hand in marriage.

I’ve stalked her every move, learned her every secret, and uncovered her every weakness; all that’s left is to earn her trust and win her heart, then lay my brutal claim to shatter her innocence and trap her in a gilded cage.

Once I mark Mina as mine, I’ll make her beg—first for mercy, then for more—so the mafia families who betrayed me can know exactly what I expect when it’s their turn to grovel at my feet.

But it’s not until she finally escapes, leading me straight to my enemies, that she learns the hardest lesson of all: the prey can never truly be free. When her father’s betrayal breaks her and rival families try to kill her, she’ll be forced to choose:

Submit to the monster and the man…

…or lose everything.

Fans who love the spicy brutality of The Ritual and the savage allure of Devil's Night will love this tantalizing dark enemies to lovers romance.

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About Leigh

Leigh St. James writes intense, dark romances that pull readers into the shadows, where love warps into obsession and the line between purity and wickedness vanishes entirely. Her stories are not mere romances—they are ravagings, where emotional depth and razor-sharp twists sink deep, leaving readers addicted to the haunting, sinful cravings her tales awaken.

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