thank you to netgalley & montclair publishing for providing me a copy of this book in return for an honest review <3
dear miss roach and anyone else who liked this book……. look away LOOK AWAY
it seriously breaks my heart to say this but….. i cannot name a single goddamn positive thing about this book. this truly was not good. it breaks my heart to say this about an indie author and a debut into adult fiction but…. yeoch this was bad. i can’t even say the components were bad and the idea originally was good because.. i mean yeah in theory sapphic helen and paris is a good idea, but the actual plot itself in theory sucks! and in execution it does as well! and genuinely if i could word this in a constructive way, or give apt pointers like “to make x better, do y”, but seriously i think the entire concept is a hit and a miss, and any course correction i would offer would be like doing a spritz of perfume over a sewage plant. it’s not gonna do anything. but im still gonna offer them anyways because i feel like its heinous to dunk on a book and at least not try and offer solutions even if the author and editor would think said suggestions were dogshit.
i’m gonna break this down by components. so firstly, the characters…. paris and helen were such nothingburgers. you have this whole thing of helen being half-god and nothing is done with it! which begs the question, what’s the point of having the setting be a greek mythology retelling? nothing about the setting demands it to be based in greek mythology. you could’ve changed the names and removed the random mentions of helen being half god and nothing in the story would meaningfully change. it was so irrelevant to the story u was honestly baffled by the choice to have this as a retelling. the only thing this book shared with greek mythology were the names of people and locations. helen as an actual character felt like a prop dressing with no depth, and honestly that’s how every single character in this book felt. paris however has the additional problem of being the world’s least likeable protagonist. she’s rude, she’s arrogant, she’s got some of the cringiest dialogue i’ve seen in years, and i was never rooting for her. if anything i was actively rooting for paris to get bombed to smithereens because she annoyed me. what little she gave was not good. none of the characters here had depth. they were things with names and one fact about them and that’s it.
the plot was boring as hell. there were plot twists sure, but everyone in universe was acting like it was shocking, but i truly felt nothing. i was apathetic. i didn’t care who made the bomb. i didn’t care about the investigation. especially since it all amounted to nothing. the plot was thrown away and changed at the drop of a hat to a war, and that just showed me nothing in the story mattered. nothing had meaning to me because in one chapter it could all be undone.
paris and helen’s relationship is the most unrealistic relationship i’ve read in ages. it felt forced and inauthentic. their meeting itself didn’t really make sense in universe, and their connection felt fake. not for one second did i buy their relationship. their dialogue was cringey yet again and yet again i felt…. nothing. no emotion about their relationship. couldn’t have cared less.
this book honestly had nothing going for it. and that’s sounds harsh but seriously that’s how i felt. none of the characters had depth or were likeable. the plot wasn’t satisfying and was messy. the dialogue was not great. this was a colossal miss. and like i said i feel bad dunking on an indie debut but… i also can’t lie to myself ☹️

Ok I was really optimistic for this one and it came through in a LOT of ways. Really crappy people characters that you root for? yep. I was filled with rage, had to put it down to bask in the sheer anguish I felt.
That being said, and probably because of how traumatised the characters are, the romance was lacking. I would've loved to see the characters fleshed out a bit more. In saying that, Helen and Tommy were my favourite relationship (mostly because Tommy was everything).
All in all, it was a great adult debut and I'm excited to see how Roach progresses as a writer.

This book was one I was so excited for. A love reading greek retellings!

But I didnt love this one. Nothing specific about the writing, but I found it hard to follow with a lot of character changes, and understanding conflicts, family dynamics.

The character change from chapter to chapter, and that is a style of writing I really struggle with.

What I did love was the tension! It was a fun read, but not my favorite.

Wow, I feel like this book is going to be a marmite situation you’ll either really love it or really not. For me, I loved it

The setting the scene wasn’t great however that doesn’t matter to me, the actual plot was incredible, it was a little unbelievable in some places but that’s the joy of fiction, anything can happen and it didn’t spoil the story at all.

I love an enemies to lovers situation although this was a lot more complicated than that, I loved how it explored the different relationships outside of the two main characters and gave a lot of context to why they were the people they became.

My one issue is the ending, I wanted to know more. What happened!?

Overall I really enjoyed this book and I loved the authors writing style, can’t wait to read more from her

I could not get into this book. I just didn't connect with the characters or even the theme. This book is just not for me. Even the audio book did not catch my attention. I had high hopes for this one.

#netgalley

Thank you for the ARC! I found the premise very engaging, particularly the Greek undertones. However, I occasionally struggled to follow the plot, which slightly impacts my overall review. Despite this, I absolutely loved the characters in this story; I just felt a bit lost with the plot at times.

Thank you for this arc! i enjoyed the premise of this book a lot and really enjoyed the greek undertone and i did however struggle to follow at times which puts my review down a little bit, i absolutely loved the characters in this story i was just abit lost on the plot.

'We Are the Match' is essentially a Helen of Troy/Paris reimagining in the mafia/underworld of contemporary Greece. Although I enjoyed the premise, and the story in theory, the lack of world building really killed it for me. I wanted to understand Troy and the Families, as well as what aspects of the world were fully contemporary and which were not. I think the author needed about 50 more pages to really give the reader the full picture of the context for the story. I also felt the mafia/underworld details were lacking - I didn't really understand the dynamics between the major players. I will admit that I don't read a lot of mafia romance, so it could be that the author assumed a level of knowledge about the mafia context that I lacked.

In addition to lacking in the world building and the mafia complex, I also found the book repetitive. There were a few passages that felt copied and pasted in multiple places.

Despite these issues, I did really like Paris and Helen as characters and I think the author did a good job of depicting the two of them getting to know each other and discovering new things about each other. I just needed a little bit more.

We Are The Match by Mary E. Roach
4⭐️
3🌶

Sapphic mafia was an angle im really yet to explore but now I want more because I really enjoyed it. I do think there was a bit less of a romance focus on this story, don't get me wrong, it was still heavily there but I feel like there was a bit more actual mafia and plot in between all the romance than other books of a similar style.

I was really worried this was going to be a cliffhanger but I'm so glad the story was wrapped up in the end. Some of the things that happened had my jaw on the floor and my thoughts like 'no way that didn't actually just happen'

Very strong on the sexual tension, referencing and innuendo, but minimal on the on-page events which was fine but I felt like maybe there wasn't enough outlet for all the tension through the story.

Thank you so much Montlake for the arc!

In this glittering, sapphic reimagining of Helen of Troy set in modern day mobster Greece, Helen is the daughter of a powerful crime lord on Paris is the woman hellbent on destroying her—if they don’t fall for each other first.

They’re thrown together in an opulent world of privilege, power, and cover-ups—and the closer they grow, the more the fragile balance of power in the world of crime lords begins to fray.

Because if Helen doesn’t choose to abandon her newfound connection with Paris and marry into the alliance her father arranged, they could all go to war.

And Helen and Paris might just be ready to let them.

Such a fantastical read. Will recommend to others.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing the earc in exchange of an honest review.

When i heard about a sapphic Helen of Troy, mafia world inspired by ancient Greece i knew i needed to read it.
I enjoyed this, it was fast paced, dark & very very fun. Some parts of the plot made no sense but the vibes were really enjoyable.
I think this might have been better if it was a 100 pages longer, some of the character's motivations & decisions needed would have benefited from more exploring on page.
I really liked the tension between Paris & Helen, they have an instant connection that didn't feel very insta lovey to me, but could be described as instant attraction.
This book feels like a dark mafia enemies to lovers romance but sapphic, there's a lot of interesting themes discussed in it, but some of them & the plot feel a bit underdeveloped.

We Are the Match is a dark and delicious sapphic mafia romance with a modern, glamorous spin on the Helen of Troy myth. Sapphic + mafia + Greek mythology is a combo I never knew I needed. It is sexy, dramatic, and just the right amount of myth-inspired without getting too heavy handed.

Paris is a mob fixer out for revenge against the man who ruined her family. Her plan? Get close to his daughter Helen and bring the whole empire down from the inside. Only Helen is nothing like Paris expected, and somewhere between dangerous deals and literal explosions, revenge starts to feel a lot like obsession.

The chemistry between Paris and Helen is electric. Every scene has that will-they-kiss or will-they-kill each other energy, and it is addictive. The romance is messy, passionate, and full of high stakes, with action scenes that keep you turning the pages. I loved that both women are unapologetically morally gray. No one here is playing the sweet innocent heroine.

Tropes
👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 Sapphic

🔥 Mafia romance

💘 Enemies-to-lovers

🏝 Greek mythology inspired

💔 Revenge turns into love

I had such high hopes for this book, and I’m truly disappointed that they weren’t met. I thought a sapphic Helen of Troy would be so amazing! When it started post-threesome (FFM) I was soooo sure it was going to be great. Of course it’s enemies to lovers and while I found both Paris and Helen to be very feisty, I just never felt the real angst and then connection between them. The whole book was a weird mix of feeling like nothing was happening while also a lot was happening.

We Are the Match is an engrossing, suspenseful, and fiercely original sapphic retelling of the Helen of Troy myth — and it stole my weekend. I read it in three sittings, and even when I put it down to do other things, I couldn’t stop thinking about Helen and Paris. You know a book is good when you’re not only worried about the lead characters’ fate, but every time a secondary character enters a tense scene, you find yourself holding your breath for them too.

You may think you know the story of Helen of Troy — the wooden horse, the men in greaves, the gods pulling strings. But Mary E. Roach keeps the myth’s rich, beating heart and transforms it into something wholly new. As versed as I am in this story, I was still holding my breath, uncertain of how this Helen and Paris would play out.

Set in the Greek islands, this is a contemporary tale of black market arms deals, political manipulation, and mafia-like family dynamics. It’s a masterful retelling, with familiar figures recast and restructured so that you feel adrift — as if encountering this myth for the first time. The romance between Helen and Paris isn’t a pastiche of its origin; it’s a magnetic force that stole my heart. These two aren’t powerless pawns in the hands of gods or fate — they’re co-conspirators. Flip sides of the same coin. Subtle manifestations of the same will.

This is a 21st-century story. One of found families, fated lovers, sisterhood, and single-minded vengeance — stopped dead in its tracks by the appearance of Helen: wounded, lost, and seeking payment for the life of her mother, killed ten years ago.

There are ghosts here — Paris’s murdered sisters from the group home in Troy. There’s Tommy, Helen’s bodyguard and surrogate father, whose quiet understanding and acceptance of Paris marks him as one of the best secondary characters I’ve read in ages. I’d read a whole novel from his POV just to spend more time with him. And then there’s Thea and Perce, whose love offers a thread of hope — that maybe, just maybe, we can survive being the playthings of gods, whether divine or merely powerful.

And then there were those last 70 pages.

I was up until 3am, riding this wild, out-of-control roller coaster of suspense and romance. I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop. And when I hit that final page?

Say WHAT NOW!!!????

This book destroyed me in the best way. I’m still shell-shocked. Still haunted. Still hoping for more.

Although it took me a while to get into the story, I enjoyed reading it. What I liked most about it were the well-written FMCs, whom you could get to know well because the book is written from the perspectives of Paris and Helen. The plot itself was well-written, but it didn't captivate me.
Danke an Mary E. Roach und NetGalley für diesen ARC.

Paris is a daughter of Troy, one of its last, and is struggling to survive as a Fixer in the dark criminal underworld of Greece, where its mafia families rule like gods from on high. But Paris wants to do more than survive; she wants revenge for her sisters, who were killed by a bomb when Zarek leveled the island of Troy with bombs that set the foundling house alight and burned her sisters alive. Her plan is simple: somehow catch Helen, Zarek’s daughter, and make him watch while she kills her. Well, there’s a saying for that: no plan survives first contact with the enemy and Helen … is not what Paris expected. The princess in the tower, elegant and imperious, is being given in marriage to some nobody; the man is new money, easily manipulated, and easily controlled by Zarek, who will never let Helen go. Helen is a princess with an empty smile who has already accepted her fate, and her beauty takes Paris’ breath away.

And then the bomb goes off. Grabbing the opportunity with both hands, Paris offers to find who tried to kill Zarek and his daughter. It gets her closer to Zarek and, more importantly, it gets her closer to Helen, Helen whose desperation makes her vulnerable, whose loneliness makes her an easy target, and whose passion makes Paris want to pin her down on silken sheets and fuck her until she screams out Paris’ name.

Helen, though, has her own plans.

This is a mafia AU retelling of the story of Helen of Troy and Paris, with lesbian, queer, and pansexual women who wield knives and guns and do just as much damage — if not more — with their words. These are women who kneel to no king, are ruthless in their quests for power, and who all have their own reason for wanting to take Zarek down. It’s also bloody and violent, with maiming, burning, murder, and so many bombs.

In this world, alongside Zarek, who rules with an iron fist, are the four queens: Fronna, who deals in sex and secrets; Hannah, who deals in bodies delivered piecemeal to their families; Altea, whose trade is guns; and Lena, the lost queen, whose delight was explosives. Lena was Helen’s mother, Zarek’s wife, and the queen of Troy … the same Troy that was destroyed by Zarek’s bombs; the same Troy that was Paris’ home until the fire burned to ash everyone she loved.

Paris is driven, brash, arrogant, prideful, and narrow-minded. She has her opinions and sees no reason to change them; she has her goal and nothing will stop her from it. She’s all emotions and jagged, broken edges, anger and pain and blind vengeance — and she suffers for it. When standing before Zarek, a man who rules as a god on his island, she smarts off and pays dearly for it. In playing her game — in playing Helen and the queens — Paris becomes cocky, arrogant, and certain she can handle things … only to end up with the deaths of innocents on her hands because she wanted to make a statement, a display of her own power, a power which doesn’t come with the ability to protect anyone else from the fallout of her pride.

Helen is an ornament in her father’s home, a trophy to be handed out to the best potential husband. She’s also not emotionally stable. Having seen her mother’s death, she lost the parent who loved her and now has only the one who owns her. In her youth, she was manic, high strung, and prone to planting bombs when displeased. Her father told her no? She blew up his boat. She didn’t get her way? She blew up something in a tantrum. But it’s been years since she let loose, and now she simply floats along like a china doll, waiting to be put back on the shelf when her father is done with her. Paris wakes Helen up and gives her something to focus on. Paris’ lack of propriety is refreshing; Paris’ disdain, her cruel flirting, and the easy confidence with which she dismisses Helen has Helen coming back again and again. Paris doesn’t see a doll, Paris sees someone who could be a queen in her own right if she wanted, someone who might be worth supporting should she wish to be queen.

The relationship between them is the main focus of the story, leaving the world building to be mostly vibes and images. It’s a world of kick ass, powerful women with plots and plans and power … but the plot is all over the place. While I appreciate that the queens each have their own story, their own reasons for doing what they do, the way it unfolds feels clumsy. Neither Paris nor Helen have shown the ability to make some of the leaps in logic that the story requires, and Paris actually has to have several different characters over the course of the book explain things to her.

There’s a scene where someone close to Helen dies. It’s reasonable for Helen to be distraught; not only is this someone who meant something to her, she’s also someone who feels emotions deeply and who isn’t entirely well-balanced in how she handles them. But why is Paris so broken up about the death of someone she met maybe a week ago? While I can understand her being caught up in the moment, being sympathetic and empathetic to Helen’s grief, that’s not how it was written. That’s not to say the scene is bad, it just didn’t work for me and I didn’t buy it.

The first third of this book had me by the throat. I was all in for the tension, the flirting, the push and pull of two characters using one another, while slowly falling for one another; Paris’ all consuming need for revenge against Helen’s own plans and hopes for freedom, the power dynamics between them as Helen and Paris tried to use one another, and the scenes with Zarek where he felt like an honest threat to both Paris and Helen in very different ways … I loved it. But the book began to coast in the middle and, by the end, it was mostly vibes and very convenient moments. I’m glad I read it, because there’s a lot here to like. It’s just the ending, for me. I wanted something other than what the book gave me.

If this book had stuck the landing, I would have given it 5 stars. As it is, I think it’s a four-star read for me. The writing is lyrical and full of emotion, and won’t be to everyone’s taste. Both Paris and Helen are very voice-y characters, full of dramatic mood swings and calculating plots. You’ll either like them or you won’t, and I strongly suggest trying a sample of this book before making a purchase.

A sapphic mafia romance inspired by Greek mythology— I don't often read mythology retellings but I found myself enjoying the almost-cinematic quality the book had as the plot unfolded (I mean, it literally starts with a bomb) and the dark romance vibes. And to be clear, this is dark! There are multiple assassinations, there's torture, and the stakes are HIGH.

Paris is a fixer with an agenda— namely taking down kingpin Zarek, and if she has to use Zarek's daughter Helen, then so be it. Helen isn't a damsel in distress in this story; she's a seasoned bomb-maker, and a crime princess with a spine of steel. I enjoyed the dynamic between Paris, who is tough and stoic but feels So Much, and Helen who basically lives a double life under her father's thumb, so she feels free to be herself with Paris— the chemistry is THERE to go with the high stakes and it's quite intense and all-encompassing real fast.

Thank you to Montlake and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

An intense novel that played on my emotions like a violin. This novel has something for everybody and unashamedly packs a punch.

Paris manages to investigate a bomb going off at a mob boss' party, intending to take revenge on the family that had killed hers. Helen wants to abandon the violent world she was raised in, and doesn't want to marry the man her father had picked for her. Helen and Paris latch onto each other and flee from Greece to Troy. Helen's father is willing to start a war to get Helen back, and both women are willing to let him.

Influenced by mythology, we're introduced to a world of fixers, bombers, and assassins due to rival mafia families in Greece. Paris is one of the last surviving people from Troy, which Helen's father had bombed years ago. She is a violent woman intent on more murder and mayhem when she rescued Helen at the engagement party, mostly because she wanted to kill Helen herself to hurt her father. She doesn't know about Helen's penchant for bomb making when younger, or that she had planned to fake her death and was interrupted. The two bond due to their shared irreverence toward Helen's father, and only Helen has some qualms about the bodies left in their wake.

Told in their alternating POVs, we see the violent world and casual cruelties that the mafia inflict, killing with little provocation and no remorse. The actions these women take have a literal body count even before they decide to flee. It becomes real to them when it's not anonymous maids or guards dying, but people they actually care about. The repetition in the text as we go only shows how much both women are fueled by anger and loss, though only Paris is up front about it from the start. It's a game of power within the Families, and the winner is the one willing to shed blood. It's a stark reality of their world, with continued pain and loss along the way. The story grabs you and carries a dread fascination, with an ending as devastatingly violent as promised at the start.

In this steamy retelling of Helen and Troy, we see so much personality in these characters and i think it’s such a talent of the authors.

There are so many characters, but it never got confusing because they all have distinct differences and are their own people. I really loved that.

From the first chapter, i was hooked because of the interest Paris seemed to have in Helen. After their meeting, I knew this was going to be a good read.

Their dynamic was complicated because of so much death and blood spilled between them, their parents, or more so Helen’s parents and the part they played in a traumatic event for Paris and how that has affected Paris for years.

I would be interested in so many prequel books of the Families and the gods, only because i felt like they had such depth, but in a way that you knew they were the villains but also they were all fighting against the same thing.

This was so deliciously steamy and the tension was so hot and intense!!!!!

On another note, i cried while reading this, particularly because of one death, but also because of how complicated the fighting was and how it was never gonna be easy for Helen and Paris or just be Helen and Paris.

The plot twists in this were chefs kiss. Never expected many of them and the bluntness of the kills in this gutted me.

Overall a new favorite of mine. So good and highly recommend.