Title:At the Brink

Author :Anna del Mar

Series:N/A

Release date:02 May 2016

Rating : 5 Stars

Blurb :

Lily:

I should never have agreed to it. A woman will do a lot to keep her husband happy. But when my husband sells me to the highest bidder—billionaire, former navy SEAL, pride of Boston’s business scene—I agree, not to keep him happy, but because it gives me the chance to finally escape. Escape my marriage, escape my debts, escape my life… Josh Lane demands a steep price: my pride and my morals. But the truth is, I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for him. He brings color into my gray world. And his insistence that I submit to his commands—his depraved, filthy, amazing commands—only feeds my craving to be taken by him. Again. And again. I should never have agreed to it, but I’m so glad I did.

Josh:

I don’t need to pay to keep women in my bed. Though my preferences may be unorthodox, I never leave a woman unsatisfied—far from it. Lily Boswell, though… Her innocence draws me, her secrets intrigue me. Having her is worth dealing with her cowardly scum of a husband. I want to release her passions and heal her wounds. On my terms. Because the blindfolds and restraints hide more than she could imagine. I must keep her safe from the people who would destroy me—and the demons that haunt my dreams.

Yeah I know … rules should never be broken but … sometimes .. I made it a rule to never read the opening chapters of new books at the end of a just finished one. I only read the Blurbs to see if the content piques my interest.

Because I know myself – I know that I get grumpy because those opening flycatcher chapters end right in the middle of something and leave you waiting for the book– well THANK YOU Anna del Mar… NOW I am grumpy … because I did not even finish my review for “At The Brink” and now I need to have “The Stranger” because I read its opening chapter.

Coming back to the problem at hand – my review for “at the Brink”. … and actually “breaking the rule” is a good opening also for that. The first chapters had me kind of frustrated. This book was not my first one by Ms. del Mar – so I knew that it had potential to be a good one, but you never know until you start.

So I struggled through the first chapters and there was only one thought on my mind. “Is she really going to pull of an “Indecent Proposal” kind of thing? But than as the story continued another thought occurred to me… She was NOT only going to use THAT card – no – she really pulled ALL the stops – and used every card there is.

At first I though “OH NO – don’t do that” because the way the plot developed reminded me of a potpourri of several other books…. But suddenly I got it … don’t ask me if my line of thought changed or if it was the story development but suddenly it kind of “clicked” and everything fell into place.

I was not only at “peace” with the story but also my opinion of this author was solidified.

Josh and Lily are such interesting characters – and their development takes place throughout the whole book. It is only on the last pages that their picture becomes complete for the readers. What a rare gift – to tell a story like this.

She has an amazing way of capturing the readers attention – with this book it felt like she used an overload of impressions from other stories to make a point in her own. It is really difficult to explain what I felt.

Especially now that there is not even a real blurb out on GR – so I am not sure how much info is too much …

One thing I have to say though …. Only after I finished I noticed the clever way that the author distracted from a certain fact that even Lily only realized at the very end.

Great job … this little twist along the way never even occurred to me. And I rarely say this as I usually hate Movie to Book adaptations – but I would love to see this “little” fact transferred to a movie – to see if this really works out.

Because in my family circle I have a comparing “fact” and I realized even as a small child quite early what was going on – so I can not quite figure out if it is really possible to NOT realize it… (yeah I know talking about riddles – sorry)

So after a confusing beginning with a lot of mixed feelings this book developed into something really capturing. I was hooked to the plot until the very end – and if it is now believable or not – I liked the way the end developed – it just gave the story this little extra that was missing in the beginning – this very personal touch of the author.

God – did I say I need the next book ? like in I REALLY NEED TO READ “The Stranger”?!

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