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Goodreads Review

 

 

“No”

One word.

Two letters.

But those two letters changed everything.

It was impossible to predict the impact I would have on the life of the only woman I’d ever truly loved. No way to know that I would result in her ruin.

I’d suffer for eternity with the knowledge that it was me who brought devastation to her doorstep.

Though I deserved the anguish I felt, to see her suffer was unacceptable.

I would fix this.

Somehow I would prove to her that I wasn’t the monster she thought I was.

Even if it meant becoming a monster in order to make that happen.


Love is just a word until someone enters your life and gives it meaning.

 

SPOILER FREE – well I will try. But I could quote the shite out of this book it was that bloody brilliant. I highlighted so much. Thinking oh that is good and oh I can use that alas I can’t or maybe I will. Read on to find out.

I was so pissed at the end of book one that the only questions that came to mind were.

Was it worth saying no, Marco? Was it? What was worth so much for that outcome? Why would you do that?

I’d burn this whole cesspool of a city to the ground until I’d exacted revenge on all of them. Every. Single. Fucking. One.

To the heroine – right along with you there sweetheart. Where is my Samurai sword and oh give me a gun and we’ll do a lot of damage.

But then…..

Yes this is another damn dear letter

Dear Elisabeth,

May I call you Elisabeth? Yes/No? Well I’m going to anyway. To answer your question. 

Was it possible to write about an inherently good person doing bad things and have readers root for her? 

Yes Elisabeth you did. Every step of the way I was rooting for the heroine. I’m still rooting for her now. And to be honest I think that this is one heroine that I won’t forget this year. On top of that you made me like Marco, how dare you! After what happened in the first book how could you take away the hate I had for him. I needed him to pay for Brandi more than anyone else. My world was flipped upside down.

Your very irritated fan Kate.

I was also so nervous to start this book. With questions of will I like this book? Will it be on par with the first one? Can it be topped? What if I’m devastated with the outcome and I can’t give it the stars that they deserve. But my fears were taken from me.

4.5 ‘Anger and frustration. Hurt and sorrow. Love and loss’ Stars

This book picks up exactly where the first one stopped.

We find out Brandi’s real name.

“Emily I whispered. Recognition lit his eyes, swallowed swiftly by gratification. He knew the significance of what I’d given him. “My real name is Emily Ross.”

The unimaginable has happened, worlds have broken down only to collide at a velocity that neither MC ever saw coming. It comes down to trust and in the end trusting the wrong people.

It was then that comprehension dawned. The expression on her face…it wasn’t just the pain […] It was betrayal. 

For the love of Marco Valenti I didn’t see that coming. Marco, Marco, Marco what have you gotten yourself into? 

Both characters felt betrayal, the lies, the anger the despair the isolation. It’s true what they say that there is a fine line between love and hate.

“You don’t hate me, Tesoro. You hate the fact that you still want me, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

I’d let her know that she was mine regardless of who she fucked. […….] She wouldn’t be able to sleep with another man without finding them lacking. 

And I was on that journey with them every step of the way. What they felt I felt.

Marco becomes a different man with more edge and hardness to him but those kind of things shape a person. We see a visible and believable change in him. 

The metamorphis from man to monster occurred in that precise moment.

They each change through what they experienced. Marco for the better in my opinion but Emily? Not so much. Revenge and vengeance consume them both and they each deal with it differently.

“Careful, Cara. The revenge you seek may very well be your destruction.”

But at the same time the unwanted. Reality kicks in. Blame is laid at the feet of others or one’s self.

It would be a fair trade for my failure to protect […….] from the wolf with a lover’s tongue.

They deal with losing what they lost and figuring out how they could get it back

For one brief moment, I’d known true happiness…. Even if it had been a lie. 


All I wanted was for this woman to love me as she had for a brief moment in time.

Marco did anything to earn back what he had but lost.

There was only one person’s forgiveness I longed for, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever manage to get it. Some things just weren’t worthy of the forgiveness.

But with all Emily’s feelings impacting him he never gave up and he was strong and always knew to say the right thing. 

“Amore mio, some rocks turn to dust under pressure. You have transformed into a diamond.”

There are so many emotions running through me right now that it is hard to process them all at once. You have to read the first book to enjoy this one. Let me just get one thing straight though. This book is outstanding. I felt as if I read a completely different book to the first one. Ms. Grace is one talented cookie. It is rare that with a two part book you can get so many different facets at times I felt as if it was written by someone else that is how good she is. 

I had one seed left that I was keeping close to me truly with the hope of what I wanted to be true. At the worst of times Ms. Grace managed to coax a smile out of me.


And then the story twists and turns again. WTF? I didn’t see that coming.

My heart cracked a bit because she was on a downward spiral and some of the things that she did. They each lash out at one another and say some truly horrible things. 

With space and time and slowly acquainting one another again. With trust built etc. HE proved his worth. Emily not as much as Marco but she did as well.

“I love you Marco Valenti. Truth is, I never stopped. And I never will.”

I realised that sometimes dreams don’t come in the form you thought they would. It doesn’t make them any less amazing. The universe just knew what you needed better than you did.

The End

Spoilers & me the nit-picker.

So a small logical okay a major logical part of me thought stop people think about what you are doing and the pieces that are right in reach but they didn’t seem to grasp until… praise the Lord it then hit Marco.

This is what bothered me. There was a scene where Brandi thought and walked in on an awkward situation with Alexa. Nothing happened. She asks if something happened and Marco denied it vehemently but the amount of times that Brandi threw it in his face with what she was doing. Puhlease…. Although I did like the reversed roles where the woman got to lash out in that respect. I didn’t completely feel that Emily worked through her emotions of revenge when it came to the twist being revealed.

If push came to shove how far would you go it? To make those pay for what they did.

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