BLURB---Lilith Bresson, an independent, successful young artist, is forced to travel from her home in Spain to the wild borderlands of northern England, to repay her feckless father’s latest debt by painting a portrait of the enigmatic Lady Blaine Albermarle.
On her first night at Albermarle Hall she meets Finn Strachan, Blaine’s ‘companion’, a cultured and hauntingly beautiful young man who seems to have it all. But Lilith has an artist’s eye, and a gift for seeing what lies beneath the skin. She soon discovers that Blaine is more gaoler than lover, and if the price is right, depravity has no limits.
As the weeks pass, Lilith finds that she too is drawn into the malign web that her patron has spun, yet against the odds she forges a strong friendship with the damaged, dysfunctional Finn. In a dark, modern twist to an age-old story, Lilith Bresson proves that sometimes it’s the princess who needs to become the rescuer.
Please note that this storyline contains depictions of drug abuse, violence and non-consensual sexual activity.
When I pick up a new book this is what I hope for.
You know when you rearrange your favourite shelf because you can't have this amazingness next to your awful earlier decisions? This was my one.
I hope I'm getting characters I love and believe in. This book ruined me for 2 days so much that I had to finish it just so I could continue with my life.
I bought it and I had absolutely no idea what it was about I didn't even read a review. I wanted to just pick up a book blind so to speak so it really came out of nowhere and had a massive impact on me.
The writing is what makes it so special, this could have been something we have all seen before. Big evil baddie holds a poor broken captive who then becomes saved by the hero love interest. That plot summary- although accurate is quite offensive to this book it's so much more than that.
It's just so real, I can totally imagine the whole 'more money than sense so I'll buy a body for whatever' scenario.
The pacing is excellent as is the time frame within the book. They don't fall in love overnight nor do they have one decent conversation and realise they are destined for each other. It is a love story but that side of things has room to grow.
The focus of this book is predominantly the rescue mission. This was necessary and I'm glad that the romance took a back seat as both characters are not ready and need to work on themselves in order to form a strong relationship....... Any kind of relationship for that matter. The seeds are set for a beautiful beautiful romance with our ice-queen Lilith and vacant Finn.
This book has given me 2 of my all time favourite characters, Lilith and Finn. I don't know how they are so real, it must have been some kind of author possession. This book belongs to Lilith and Finn I would have read about them doing their shopping. They are both so so special that I'm really sad I finished the book.
Lilith is amazing and one of the most unique female characters I have come across. She pulls no punches with her opinions is very independent and could come across as a bit of a bitch (she isn't really). She definitely feels she has earned her place in the world and is no stranger to taking control of her own life. She is so unapologetic for who she is, she just speaks without fear of consequence and does not follow conversational etiquette to put it mildly! We learn the why's and what for's throughout the book so we get a very rounded view of who she is although she is a lot warmer than she believes she is.
Along the way Lilith takes control of Finn's life because he just doesn't believe he can do it....Or care enough to bother
Finn at first glance is weak but he most certainly is not. Full of self loathing, Finn is living in a haze, a sort of acceptance that this is all he is. This twisted life that has been forced upon him but he's not broken. It was a really amazing thing to see a writer manage to make me believe a characters brutal pain suffering and acceptance without breaking him and making him seem pathetic. Sometimes he would say things that are really genuinely funny and I would laugh but it would also break my heart I would get angry at him being so flippant but it just made me love him more.
Blaine- The bitch of all bitches. Lilith and Finn were so truly disposable to her I was on edge the whole time. There was no underlying goodness to her just self entitlement. It makes it worse because she's not so unbelievable that she becomes cartoon character evil. I'm not even going to go there with her.........
I have read darker in terms of how explicit and horrifying the awful stuff is... but I think because of that, it kept it out of fantasy land and right here in this world.
So it ended up darker psychologically and have a bigger impact than if it was simply full of lurid descriptions of what my poor little Finn went through.
It was amazing. One of my all time reads. If you're a fan of dark romance, books that are character led, strong woman, or a male you want to cuddle and protect from the world then you really need to read this book....... Like now.
No comments:
Post a Comment