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Review

“I’m falling in love with you … and I’m going to let you destroy me.” 

Christine Zolendz cements her spot on my list of ‘must read’ authors with this one! I am a MASSIVE fan of Christine’s Mad World series, but she seems to have taken this one to another level, giving us a disturbingly dark and sexy story which is both mature and intelligent, and blended fantastically with sarcastic humour, drama, suspense and a deeply intense romance. Very different from a lot of other romance books out there, I was hooked from the very first page.

Lainey is hiding dark and violent secrets. She is on the run from her old life, and she and her best friend have set themselves up in a small mountain town where they have set about creating new lives for themselves. I love Lainey! She is feisty, with a brilliantly sarcastic sense of humour, and although she has clearly been through hell, she isn’t prepared to put up with any crap from anybody, and I loved her sass.

“If I’m not good enough because I’m a waitress, don’t settle for me, don’t sink down to my level. You don’t deserve anything I have to offer. Let that shit hurt for a hot minute, simmer in it then leave me the fuck alone.”

Kade is “rage personified”, a snarky and antisocial recluse, he writes horror novels – his way of dwelling in his anger and “living in a world of lies”, creating fictitious characters he can control only to destroy them. He is described as “savage” and “scary”, and simply put, he is an asshole, and he absolutely owns it.

“Will you call me? Maybe we could go out some time,” she smiled, walking to my front door.
“Love, I don’t even remember your name, and I don’t plan on asking you for it again.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Yes, and you’re the whore who let me stick my dick in you and spank your ass,” I said, closing the door on her surprised expression. I would say I cared, but I hated lying. 

Yeah, I totally fell for him! Of course he’s gorgeous, but he has a brutally violent and tragic past, and is wrestling with hideous demons. His past is hinted at, but when it is completely uncovered, my heart broke for him, and I could absolutely understand how it made him into the man that he is.

Once you felt violence, most people couldn’t cope with it, they couldn’t even push the words through their lips. It instantly freezes the images in your mind, and those images are indestructible. Then there are people like me, who have been touched by violence so deeply that they completely lose their soul to it.

From the moment that Lainey and Kade meet there is insta-lust, epic banter, and a whole heap of eye fuckery going on. I love that the story is told in dual POV, because there are so many conflicting emotions between these two! Clearly there is chemistry, but they have a genuine animosity towards each other as well, and I loved being able to see behind their actions to what was really going on between them.

“I needed to see her again. I needed her to hate me and to stay far away from me, because I wanted to consume her completely.”

“I think I finally found someone whose demons would play nice with my own.” 

Kade and Lainey are deeply tormented souls, and their stories shocked and horrified me. They are sensationally fleshed-out characters, and the different ways that they live with what they’ve been through, and how it has shaped them, is beautifully depicted, and creates some fantastic fireworks in their developing relationship, bringing a level of complexity to it that makes it all so much more intense.

“I didn’t care who or what Lainey was, I just wanted her completely. Never in my sick life did I ever give a bit of hope about finding a person who was compatible, who could find comfort in someone as fucking twisted as me.”

“No matter how badly it was going to hurt, I didn’t want to be anywhere but with Lainey. Let her crush me. Let her destroy me. There wasn’t much good left of me, but I wanted her to take every last bit.”

The build-up is brimming with sexual tension, and the emotion between them is powerful, and I felt it all along with them. And it all culminates in hotness and romance that left my heart pounding.

“Everything that happened…to me…is stained here,” I whispered, touching my hand to my heart. “It will forever be in my heart, but what I want … is to move it over a little so I can fit you in there too.”

But how will their all-consuming passion for each other compete with their devastating secrets, and the fact that their horrific pasts are still very much a part of their present?

Beautifully written, the story is well paced, full of emotion, and had me madly flipping pages. I love that I was surprised by aspects of the story, and thought that the whole thing played out really cleverly. The ending felt a little bit over dramatic at times, and while the book does not have a cliffhanger, the story is definitely not over. I was actually surprised that the book finished where it did, but I loved the epilogue, and thought that it was a really unique idea – it ties in really nicely with the story, providing a bit more depth to an ending that seemed a little bit abrupt. Of course at the time I was reading it, I didn’t realise that there was going to be a sequel, so I’m now looking forward to learning even more about these complex, damaged characters, as well as seeing where the story goes from here.

“This…this is just a morbid filled ice cream cone dipped in psycho flavored sprinkles.”

4.5 stars.

 

The Beautiful series