This interesting book is more than just another erotic novel. The quality of the writing is such that I was actually aroused (rather than amused) by the sex scenes, that I empathised with the characters even though they were impossibly attractive and multi-talented, and that, towards the end, I turned the pages as quickly as I could to find out whether they would escape their predicament.
It is told through the alternating present-tense narratives of Rowan and Raven. (In a clever move, the final section is narrated by a third party.) He is a professional fighter in a residential therapy village to seek a cure for his gambling addiction; she is his nurse. Both are instantly attracted to one another.
Standing in the way of the instant consummation of their passion is the fact that patient-nurse relationships are banned and Raven could be dismissed and required to repay her enormous tuition fee loan. There are also other tensions within a community of alcoholics and drug addicts; there are further complications within the professionals. But, more importantly, as their relationship develops, their past histories, full of pain and regrets, have buried hugely damaging explosives in the path of true love. It is the psychological baggage that turns these characters into fully three-dimensional people; it is this that makes one identify with and root for the protagonists; it is this that makes this novel transcend its genre.
The PoV narration is also pitch perfect with the characterisations. Raven thinks like an an American girl and Rowan like a bad British boy. Even the alternating perspectives in the sex scenes seemed in character.
The total immersion in the characters means that, towards the end, when the thriller element of the plot kicks in, things get really exciting.
This is the middle book of a trilogy. It does stand alone but I did wish I had read the first (Silas) and I would definitely like to know what happens in the third (Diego). Looks like I'll be reading them soon.
Selected quotes:
- "Getting to London from here takes half a day. Not because of distance but because the British transportation system might as well still depend on stagecoaches."
- "A repeat customer called Charlie who, nomen est omen, has a cocaine issue."
- "I want to eat her whole. And her hole."
- "This one is all woman. Not because of the tits and the arse, though both are plenty fine, especially the latter, but because of the way she holds herself. She’s confidence porn."
- "Sure thing, I’ve had men leer at me before. But he’s not leering. He’s...smoldering. I can’t really say what the difference is. The stare is the same. Maybe it’s to do with the thoughts behind the stare. He isn’t mentally undressing me then spitting me up to stick his dick in me. In his mind, I’m already buck naked and he’s doing things to me that are all about me. About what I want. Really want. Even if it’s more than I can handle."
- "My mother, not Elena but my real mother, when she was still alive, could infuse an entire house with her anger, her despair, her narcissism. Scrap that, she could project it over an entire neighborhood. So you couldn’t escape her mood even when you’d finally gotten to school five blocks away. But I think the difference is that my mom never projected anything positive or nice. That’s not to say she didn’t have her good moments. She did. But they were exactly that, moments. They never lasted long enough to dye the air happy, the way her black moods painted everything gray."
- "I’ve not heard of the author, but the way the name of the writer is printed bigger than the title and the font is frill- less, I can only assume it’s a thriller or a police procedural."
- "She slowly lifts her eyes from the page and looks over to me, disdain marring her features. I hate that she looks at me like this."
- "Do I have mummy issues? Definitely. It kind of comes with the territory of being solely responsible for your mother's death."
- "I’m not a kisser. It’s not my thing. Never has been. Saliva exchange with another person does not hold any attraction for me."
- "I like being close to people. I was close to my mum until I killed her. I was close to my half brother and sister until their father decided I was dead weight. I was close to Silas before I fucked it up."
- "the debauched men that never grow up and their dumb bitches, who think the bigger the crime the higher the status. And who wash up battered, bruised or fucked to death because they believed the trashy romance novels that told them bad guys are sexy. They’re not. They’re arseholes. Like me."
- "She was a professional. Like Raven. Not a nurse, but a teacher. Someone who society depends on."
- "the far side of the pool, which for some unfathomable reason was built to be the shallow end." (Love the oxymoron!)
- "“What colour was it?” she asks softly after a while. “Yellow,” I answer without hesitation, and feel the atoms of grief and guilt rearranging themselves inside my soul. Such an irrelevant question and yet somehow, apparently, the one I’ve been waiting for all my fucking life."
- "They call it vanishing twin syndrome. My mother calls it ‘the devil ate his sister’. In her head, my twin would have been the girl she longed for. A little dress-up doll with angelic hair and blue eyes. I got the blond hair but grey eyes and, God forbid, a penis."
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