What she needs is a distraction. The blue-eyed guy she keeps seeing around campus could be a great one—only he is the new poetry professor—the married poetry professor.
Thomas Abrams is a stereotypical artist—rude, arrogant, and broody—but his glares and taunts don’t scare Layla. She might be bad at poetry, but she is good at reading between the lines. Beneath his prickly façade, Thomas is lonely, and Layla wants to know why. Obsessively.
Sometimes you do get what you want. Sometimes you end up in the storage room of a bar with your professor and you kiss him. Sometimes he kisses you back like the world is ending and he will never get to kiss you again. He kisses you until you forget the years of unrequited love; you forget all the rules, and you dare to reach for something that is not yours.
"I let him vandalize my body, my heart, my dreams."
This book was nothing I expected and everything I needed in a new-to-me author....it blew me away! I've been told I'm "a bit fussy" with my choices in books and what I will recommend, and that made me laugh, but I'm glad someone saw that I am passionate about my recommendations and reviews. My goal this year was to try a new author each month, at least one. I shake my head.....I just shake it. Because, WOW. When a book moves you from the very first page, when it sucks you in and holds your soul hostage for the entirety of the book, you know you found a good one. Saffron Kent is on my must read list after this one. I am on a mission to now read every one of her books, and follow her closely...I'll be a cheerleader if this is the quality of book she puts out -- on her SECOND book, no less. She has some talent that should not go undiscovered.
This book moved me beyond understanding because the writing was just so poetic. It was alive, as if it were a living, breathing soul reaching out to caress my heart. The push and pull. The give and take. It was addictive...I was seeking out this pulse I felt in Saffron's voice, in her descriptions, and I craved more and more as I continued to read. I wanted to pursue this heavy ache and longing deep down where her words touched me and her story moved me. The passion and devotion in her words....the desperation just leaches out of them. I wish I could adequately express how much this book affected me. There was so much torture in Layla's mind, her only balm being the frenzied feelings she felt with Thomas. Unsettling? Possibly. Unhealthy? Maybe....but the entire book gripped me and consumed me. I couldn't put it down. The writing of these two broken and flawed characters was nothing short of brilliant. We go through the motions with them, as they happen, and it's such a wild experience!! Gosh!! It was SO freaking good.
I wanted to feel everything. Those are my favorite kinds of reads because they affect me and they make me think and feel; puts myself in the characters' shoes. And I know I keep saying this, but Saffron's words were seriously so poetic; they flowed uninhibited and with such grace. She has such a vibrant sound in her words, one that I haven't heard before. Some may not enjoy it, and it will be different for others, but the cadence and structure of her story completed me. Convicted me. Pulled me in. With volatility behind Saffron's truths, the feelings were overtly powerful in delivering the emotion needed to make you understand what Layla was feeling, or what Thomas was hiding. And to say that this book was HOT, that would be a very basic description. It is incontestably and sinfully delicious in every single way. They had such a perversely twisted sexuality between them and it was insanely hot. Naughty naughty Professor Abrams!!
"He is the sexiest thing I've ever seen, big and brooding, his face a mosaic of lust and need."
A star rating would indicate that I can put a limit on the love I have for this book and that is simply not true. It's impossible. This is a shelf-altering book.....I need it to sit on the shelf next to my other amazing reads. And there are only a few.....only a few. I'm terribly sorry if I babbled incoherently during this review, but there was just so much to say, and I probably didn't even say enough.
I can't even accurately describe to you how moved I was by this book. I felt it. I breathed it. I feel like I lived it with Layla. Every step. Every breath. Every touch. It was a soul crushing read. Gah!!! I loved it!! I just hope it translates in my review. I'll be honest with you, though; it's not an easy read....it's an agonizing and tortuous read. The pain is tangible. The depth and force of Thomas and Layla's attraction is exhausting, but the harsh reality behind their undeniable attraction, the force they are fighting to stay apart, THAT was so very interesting to read and experience. Layla held such a warped image of herself. She lives and breathes a heavy guilt for no real reason (besides the painfully obvious part) and she has this unflattering view of her deservedness, but it had merit and it kept me intrigued until the very end. I clung to every single word with bated breath, waiting to find out more and I couldn't keep myself from gasping every time something would change, or be revealed, or happened. I seriously have mental and emotional whiplash!
"It's so ironic that the very unrequitedness that destroyed me is going to keep the pain at bay."
A star rating would indicate that I can put a limit on the love I have for this book and that is simply not true. It's impossible. This is a shelf-altering book.....I need it to sit on the shelf next to my other amazing reads. And there are only a few.....only a few. I'm terribly sorry if I babbled incoherently during this review, but there was just so much to say, and I probably didn't even say enough.
"The absolute need to possess someone, to be the air they breathe and the universe they live in -- I feel both powerful and powerless at once."
~BEE
~BEE
PURCHASE IT: http://amzn.to/2ugte4H
~MEET SAFFRON A KENT~
Writer of bad romances. Coffee Addict. White Russian Drinker. Imaginary Ballet Dancer and poetess. Aspiring Lana Del Ray of the book world.
I'm a big believer in love (obviously). I believe in happily ever after, the butterflies and the tingling. But I also believe in edgy, rough and gutsy kind of love. I believe in pushing the boundaries, darker (sometimes morally ambiguous) emotions and imperfections.
The kind of love I write about is flawed just like my characters. And I hope by the end of it, you'll come to root for them just as much as me. Because love, no matter where it comes from, is always pure and beautiful.
If you ever get a hankering to talk about books or love, you can find me here:
Her book group: Saffron's Purple Hearts
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~CONNECT WITH SAFFRON~
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Freakin' awesome, off the charts review to go with a phenomenal, off the charts book!
ReplyDeleteWOW!! Thank you so much, Zilpha!!!! I loved this book so hard!!!
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