SEVERby MARY ELIZABETH
Misery overstayed its welcome.
But fate will not be so easily swayed.
Gabriella Mason and Teller Reddy have walked a thin line between affection and hostility for years. The intensity that once set them on fire has ended their engagement and separated them by more than just miles.
Forced together by circumstances they never saw coming, Gabriella and Teller have no choice but to face the past that brought them together and ultimately severed them apart.
Wrecked and Damaged have collided.
This is what happens when they try to pick up the pieces
"To a fiend like him, my unease is delicious, and he licks his lips."
This story is the exact reason why I look forward to Mary Elizabeth's books. This is the reason I crave her words, her angst, and her stories. I make no secret as to how much I love angst and how much I love a painful love story. A truthfully painful love, no less. Well, Mary definitely made this one painful. I mean, she took stubborn to a whole 'nother level. Yes, I said 'nother because it fit. Work with me here. I am not entirely sure what to say about this one, because I know without a shadow of a doubt that you need to live through Teller and Ella's story in order to understand, but this one was rough. Necessary.....but rough. After reading Closer, I knew I was in for a rough ride. I just didn't imagine it would be this rough. Waiting this long for their conclusion almost felt symbolic in a way. the fight alone was worth it. Painful, but worth it.
"I wish hurt were as easy to wash away as a hangover is."
How do you explain a love so volatile it's necessary to function? Teller Reddy and Gabriella Mason embody this kind of love like no other. It's probably not healthy, and I'm sure there will be people that will complain about it because of the real issues that can surface from it, but if you look deeper, if you look to the root, deep inside, you can see and feel the truth behind their love. Their love was deep. It was built out of circumstance, but one that thrived. Did it thrive on pain? On love? On purpose? On accident? This one took me through the wringer - it's exactly the kind of story I love.
I loved Teller. His misguided attempts to right all the wrongs, to fix all the broken, to make everything ok, all because he loved Ella so desperately? The depth of his love is unmistakable in it's entirety. He loved her to the detriment of his own sanity, and you can see she's loved with every fiber of his being. This was a painful love to watch unravel.....and I reveled in it. I sound evil, don't I? I just loved how she spun their pain and their love, as if it was symbiotic....or harmonious, even. But it wasn't. Their love was only necessary to live. To breathe. To exist. I felt every tether snap between them and I was seriously freaking out. Their love story seized me wholly and completely.
"Teller Reddy is one hell of a drug, but I'm rehabilitating."
Mary Elizabeth's words are so poetic. Her descriptions and her dialogue are so heavy with meaning. When the excitement for the pain, the giddiness for her angst, grips me, makes me breathe funny and makes me pace, I know it's gonna be a good story! I love the anticipation of destruction that Mary Elizabeth gives me. Love it. She easily, slowly and meticulously lays out this story, one word at a time, and she brings me deep into this world of depravity and agony while single-handedly breaking my heart with ONE line:
"I don't know how to be without you, Ella."
Broke. My. Heart. And Ella is one stubborn and confused woman that knows the truth and the reality behind that ONE line, yet she also understands the perfectly crazy side to his undying love. She can't deny it. She can't deny her own love. Her own need. It's gritty and raw, it's real and painful, but it's true. It was a love story that needed to be felt. And I did.....painfully so.
I can tell you that this cover is the most accurate deserving cover I have seen in a very long time. That picture was 100% Teller to me. An amazingly beautiful muse for him. I am not one to comment on covers often, but after reading and falling in love with Teller and Ella, living their story with them for so long, I can definitively say this one was perfect. <sigh> I will never have enough of Mary's tumultuous words....never. Ever. I know Teller's palpable need for Ella, because that's how I feel when I read one of her books. I soak it up. I can't get enough. This will once again be on my favorites list. The heaviness and the aching I felt while reading this one was undeniable and intense. Just how I like it.
"How could the universe be so cruel to make this man both my beginning and end?"
~BEE
PURCHASE SEVER: AMAZON
PURCHASE CLOSER: AMAZON
~MEET MARY ELIZABETH~
Mary Elizabeth is an up and coming author who finds words in chaos, writing stories about the skeletons hanging in your closets.
Known as The Realist, Mary was born and raised in Southern California. She is a wife, mother of four beautiful children, and dog tamer to one enthusiastic Pit Bull and a prissy Chihuahua. She's a hairstylist by day but contemporary fiction, new adult author by night. Mary can often be found finger twirling her hair and chewing on a stick of licorice while writing and rewriting a sentence over and over until it's perfect. She discovered her talent for tale-telling accidentally, but literature is in her chokehold. And she's not letting go until every story is told.
~CONNECT WITH MARY~
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Ugh, this is gonna hurt. Excellent review!
ReplyDeleteGreat review Bee!
ReplyDelete