Review: I Heart Forever by Lindsey Kelk

The day her husband Alex picks up a backpack and goes travelling, Angela Clark promises to stay out of trouble and keep both Louboutins on the ground.

So when her best friend’s boyfriend confides in her, it can’t hurt to help him pick out a ring at Tiffany’s surely?

And when her fashion magazine announces major changes, being terminally late and arguing with your boss isn’t that bad, is it?

Then suddenly there’s another big secret Angela’s got to keep – and the man she loves is still thousands of miles away. As the wedding of the year looms, and Manhattan switches on its Christmas lights, Angela is going to need her friends by her side as her old life looks set to change forever.





ebook.

Full length novel.



First Person.



No, but I think a reader would enjoy it more if they'd read the others.

Yes.



I love this series, I do. I really, really, do but this book fell short of the mark for me.
It's full of Kelk's trademark humour, mad antics and sweet endings but something just wasn't right.
Or maybe everything was perfect and the problem I had was that everything was the same as it always is.
Events in this series may move on - and there is a fab development for Angela and Alex in this one! - but the characters don't change.
They make the same mistakes over and over, they do the same crazy shit, with a slight twist, every time... And it gets old.
It gets old even though it's been a few years since the last book released.
If the series continues - and I assume it will given events - I'll continue reading but I'm scared that the magic that made me love these books is starting to fade.

I LOVE this cover!
I love all the I Heart covers.
They're happy and sweet and just perfect for these books.

Book Blogger Hop: When reading a book, do you use a bookmark or...

The Question is:

When reading a book, do you use a bookmark to mark your place in the book, or do you just fold over the top corner of the page? 

My Answer:

I own a couple of nice bookmarks but I never use them. I can never find them when I want them and typically I use whatever is to hand to mark my page: scrap paper, receipts, post-it notes, candy wrapper, hair grips... I'm not fussy. If nothing 'suitable' is within easy reach then I'll fold down a corner.

Yep.

I said it and I do it. 

I'll fold down the corners of pages.

I deface books with self-inflicted creases to their precious pages.

Back in school, for English class, I'd take a highlighter pen and highlight favourite passages.

To the standards of most bookworms, I am a monster who doesn't deserve to own a precious pretty book.

 

I don't care if I crease the spine of a paperback to stripey hell.

I'll read and eat and have been known to accidentally drop pasta (with tomato based sauces) on a page and not care... Well care too much.

I carry them haphazardly in my bag and have more than a few books that have pen marks, or have the edges of their pages crinkled because of water, or stained with some random substance like blackcurrant juice that leaked out my son's drinks bottle...

I take a lot of care with other people's books. I take care of library books. However, if the book is mine I do as I please and that means that shit happens.

I don't buy many paper books anymore, I typically stick to kindle, but for me a book that looks like it's lived - creases, scuffs and imperfections - is gorgeous. I don't want a library full of books that look like they've never been read. What is the point in that? As long as a book is never damaged to a point where it has no cover, missing pages or pages that can't be read for one reason or another, then I don't care about things like folding the corners of my pages because life is too short to constantly hunt for a bookmark.

Review: Keeping Lily by Izzy Sweet and Sean Moriarty

*Some spoilers ahead*

My husband traded me away to save his own life… 

And now I belong to the devil. 

One night and everything in my life changed. Two words and my world turned dark. 

“Take her”.

Owing the most ruthless crime lord in Garden City five million dollars, my husband chose to trade me and my children away to save himself. 

I was on the cusp of freedom, so close to divorcing that scumbag I was married to. 

Now I’m enslaved to a man who is obsessed with me. A man so wicked and beautiful, they call him Lucifer. 

So alluring, he makes the angels weep with envy. He’s so powerful, I can’t stop myself from bending to his will. 

He’s determined to master me, and he won’t rest until I give him all. 

He wants my light, and he wants my dark. 

He wants my body, and he wants my heart. 

But most of all, he wants the one thing I can’t give him. The one thing I can’t bear to part with…

*Some spoilers ahead*

ebook.

Shortish Novel.

Alternating dual POV.

Let me think... Torture. Murder. Forced seduction.

No.

Yes... 

Not in the terms of the central couple. 

If you consider Lilith is still technically married for half the book (even if he's a shit-bag pig who'd trade his wife for money) then yes... 

Yes.

What I Liked: 

I laughed a lot. That's not really a compliment as the book isn't supposed to be funny but it kept me amused - despite being hideously written - on a long-haul flight so kudos.

What I Didn't Like: 

Lucifer was a jackass with pretty much no redeeming qualities. 

He takes possession of Lily and her kids like they are things instead of people and thinks it's perfectly acceptable because her husband owes him money and he finds her attractive.

He kills without remorse. I'm not just talking about killing his enemies to protect his own or anything you could swing in a way that'd make him remotely sympathetic. Nope, he kills (or orders the death of) anyone for any reason he feels like and often not just the offender's death but the deaths of everyone in their family, including women and children!

Lily was pathetic and her actions were frustratingly contradictory. Weak resistance by day and slave to her quivering lions by night. 🙄 Honestly, I could dedicate a 500 word rant to the ridiculousness of the sex. Insta-multi-orgasms people! Lucifer obviously had a magical penis that sent pulses of undiluted pleasure direct to the sweet spot to pull some of those wondrous feats off.

Plus, how she could 'fall in love' with this man and trust him with herself is beyond me. How she could trust him with her KIDS is even further beyond the realms of my understanding.

Spelling mistakes and typos everywhere.

Other Thoughts:

I don't know why I read this. I really, REALLY, don't. Actually, that's not true, the concept was interesting and I was curious as to how it would play out but with hindsight I should have known better.

Can't say I like the cover much. I would have liked it if the chick didn't look lifeless but, alas...