🌟🌟🌗 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
BLURB
Clara Black.
Therapist. Stripper. Loner.
Sultry, secretive and not looking for love.
Lucas Evans.
Businessman. Playboy. Showjumper.
Seductive, charming and used to getting the girl.
As long as she doesn’t try to get close to his heart, that is.
Drawn together by an attraction that defies their guarded hearts, they’re soon caught up in secrets, lust and lies.
A meeting that wasn’t accidental.
A death that isn’t as it seems.
A craving to get closer.
Everybody has a dark side.
But sometimes, the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
CLOSE is a dark erotic romantic suspense that explores the terribly ordinary events that break us and the beautifully ordinary things that make us whole.
GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/
EXCERPT
Prologue
Lucas
June 2016
When my mother showed me a picture of his body, the thing that struck me first was not how grey he looked, how at odds with his habitual golden glow.
Nor was it how small he looked—his six-foot frame and broad chest somehow diminished. Childlike and vulnerable. Rendered irrelevant by death.
It wasn’t even the feelings—the tsunami of feelings that would rush in later and blindside me. Given that I had barely seen him in years and had never been close to him to begin with, the feelings were surprisingly ferocious.
Those things came later. They came and hit me—less like the proverbial sledgehammer and more like a subtle self-combustion. Invisible to an observer. But damaging nonetheless. Suffocating me. Crushing me from the inside out.
But not then. Not at first.
The thing that struck me initially was that she had coolly snapped a picture. As though this was another moment in time to capture for posterity. More striking because what other mothers might have captured, she had never bothered with.
First tooth. No snap.
First step. No snap.
First birthday. No snap. No cake, either, for that matter.
But first death?
Snap, snap, snap.
Clara Black.
Therapist. Stripper. Loner.
Sultry, secretive and not looking for love.
Lucas Evans.
Businessman. Playboy. Showjumper.
Seductive, charming and used to getting the girl.
As long as she doesn’t try to get close to his heart, that is.
Drawn together by an attraction that defies their guarded hearts, they’re soon caught up in secrets, lust and lies.
A meeting that wasn’t accidental.
A death that isn’t as it seems.
A craving to get closer.
Everybody has a dark side.
But sometimes, the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
CLOSE is a dark erotic romantic suspense that explores the terribly ordinary events that break us and the beautifully ordinary things that make us whole.
GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/
EXCERPT
Prologue
Lucas
June 2016
When my mother showed me a picture of his body, the thing that struck me first was not how grey he looked, how at odds with his habitual golden glow.
Nor was it how small he looked—his six-foot frame and broad chest somehow diminished. Childlike and vulnerable. Rendered irrelevant by death.
It wasn’t even the feelings—the tsunami of feelings that would rush in later and blindside me. Given that I had barely seen him in years and had never been close to him to begin with, the feelings were surprisingly ferocious.
Those things came later. They came and hit me—less like the proverbial sledgehammer and more like a subtle self-combustion. Invisible to an observer. But damaging nonetheless. Suffocating me. Crushing me from the inside out.
But not then. Not at first.
The thing that struck me initially was that she had coolly snapped a picture. As though this was another moment in time to capture for posterity. More striking because what other mothers might have captured, she had never bothered with.
First tooth. No snap.
First step. No snap.
First birthday. No snap. No cake, either, for that matter.
But first death?
Snap, snap, snap.
*Recieved an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review*
I found this story intriguing from the get go. I couldn't get the idea of a therapist also having a job as a stripper out of my head. The two occupations didn't appear to go together and it made no sense to me. Once the reasoning for Clara's decisions was revealed, everything became clearer. I was frustrated with myself for not guessing the reason earlier and my heart broke for Clara. Honestly, I think that this book was hard to read because the main character was a therapist. I'm not saying that this depiction is accurate but it can be difficult to read about a character that has the same job as me because it hits a bit too close to home.
It started off well enough. The author was able to grab my attention with what I mentioned in the paragraph above as well as what Lucas was dealing with. I also thought that Aaron's journal entries were compelling. I could have just read an entire book of those. The book began loosing steam and going downhill for me when I got whiplash from all the back and forth between Clara and Lucas. I felt like one of them kept doing something and then they would part ways and then one of them would apologize and all would be forgiven without talking about it. Apparently, sex solves every problem. I also didn't understand why the author included journal entries from other characters that were not main characters. I found it confusing and out of place. It interrupted the flow of the story that was otherwise good.
The book took some weird turns that were odd to me. I would have liked to have had the book focus on the relationship between Clara and Lucas instead of having so much emphasis on plot twists concerning Lucas and his brother. It made the book feel disjointed.
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AUTHOR BIO
Fen Wilde writes gritty contemporary erotic romance novels exploring the darker elements in our lives.
She is a qualified social worker and works part-time as a mental health clinician for young people, and also as a private clinical consultant.
She is particularly interested in the complex things that drive us toward or keep us out of connection with each other: how fragile, how beautiful, how flawed we all are.
Fen lives in Melbourne, Australia with her partner, two children, and Burmese cat.
AUTHOR LINKS
Website: https://www.fenwilde.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/
Fen Wilde writes gritty contemporary erotic romance novels exploring the darker elements in our lives.
She is a qualified social worker and works part-time as a mental health clinician for young people, and also as a private clinical consultant.
She is particularly interested in the complex things that drive us toward or keep us out of connection with each other: how fragile, how beautiful, how flawed we all are.
Fen lives in Melbourne, Australia with her partner, two children, and Burmese cat.
AUTHOR LINKS
Website: https://www.fenwilde.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/
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