Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Had VERY Strong Emotions About

I read this book back in 2020. It was sent to me by one of the romance PR companies and it crushed my soul. 2020-2021 was the year I read a ton of dark romance books and this dark bully romance rocked my emotions hard. There is so much hate and sadness, but love and desire, that my heart didn’t know which way to beat. It’s part of a series and this book sets off the tale of Grayson Crowne and one of the maids in his family home.

Absolutely mind blowing. Deluca writes about a time and age that is easily forgotten and underpins the treatment of women in life and marriage to a degree that many would think is unfathomable but is in fact a very real reality during this time. I can’t tell you how many times my stomach roiled while reading this story because of the angry truths that she lays out within these pages. I loved this book for all the ways in which it made me think about life, history and the accomplishments women are known for today.

This book follows a family and close friends as they take a weekend trip to their family cabin and a horrible accident changes their lives irrevocably. The author does a breath taking job of narrating this story and demonstrating how fear changes people from someone you might have considered kind, into someone you wouldn’t never trust. I was amazed with the way this story laid out because it went much deeper than I had expected it to. She touches on topics that are hard to swallow at times and will make your stomach curl. But it’s done in such a way that represents the reality of a challenge situation and doesn’t shy away from things that you’d rather not think about.

This entire book had my stomach in knots. For their lost memories, their heartbreak and their painful journeys. I want to emphasize to anyone interested in reading this one that it is LONG. I believe it is around 830 pages and initially I felt like that was a lot to ask for a romance story. But this is decidedly more than just any romance story. It requires the time to really unravel all the dynamics and allow the story to unfold in ways that had me clutching at my e-reader with quickening breaths as I awaited to see where it was all going to go.

A deeply captivating story that I had a hard time putting down. To begin with, the author takes her time world building this story and it’s a beautiful and dangerous place where mortals and magic wielding “Descended” live. The Descended rule the various kingdoms and the mortals are mere civilians with which they must deal with.

But there is a hatred simmering again between the mortals and the Descended which Diem finds herself smack in the middle of. Secrets that have been kept from her begin to unravel and TEAR HER WORLD APART.

I made the mistake of reading the last portions of this book at work and was bawling at my desk. Thankfully no one was around to see, but you’ve been warned. This is a story about loss. A family loses one of their young children to a terrible drowning accident in their backyard swimming pool. In an attempt to find a way forward, they return to the mother’s childhood family summer cabin and are faced with a whole new set of challenges. Focused on selling the cabin so they can buy a new house and move on from their loss, they can’t sell the cabin because a family friend is living in a second building on the land unbeknownst to the family. She’s a war veteran with horrible facial cars from combat with her own secrets, trying to live quietly on the land.

I think everyone can relate with terrible or even terrifying experiences from our high school years and how much we suppress or accept things as OK just because we can’t see ourselves. Or even because those around don’t see us. They don’t see those inner screams that we don’t know how to voice and so much goes ignored.

But this is also a book about how friendships come and go. The pain associated with losing people we considered as our best friends and those social growth pains that happen.

But this is also a book about something even darker happening in the school around them all that can ruin a lot of lives and how desperate people don’t want that information out there.

It’s a breathtaking journey across a landscape that you can’t help but fall in love with and characters that will warm your heart with their kindness and outlook on life. Plus, a wonderfully dreadful cousin that Belle must contend with whose jealousy borders on mania. Her dangerous behavior puts not only herself at risk, but everything that Belle and her mother have worked to put behind them.

This story is heavily about domestic violence and how scary that experience is and how it can feel suffocating to even consider trying to escape. Sophie is surrounded by those that are able and willing to help, but that puts them in danger as well. Sophie’s experience was very well represented and supportive of those in that environment. Domestic violence is a very serious thing and Cally Jackson is sensitive to the subject and tells a story about bravery and perseverance, even when facing your worst fears.

The brutality witnessed in this story revolves mostly around the Atreus family feud that begins with two brothers vying for the throne, in which one kills the other and then the slain brother’s sons attempting to avenge the slaying of their father. This continues to play on and is a consistent theme in Greek Mythology stories.

Clytemnestra is a woman who finds herself in the middle of these dynamics and wants to do her part in trying to prevent these feuds from continuing even further. She devotes herself fully to being a good wife to Agamemnon and a mother to his children. She understands and embraces the important role she has within her palace and her society and really does everything she can to try and keep these feuds from continuing. She could have sought vengeance for her slain husband and son when Agamemnon arrives to take the throne, and then her as his bride, but she quickly realizes that is not the path for her.