Struck. Speechless.
Riveting. Heartbreaking. Soul-searching. This book so undeniably Tarryn Fisher… who else could so skillfully tell a love story defined by sadness, regret, lies and retaliation? But nonetheless, Caleb and Olivia’s tale is story of love and one I won’t soon forget.
Giveaway at the bottom of post! Don’t miss the book trailer exclusive to VBB and the excerpt below!
Love is patient; love is kind.
Love doesn’t boast or brag.
There’s no arrogance in love;
it’s never rude, crude, or indecent-it’s not self absorbed.
Love isn’t easily upset.
Love doesn’t tally wrongs.
Love trusts, hopes, and endures no matter what.
Love will never become obsolete.
I’ll fight for her.
Thief
Caleb Drake never got over his first love. Not when he got married. Not when she got married. When life suddenly comes full circle Caleb must decide how how far he is willing to go to get the aloof and alluring Olivia Kaspen back. But for every action in life there is a consequence, and soon Caleb finds out that sometimes love comes at an unbearably high price.
Ummmm… yea. How the heck do I start this review? I’m still processing it all, trying to connect the dots in the story line, trying to process my own feelings. I have a white sheet of paper here in front of me with notes I jotted down as I read, capturing all the random thoughts and questions that swirled in my mind as I felt my way through this book. So I’m going to ramble. Ramble quite a bit I imagine trying not to give away anything… although truth be told, it’s almost hard to tell you what this book is about. It’s simply Caleb and Olivia’s story. A story about addiction, deceit, love and perseverance. It’s the end. The in-between. The beginning.
Caleb has given up. He’s given up with trying to live a life without Olivia in it. Whether it be distance, women, silence or convoluted lies that separate them… it’s useless. Seeing the story, both past and present, unfold and be analyzed through Caleb’s eyes was riveting. He’s as intelligent and manipulative as are Olivia and Leah. Two truths I took away as irrefutable are: 1) the passion he feels burns brightly fueling his relentless pursuit of Olivia and 2) nobody knows Olivia Kaspen like Caleb Drake. I often found myself thinking that their love was like an intricate, choreographed dance that no one else seemed to know.
The tone of this book felt different to me. It was undeniably Tarryn Fisher, undeniably Caleb and Olivia, but I felt the emotions much stronger… crashing in vacillating waves of hopelessness and determination. There were times where Caleb was singularly focused on getting Olivia back…
… and times where it seemed it just wasn’t destined to happen, and I felt so hopeless…
But even in his despondency, Caleb finally realizes there is no life for him without Olivia. She is an addiction, as necessary as the air he breathes and there’s not point in finding yet another failed distraction to mask his feelings.
At one point in the book, I honestly thought, maybe they really do need to be apart. Maybe they are just too unhealthy despite the twisted but true love they feel. But I couldn’t make the leap. I really thought that if they didn’t end up together, all the hurt they caused each other would be wasted… would be for nothing. And I was surprised to see just how much Caleb loved Olivia.
As more truth comes to light in this book, I was in awe at the cycles of deceit, the layers of lies, the choices that became triggers to major things occurring. Olivia drove me crazy sometimes. As hard as Caleb tried to be forthright and tell her just how he felt, she continued to disappoint him, pushing him away just when you thought progress was to be made. But then again… the way they BOTH express love is through the lies they tell to save the other one from additional pain.
There are things that I am continuing to work through… Tarryn is not the type of author that is going to answer all our questions, connect all the dots for us. It’s part of her style, I think. We have to find the clues and see the story through our own eyes, making our own assumptions. But… wow… the feelings that the story evoked were powerful. So many times I felt absolutely crushed. As I reflect on the series as a whole, I think it’s almost the antithesis of a love story. Whereas a typical romance shines the spotlight on feelings of hope, we felt hopelessness. Where there was love, there were lies. Where trust was needed, we got deceit instead. But in the end, this IS a love story, however the journey to the end was paved with these allegorical elements of how their love came to be. To me, this really shows how genius Tarryn Fisher is… the way she told this story, with its twists and turns (and there are BIG ones) is just so unique and brazen and unpredictable.
The last portion of the book had me devouring the pages with bated breath and in tears. There is a happy ending. But it’s not rainbows, hearts and sunshine. There’s heartbreak and realism and it was done really well in my opinion.
All in all, the series is unforgettable and original. It had me analyzing everything. It had me questioning how I felt. It had me consuming every word on every page, feeling the high highs and the low lows. I loved it all… lies, deceit, heartbreak and love.
by Tarryn Fisher Street Team #PLN4LIFE
Gardenia Bush
Once, during her senior year, she bought a gardenia bush to put outside her apartment. She fawned over that thing like it was a dog; googled ways to take care of it and then made notes in one of those spiral notebooks. She’d even named it-Patricia-I think. Every day she’d squat on her haunches outside her front door, and examine Patricia to see if it had bloomed a flower. I’d watch her face when she came back inside, she always wore this look of hopeful determination. Not yet-she’d say to me, as if all of her hope for life was tied in to that gardenia plant blooming a flower. That’s what I loved about her; that grim determination to survive even though the odds seemed to always be against her. Despite all of Olivia’s plant nurturing, Patricia had slowly started to fade away; her leaves curling at the tips and turning brown. Olivia would stare at that plant, a crease forming between her eyebrows and her little mouth puckered in a frown worth kissing. Florida had an especially cold winter the year. One morning when I got to her apartment Patricia was clearly dead. I’d jumped into my car and sped off to Home Depot where I’d seen them selling the same bushes. Before my little love cracked her eyes open, I’d replaced her dead plant with a healthy one, repotting it over the grass in front of her building. I’d thrown the old one in the dumpster and washed my hands in the pool before knocking on her door. She’d checked on it when she opened the door for me that morning, her eyes lighting up when she saw the healthy green leaves. I don’t know if she ever suspected what I’d done, she’d never said anything. I took take of it without her knowing. Sticking plant food into the pot before I knocked on her door. My mother always put used tea bags in the soil around her rose bushes. I did that a couple times too. Right before we broke up that damn plant bloomed a flower. I’d never seen her so excited. The look on her face was the same as when I’d missed the shot for her.
I am a real life villain, truly. I drink sick amounts of Starbucks. Most of the time my hair smells like coffee. I was born in South Africa, and lived there for most of my childhood. I moved to Seattle just for the rain. Rome is my favorite place in the world so far, Paris comes in at a close second. I read and write more than I sleep. When I was eleven, I wrote an entire novel about runaway orphans, using only purple ink. I am addicted to Florence and the Machine and will travel to see concerts. I love scary movies and giraffes. I spend way too much time on Facebook. Meet you there?…
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