Review: good start but you need to suspend reality a bit!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 21, 2014
A Need so Insatiable, Hearts 1, Cecilia Robert.Review from Jeannie Zelos Book reviews.Well, this looked like the potential for lots of drama, emotion, sex...lots of hot and sensual sex..and it had it in spades. I loved Sophie, and of course who couldn't love Rafael. Its one of those novels though where even though its contemporary romance and not fantasy, itt requires the reader to suspend belief in the normalities of life to enjoy it. For example Sophie has no money, a run down house, a business that’s been closed a while and needs major work,and yet the bank says yes? She's only 24 and yet as well as singing professionally, working at Hearts,  she's got time to work herself on the revamp of the restaurant. Then there's Rafael. Man of mystery. He's Hot, very Hot! Sees Sophie and wants her – and what he wants he gets. It seems to me everyone but Sophie seems to know what’s going on and Rafael at only 25 has done an awful lots to become the successful composer and conductor he is, along with being business owner and still having a toe in the murky background he shared with Kravic. That’s a lot to achieve at that age for both of them, along with their plans for Tony at the end..just wouldn't happen....still, accept it and you'll enjoy the story, focus too much on realities and it will spoil. Make your choice :) For me I decided its fiction-land and I’m going to let the impossible pass – Alice, three impossible things before breakfast springs to mind! Though I’d have been happier if Rafael had been 30 ish....The story starts with mysteries. Loads of them. What happened to Sophie and Lilli's parents? Who is Kravic apart from shark money lender and what does he want – seems to desire more than money. For the smallish sum Sophie owes he's spending a lot of time and manpower so he must want something else. Then there's Rafael who clearly has some connection Sophie doesn't know about, her friend and mentor Simone who also has a close connection to both Sophie and Rafael and yet tells Sophie nothing. Why doesn't she remember meeting Rafael all those years ago...answers trickle out gradually as new characters are introduced and it becomes a fairly tight knit group. I'm hoping now I’ve got to know them that we'll read stories from others in the group, Sophie’s  friends, Raphael's friends and business colleagues. Once Sophie and Raphael finally get together well – wow – he's still under the three month sex ban from his poker game with Hawk ( and Hawk needs his own story, BTW...) but in the sensuality heat there's a lot he can- and does - still do. I could see the train crash coming from all the secrets,and when it hit it was dragged out to maximise drama in just the way I love :) well, happy is nothing without the sad to balance it. It's priced at 1.85 for 288 pages on kindle.Overall a fun read, but you do need to suspend realities to really enjoy it.Stars: four – would have been five if there'd been a bit more realism :)ARC supplied via Netgalley