Review: THE companion novel of ALL companion novels!!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 27, 2013
I was lucky enough to be given an ARC copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.Note: Reading "A Terrible Love - Love series #1" is an absolute MUST before you take on A Brutal Tenderness.Let me just get this off my chest......Oh my fricken Lordy Lou!!!! Does that not tell you what I thought of this companion novel???!!!Hands down, this is my favourite novel by Marata Eros!! And I've read them all!!They say there are two sides to every story. How often, ladies, do we wish we knew what our men were thinking and feeling? With ABT we get an insight of the inner mechanics of the male species! Well, one male anyway!Reading this gripping, suspenseful story from FBI agent Cas Steele's  POV, already knowing ballerina in hiding, Jewell/Jess' POV, was brilliant! It's like experiencing a movie in 3D with surround sound in a private IMAX screen in your head!I loved A Terrible Love and being "one" with Jewell/Jess. But being in Cas' head, getting his inner monologue, witnessing first hand his painful struggle understanding his warring feelings and emotions was just.... A-MAZ-ING!!!If you didn't fall for him in ATL, a) what's wrong with you? And b) you don't have a hope in hell in ABT because his total maleness,  hidden vulnerability and pure sexual magnetism suck you in like a pimped- out Dyson vacuum! He is just to die for!The story itself is in perfect sync with the original but we get more back story, answering questions that we may have had from ATL, and lots of juicy tidbits and surprises that keep you salivating. We get to know more about Brad and Brock who we know from ATL are undercover agents like Cas; and we get an insight into the serial killer's head which made my skin crawl.I feel with Marata's books that I carry on like a "two bob watch", saying the same things over and over in my reviews, but she delivers so much awesomeness in each one that it's hard to come up with new adjectives to praise her work! She has a real gift of getting into all her character's heads, extracting their souls and offering them on a silver platter. That's quite a feat.A Brutal Tenderness is a compelling heart pounding, tear jerking, palm sweating, blush inducing, suspense filled story that does in no way disappoint!!