Review: Incendiary!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 23, 2013
WARNING: this book contains cheating and graphic sexual contentNow that you've been warned, let me start by saying that 'Arsen' by Mia Asher is not your typical NA/romance, in this broken love story we meet: Cathy, the anti-heroine that you will love to hate and charmer, gentleman, caring, supportive, Ben - her 'perfect' husband.'They met when they were in college and have been together for eleven years. When we first meet Ben and Cathy they are dealing with an extremely difficult situation, Cathy is really vulnerable, doubting herself and losing hope. That situation leads her to feel emotionally detached from Ben and their marriage.Arsen' is told almost entirely from Cathy's point of view and it switches back and forth from past to present. In those 'flashback chapters', we follow some important moments in Ben and Cathy's relationship.As a reader, I'm not a fan of instant gratification, but in this case I struggled a little with the slow pace in the first half of the book, but I also understand the author's option and its importance to the story development. That said, once you hit the 50% mark it's really difficult to put the book down.So, in the meantime, through her job, Cathy meets Arsen,the tormented rich playboy.They are instantly attracted to each other, he's a few years younger than Cathy and she is captivated by his carefree attitude. Arsen is cocky and shameless and pretty straightforward about his intentions towards Cathy and although he never stops teasing her, once he discovers she's married, he steps back. Despite the intense sexual tension between them, eventually they become 'friends'.I loved Arsen and his filthy mouth and I 'swooned' everytime he called Cathy - 'Dimples'."There's a twinkle in his eyes as he lowers is smiling mouth to whisper in my ear, "Chill, Dimples. I'm just teasing you..."Without giving too much away, there is an important development that renews Cathy's hope in her marriage with Ben, but Arsen remains in the back of her mind and eventually there's a turning point and some irreversible decisions are made...Is it wrong?Is it Hot?"People say that if you play with fire, you'll get burned. Well, when it comes to Arsen, I not only want to get burned, I want to be incinerated"This is not an easy story to read, it's really intense, heartbreaking, angsty, controversial - it evokes extreme and conflicting emotions in the reader. Cathy is one of the reasons for that - like I've said before she's an anti-heroine - deeply flawed, she's selfish,immature ... I think I've never hated a female character with this intensity and that's one of things I loved in this book because it presents a challenge for the reader.Another element that I really liked was this story's unpredictability. While I was reading, 'Arsen' I had absolutely no idea of what was going to happen and in the end I was really, really surprised.So, my final question for you is this:are you tempted?If the answer 'yes' I only have one advice to give you:Keep calm and read 'Arsen' by Mia Asher*ARC kindly provided by author, Mia Asher, in exchange for an honest review*Full review here: [...]