Review: 5 Incinerating stars!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 20, 2014
This book stabbed me in the heart, watched me bleed out and left me begging for more.I love me a good heartbreaking story.  The more angst, the better.  I hate pretty love stories.  Give me real, gritty, raw pain.  Give me the ugly parts of a love story.  I want to feel like I can't breathe and my heart will be scarred for life.  Those are my favorite stories, and let me tell you, this definitely fit all my criteria."Love has the power to destroy you.  Love has the power to bury you alive in a coffin full of pain and despair robbing you of air, of the will to live."Meet our heroine, Cathy.  She's been with her husband, Ben for 11 years.  They are in love and the perfect couple.  They both have successful careers, live in a big house and have everything they could want.  Funny how the broken stories always start with a perfect couple."I can't help but wondering, where the magic has gone?  Is real life contaminating our fairy tale romance with all it's ugliness?"Cathy realizes life sucks sometimes and starts to feel hopeless and numb.  She begins to resent her husband's "everything will be ok" attitude and begins to withdraw from him.  Her relationship with Ben is not in the best place and with impeccable timing, Arsen enters her life."It's funny that his name reminded me of fire, because he certainly looked like someone who could burn you to the ground."The hotel that Cathy works for was acquired by Arsen's father and he wants Arsen to learn about the company and work for him.  He's hot and rich and he goes through high profile women like it's nobody's business."Some basic instinct in me instantly recognizes that this man doesn't make love to a woman.  He f---s her."Cathy is obviously attracted to him, but tries to focus on her marriage and the man that she loves.  She needs to teach Arsen about the company and tries to keep their relationship 100% professional.  Yep, because that always works out.Even though she was fighting it, Arsen becomes a good friend to Cathy.  She is able to share thoughts and feelings that she isn't able to share with Ben.  They begin to spend more and more time together and she is finding herself lying to Ben about where she is.  She tells herself that they're just friends and she isn't doing anything wrong.  Completely innocent."I've given up.  And it feels so f---ing good.  Living in an emotionless stupor suits me quite well because it helps me forget and not feel.  And I want that.  I want to not feel."Until one day, her marriage is struck with what may be the final blow.  She has emotionally checked out of her marriage and feels nothing.She finds that the only time she feels alive is when she is with Arsen.  She knows what she is doing is wrong, but she also stopped caring about anyone else.  Her marriage is falling apart, but she can't stop  the affair.  A part of her wants to, but a part of her loves the way she feels when she is with Arsen and doesn't want to stop."I want to be selfish.  I want to be careless.  I'm past feeling guilty.  I'm completely and utterly out of my mind because of a man and I don't care.  I'm like a heroin addict going through withdrawals.  I must have Arsen."Sigh.  I loved this story so much, it's the kind of story I love reading.  If you don't like stories with angst, heartbreak and pain, do not read this one.  I know people are also turned off by stories with love triangles and cheating.  If you are one of those people, then do not read this book.If you want a story that makes you feel emotions all the way to your bone, read this one.  If you want a story that takes your heart and puts it through the wringer, read this one.Normally, I lay in bed at night and read my books on my Kindle.  I couldn't just lay in bed and read this one.  It was 2am when I finished it and I was sitting straight up in bed because I couldn't contain my emotions.  I woke up 3 hours later at 5am only to re-read parts of the book again.  This is one of those books that I wish I could erase from my memory, just so I could read it again and feel all the emotions for the first time.