(Starcrossed #3)
Author: Leisa Rayven
Publication Date: May 17th, 2016
St. Martin's Griffin
Category/Genre: Contemporary Romance
Category/Genre: Contemporary Romance
Liam Quinn is talented, gorgeous, and one of the biggest
movie stars in the world.
He's also the only man Elissa Holt has ever truly loved.
After being out of her life for six years, he and his gorgeous fiancé are set to star in the new Broadway show Elissa is stage managing. The only trouble is, when late night rehearsals bring Elissa and Liam together, the line between what is and what could have been gets blurred, and one moment of weakness will lead to a scandal that echoes around the world.
Elissa knows that falling for Liam again would be a tragedy in the making, but as any good romantic will tell you, love doesn’t always follow the script.
He's also the only man Elissa Holt has ever truly loved.
After being out of her life for six years, he and his gorgeous fiancé are set to star in the new Broadway show Elissa is stage managing. The only trouble is, when late night rehearsals bring Elissa and Liam together, the line between what is and what could have been gets blurred, and one moment of weakness will lead to a scandal that echoes around the world.
Elissa knows that falling for Liam again would be a tragedy in the making, but as any good romantic will tell you, love doesn’t always follow the script.
Pre-Order: Amazon
I would:
- Befriend: Elissa and Angel
- Go out on a date & kiss: Josh
- Take to a desert island and leave behind: Kent
- Travel to Vegas and let Elvis Presley marry us: Liam (and have his babies, too)
If I turned on the TV, I'd find Elissa, Liam and their friends on:
- Smash (I miss this show, by the way)
Smash - BuzzFeed
If I took them out, we'd go to a/an:
- Broadway show, then hang out at Times Square playing Fuck, Marry and Kill. Elissa, darling, I'd choose Liam, too. Every. Single. Time.
4.5 "Broadway and Hollywood drama" Stars
ARC via NetGalley
Thank you, St. Martin's Griffin!
First things first... Look at
this cover. Look. At. This. BEAUTIFUL. Cover. No, seriously, I want to meet the
cover artist and hug her/him, because this is just stunning.
So, when I saw it I
thought, this book has to be good, right? You can’t have a gorgeous cover like
that and a so-so (or even worse, crappy) book, right? Wrong. I mean. Kind of
wrong, because it was more than just good. It was great! It was a “it’s Friday
night, my husband wants to go out and I can’t, won’t, refuse to stop reading this”
kind of good.
Yeah, go get the book,
please. You’ll be doing yourself a favor.
Before we talk about Elissa and Liam, let me
tell you this book won me over when I read the "Acknowledgments".
Yes, weird, huh? But hear me out. What Leisa Rayven wrote in that section was
freaking great, funny and adorable. Probably the best I’ve ever seen. Don’t
believe me? This is what I wrote on my Kindle when I finished it:
Kindle note: Okay. So extra points for writing a kickass acknowledgement.
At that point, I knew I was going to love the book. I didn’t expect to devour
it and want more, but what else could I have done?
Wicked Heart is angst at its best. It’s sexy. It’s painful. It’s love.
We meet Elissa when she’s already an established professional working on
Broadway. She’s great at her job and is the other half of a fabulous duo with
her best friend and assistant, Josh (oh, yeah, we love Josh, too). Elissa is
super excited about her next project, an update on Shakespeare’s work directed
by a powerhouse name. The only tiny
problem is that it stars Hollywood’s hottest man, who happens to be the love of
her life, who also happens to be the man who broke her heart. Oh, did I tell
you he’s engaged and his adorably perfect fiancée is also part of the play?
Yeah, poor Elissa.
But then, Elissa doesn’t need you to feel sorry for her. She puts on her
big girl panties and faces the situation like the professional she is. Inside,
she’s dying a little having to see Liam (that’s the bastard’s name) and Angel
show the entire world how much they love each other.
Is your heart broken yet? Nope. Oh, don’t worry, it’ll happen soon.
To make sure we feel Elissa’s pain, the author takes us back six years to
when Elissa and Liam met, just before he became a famous actor. At first I wasn’t
sure how to feel about the flashback. I’m usually not a big fan of being thrown
back so many years into the characters’ lives in the third chapter. It almost
makes it look like the book started in the wrong place. But I was wrong. There’s
no better way to say it. I was just wrong.
I needed – we all did – to meet Liam for the first time when Elissa did.
We needed to feel their connection. To understand how and why she got that way.
OMG, we needed to experience all that happened between them because it was
fantastic and hot (so hot!!!!) and soooo damn painful. My body was on fire one
minute and my heart was shattered the next. A roller coaster. One that, as a
book lover, I live to ride. Let all books that me on that ride.
The people on the no-love-at-first-sight club can say whatever they want
about Elissa and Liam, but I dare you not to fall in love with them as quickly
as they fell for each other. Man… their feelings were so strong they bled through
my Kindle screen. They knocked me flat on my butt. And the heartbreak? I might
or might have not hugged my Kindle when Liam did the unthinkable and broke
Elissa’s trust and heart.
“When I can’t bear to look at him anymore, I turn and walk away. I hear
him yell my name, but I don’t stop. What would be the point?
Everything hurts as I walk, and I curse myself for wanting to run back
and beg him to change his mind.
What the hell is wrong with me? Am I really that unlovable?”
Kindle note: My heart!!!!
Buzzfeed
That’s why I called him a bastard earlier. At that moment, that was what
he was. A freaking bastard.
As we go back to the present, heart filled with love and hate for Liam,
we follow Elissa’s struggle. There’s nothing harder than to have to be nice to
the person who made you feel like shit – and to the woman who’s taking your
place in the love of your life’s life. Elissa does it, and she does it so well
that I find myself wondering if she forgot what Liam did, because I sure as
heck didn’t.
(Do you see how invested I was at that point, right?)
You know what Elissa didn’t forget? Her attraction to Liam.
You know what Liam didn’t forget? Elissa.
Liam, the bastard, turned into Liam, the man I wanted to hug. No matter
how much I loved Elissa (and I did love her so very much), Liam’s arc was the
one that touched me the most. I went from loving him to hating him to wanting
to have his babies. Liam was intense. Liam was life and love.
“Ask me to give up a limb and I swear, I’ll find a way to do it. But don’t
ask me to live without you anymore. I can’t. I’m so goddam in love with you, it
hurts.”
What happens next is a bunch of mindfuck scenes after mindfuck scenes that
will have you wanting to scream, punch the Kindle (or book), hug it, kiss it,
take a cold shower, then kill some of the characters just to bring one or two
back to life.
“By the time I call an end to rehearsal, everyone breathes a sigh of
relief. I think we’re all emotionally exhausted.”
Kindle note: that’s exactly how I feel.
Emotionally exhausted or not, I don’t regret a second of this book. It
brought me so much pain, but it also made me so damn happy. I loved all the
characters in it. Josh, you’re the friend every girl needs to have. Angel, I
adore you and want to be your BFF, too.
Wicked Heart is the reason I love romance books. As fun as it is to read
cute love stories, nothing makes me bow down and want to kiss the author’s feet
like a book that takes me from tears to smiles in a matter of a couple dozen
pages or more.
Read this book. Trust me on this one. You won’t regret it.
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