Review: Deep Blue Eternity by Natasha Boyd

Livvy is on the run. And she’s escaped to the one place nobody will ever find her.

But the isolated cottage isn’t empty. Her refuge is home to a troubled stranger, Tom, there for reasons of his own.

In the intimacy of the abandoned cottage, and the remote wilderness of the island, the electrifying connection between them is impossible to ignore. Both running from their histories and shielding dark secrets, their pasts catch up with them and collide in an unimaginable way.

Deep emotions and powerful chemistry face a painful battle with the tangle of lies, and scars of the past. When the truth emerges, hearts will be shattered.


5 Blue Eternity Stars by Natasha Gentile

So when I first saw the cover of this book, I was in awe.  It was so beautiful and peaceful.  And let’s admit it, you just wanted to jump into the cover and swim, like a mermaid.  I immediately started the e-mails, when can I have your book?  I need your book!  You can give me your book anytime?! Through it all she was a mamma bear, not ready to share it with the world, till I didn’t send any e-mails and then got a message saying the eagle has landed.  I was on spring break with the kids but I spent every spare moment on this book.  I even went so far as making my kids go into the hotel pool just so I can have alone time reading the book. 

There are very few books that leave me thinking.  This one was one of them.  When the last word was read, I simply turned off my Kindle, sat back and I pondered.  I sat there letting all those beautiful words seep in, and then I let the story swim into me.  It was beyond the best thing Tasha has ever written.  Here is my journey.

Livvy is on the run. And she’s escaped to the one place nobody will ever find her.

Meet Olivia Baines, she is running away from home.  She is leaving the one place where she thought she was safe, or at least it is supposed to be safe.  She has been living in hell ever since her sister ran away 6 years ago leaving her to face everything by herself.  She stayed till she was a shell of herself and finally snapped.

Looking down at my trembling fingers, I tried to ignore my tight chest.  I was scared about what I was doing.  But more scared to stay.  I’d waited as long as I could.  A job to feed myself and maybe fix the place up was a necessity.  The meager amount of money I had on me would barely get me by.  But the idea that I could start over and be someone with no past and no expectations was a heady rush.  A complete reinvention of who I was.

She can do this.  She is escaping and is on route to her serenity.  The place her grandmother left her.  She is on her way to Daufuskie.  I have no idea where this place is, but after reading about it even I want to visit.  It’s just a short boat ride from Savannah, she is almost there she can taste it; then she starts to panic and her attack hits her faster than she can control it, leaving her a stranger in a strange place with no one around who knows her. 

A man crouched in front of me, strong thighs in worn brown denim holding him steady.  His shaggy brown-haired head leaned over my bag as his hands re-emerged with three pill bottles.

So right away we are wondering who this broken soul is.  We are also wondering what on earth could have happened to the little innocent  mermaid to make her so dependent on drugs in order to continue every day.  She never expected to be thrust in front of this man.

His face, what I could see of it, beneath copious amounts of facial hair, gross, was as sun-beaten as his hands.  The he flicked beautiful golden brown and startlingly familiar eyes up at me.

I momentarily stopped inhaling my much needed air as confusion swirled around me.  How did I know this person?

I’m not sure why but lately every single book is about bearded men, and I for one love it.  She is on her way to her cottage.  A cottage that her sister told her about.  A cottage that only has the best of memories for her.  A cottage that will be her escape from her life. 

But the isolated cottage isn’t empty.  Nope.  Not empty at all, in fact none other than that big burly bearded man is living there.  In. Her. Cottage. 

“What are you d-doing here?”  I swallowed.  There must be some mistake.  There was no way my parents could have sold this.  They couldn’t!  It was mine.  Anguish and exhaustion closed around my throat.  My eyes stung. 

“I live here,” he said matter-of-factly.  I couldn’t see his expression beneath all that facial hair.

This was not happening.  I locked my knees and clung tightly to the straps of my bag to stop the shaking.

And then I was angry.   So angry.  This was mine. Mine. Mine. And I was so tired.

It seems that her refuge, her escape is also an escape for someone else.  Someone she knows nothing about.  Someone who is also trying to escape reality, someone simply known as Tom.

Here starts the dilemma, it also starts your mind wondering. You are sitting there and you are trying to think how or why this man is even there.  You are trying to piece things together, you are basically playing Sherlock Holmes in this book, and I for one was loving and hating every single second.  I just wanted to know.  I just needed to know.  I didn’t but what I got was this.

He’d come down here to get away.  Now that I’d stumbled on his private sanctuary, I couldn’t invade his space again.  I backed up slowly, then turned back toward the path, hurrying away before he saw me.

Who is Tom?  He has secrets of his own.  Behind those brown eyes, hides the guilt of a man, and also the shame.  He wants to do one thing before he moves on he wants to make sure that Olivia is ok.  He didn’t know the first way to try to heal her, or make sure that she knew she was safe. 

Olivia Baines needed something and seemed unilaterally unaware of it.  Her need was tangible and almost vampiric; a vast, aching vacuum of loneliness that pulled me forward every time I was around her.  It had from the first moment I saw her on the dock, before I even knew who she was.   Comfort? Love? Parenting? My blood? But I was the last person equipped to give it to her.  She needed family or something.  But God, I didn’t want to send her away.

This woman arrived on this island to escape something that had broken and destroyed her and made her think she had no soul and no reason to be.  She slowly started to come out of her shell.  She slowly started to find reason as to why she is needed and cared for.

They start what we see is a friendship, a way to co-exist with each other.  It isn’t all flowers and rainbows; in fact it’s harsh, it’s heart wrenching, it’s sometimes bitter, it’s scary, it’s push come to shove, it’s pain, it’s hurt, it’s so so beautiful.

I realized with a start that I’d begun feeling comforted by his presence.  We were building some form of quiet friendship.  And the thought that he was disgusted with me caused shame to burn through my gut.  But with that came anger.  How dare he make me feel this way?  Who was he to pass judgment on me? 

To say that your emotions take on a roller coaster effect is putting it mildly.  I was sitting down and gasping for breath, because these two beautiful empty souls were each searching for something that the other had, except they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.  They couldn’t see past the pain of the past.  They couldn’t see the future and all the answers in front of them.  They were playing the cat and mouse game, but I was wondering who was who, and yelling at my kindle, yelling to just tell him, tell her, just let it all out.

And then, of course my thoughts immediately went to the way I’d acted toward Tom, trying to goad him.  Trying to piss him off.  The memory caused a heavy brick to form in my gut.  I thought back to his topaz eyes frosting over and the pulse ticking with tension in his temple.   I’d been prodding at a sleeping lion.  I was lucky he’d only growled.

Livy, is starting her healing process.  She is forming friendships, she is opening her self up.  She is also trying to guard her heart, but it’s a losing battle, because through it all, through all the turns and eye openers she has realized that Tom has weaved his way into her heart.  With him she realized with utter shock that he was everything a man should be.  To her he was strong, he was gentle, he was loyal, he wasn’t the broken man he thought he was.  And he was the totally forbidden. 

What she didn’t know was that he was right there with her.  Except to him she was forbidden, she was not to be looked at or thought of in that manner.  He is there to make sure she is ok, he is there to guide her, he is there to make sure she can face the tomorrows and not hide and drown in the past.  Just one problem, just one road block after another, but this road block is a crater, it’s so huge it looks endless.  It’s the secrets of the past, the tangled lies in the web of yesterdays.  It’s the reason that they were both thrust into this path in their lives. 

I was hoping it isn’t the one thing that can totally and completely break them and the life that they lead now. 

Because in the end we all hope for the love that is a deep blue eternity!

When I was younger, in school, high school, I was asked how to describe what I thought love was.  And that’s how I thought of love.  Blue and infinite, clear but deep, where no man could truly reach.  A deep blue eternity.

With this I leave it.  It was beyond anything I ever thought it would be.  It was everything that you look for in a book and then it leaves you with just more than you thought.  It leaves you with hope, it leaves you with love, it leaves you wanting more and also hoping that one day just once you feel that type of love that is deep blue eternity!