Thursday, April 17, 2014

Review and Giveaway: Love in English by Karina Halle








He’s thirty-eight. I’m twenty-three.

He speaks Spanish. I speak English.

He lives in Spain. I live in Canada.

He dresses in thousand-dollar suits. I’m covered in tattoos.

He’s married and has a five-year old daughter.

I’m single and can’t commit to anyone or anything.

Until now.Because when they say you can’t choose who you fall in love with, boy ain’t that the f*#king truth.

***

To a restless dreamer like Vera Miles, it sounded like the experience of a lifetime. Instead of spending her summer interning for her astronomy major, she would fly to Spain where she’d spend a few weeks teaching conversational English to businessmen and women, all while enjoying free room and board at an isolated resort. But while Vera expected to get a tan, meet new people and stuff herself with wine and paella, she never expected to fall in love.

Mateo Casalles is unlike anyone Vera has ever known, let alone anyone she’s usually attracted to. While Vera is a pierced and tatted free spirit with a love for music and freedom, Mateo is a successful businessman from Madrid, all sharp suits and cocky Latino charm. Yet, as the weeks go on, the two grow increasingly close and their relationship changes from purely platonic to something…more.

Something that makes Vera feel alive for the first time.

Something that can never, ever be.

Or so she thinks.




5 Brilliant Stars by Nicole Lorenzo

“Love causes war and causes death, breaks souls and breaks lives. It runs people into the ground, and makes them behave like moronic, immoral beasts, before it dances off, leaving only destruction in its wake- hearts blown wide open for the whole world to see. Love puts the blame on the poor souls who succumb to it.”

Vera Miles is a twenty three year old college student who is studying Astronomy. She is young, wild and quite adventurous. She is covered it tattoos, has a healthy sexual appetite but is looking for something more, something to make her feel whole.  Vera decides to take a month long summer job teaching conversational English to businessmen and women in Spain. It’s there in the Spanish countryside that Vera finds the “more” she was looking for. She finds Mateo Casales.  Mateo with his sharp expensive suits, and velvet accent just exudes sexiness. He’s a gentleman, a married gentleman and the furthest possible thing from Vera’s type. But he’s handsome and mysterious and Vera is quite intrigued and wants to learn more about Mateo.

“A gorgeous, sensual, Spanish god. That’s what he looked like to me.”

Las Palabras is the resort where Vera is staying and working. Every day she converses with the Spaniards and they start to grow close and form friendships. Vera and Mateo grow closer and closer as each day passes, but they are careful to keep their distance and not cross any boundaries. Mateo is married with a small child and there is quite a big age difference between them, but still, Vera finds something in Mateo she didn’t know she was looking for. Despite her growing attraction towards Mateo, she resists the temptation, forcing herself to keep things between them platonic, innocent. Every hour she is near him she finds herself falling more for him, even though it has only been a few days.

“You can fall in love in a second,”……… “The heart has no regard for time.”

The more Vera and Mateo try to fight their growing attraction towards one another, the harder it becomes. It’s as if they are two magnets fighting that pull that proves they are meant to be together. Whenever they are near one other, the air sizzles. Whenever one enters a room they search for each other. But still their feelings for each other are wrong, and Vera refuses to cross that line, because once she does she knows there is no going back.

“He’s married, He’s married, He’s married, I told myself …………..
But I could only tell myself that so many times.”

As the days pass, Vera begins to panic because with every passing second she is closer to being back in Canada and away from Mateo forever. And then the inevitable happens. Vera and Mateo topple from the ledge that they have been teetering on into something they never planned or imagined but still was meant to be. They succumb to their need for one another, consequences be damned. Their love for each other is real, even though it is wrong, but their time at Las Palabras is almost over and it seems that all the future holds for Vera and Mateo is unavoidable heartbreak.

“You’ve bewitched me, Vera. You’ve blinded me. You’ve made me forget my vows. And all you had to do was shine.”


You are my star,” he murmured. “You are my Estrella.”

What will happen when Vera and Mateo leave Las Palabras and return to their real lives? Despite how they feel for each other their love comes with consequences.  Can a love like Vera’s and Mateo’s even stand a fighting chance?

“What is love? In English.”
I raised my brows. “Love, in English, is love…”
“What is it in Spanish?”
I was so enthralled by his hypnotic eyes, I could barely remember. “Amore?”
He shook his head ever so slightly. “No. Love in Spanish is you.”

Karina Halle has a way of telling a story like no one else. Love in English is her first full on romance novel, and it is probably my favorite work of hers so far. She took two beautifully lost people and led them on a journey that made them whole. I know the subject of cheating is a sore spot for some, but Vera and Mateo’s love for each other wasn’t seedy, or conniving. They didn’t willingly set out to be deceptive or hurtful. They struggled. They struggled so much that as a reader I felt, their pain, and their want and their need and I prayed with every page I read that they would give in and be together because I felt it was meant to be.

Vera and Mateo are so different that at first glance they shouldn’t even work as a couple. But despite their lifestyle, heritage, marital status and age differences they found a connection. They were both lost, looking to be found, and they found their love written in the stars. This story felt so real to me, the characters and descriptions of Spain so vibrant, I was there the whole time with them experiencing the passion, the heartbreak, the joy and the sadness. I can literally spend all day raving about this book. I know I will read it again, and again and again and again…………

“Love is like a thief, it robs you of all thought and logic and all you have left is a heart that you can only pray is strong enough to survive the rest.”




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8 comments:

  1. Thanks for the chance! I absolutely love Karina Halle ;)

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  2. Wow! I can't wait for release day! Thanks for the teasers :)

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  3. Love Karina Halle's books!! Can't wait to read this one!

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  4. Thanks for these awesome giveaways!

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  5. This book looks AWESOME, thanks for the giveaway. :-)

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  6. Thank you for the review! Added to goodreads TBR list.

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  7. Thanks for the review and giveaway. Loved Sins&Needles series. Excited to read this stand alone.

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  8. I want this book. Karina Halle is my favorite author and I love Experiment in Terror series.

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