Step-Lover

By Bella Jewel

Synopsis

You’ll only ever have one forbidden love.

Care to know why?

Because when you find it, forbidden love that is, you’ll forget everything else. You’ll forget your first kiss. You’ll forget the first boy who made you smile. You’ll forget all the bad, and remember all the good. You’ll forget that it’s wrong. You’ll forget that it hurts. You’ll forget everything that came before him.

Forbidden love, it has a way of changing you. The secrets. The lies. The guilt. You want something so much you no longer care about the world around you. The passion takes away the pain. I’ve felt it. I’ve lived it. I didn’t need it, but it chose me.

I met him before I knew. I loved him before I knew.

I didn’t know that he was my stepbrother. I knew I had stepbrothers, but I didn’t know he was one of them. Now I know, I have to walk away. My mom, she deserves this happiness so much more than I do. If she ever knew…it would destroy her.

You have to understand why.

I saw my father die right in front of my tiny, eight year old eyes. He took my sister with him. All that’s left is my mother and I. She’s found her happy place, the only place she’s had since our worlds were destroyed.

So you see, I can’t have him.

I can’t want him.

But there’s this problem with passion, and love, and destiny.

It doesn’t give you a damned choice.

Review

It has taken me a day to think about this book before writing this review as I have simply loved all my Bella Jewel novels from start to finish.

To be honest it took me a while to warm up to this story but then wow it grabbed me by my heart and I loved it. I have put this down to the fact that some of the characters annoyed me somewhat but then as they matured the writing reflected this. I did not enjoy the backwards and forwards in the story to find out how they met. So just a warning you need to stick with it as the emotion and the supporting characters do find their way and really do give this story depth.

The Step-Father Jack I really loved him in the second half of the book, I did not really feel that he and Aria’s mum had a serious relationship at the beginning of the book and also weird they did not move in with each other for ages and lived basically separate lives in separate houses even when Aria had been living in a unit at college. Her mum let her go out and have a relatively carefree existence to not move in and share a home with her serious boyfriend was strange – well to me anyway – also her mum was gorgeous and so loving to her daughter.

Now the best characters were the three brothers and their inner circle and the way they embraced the thought of having a sister was really beautiful. The adventures they had as siblings and the emotional and heart wrenching encounters they experienced had me on the edge of my seat. The way they came to Aria’s rescue after one particularly traumatic encounter actually brought tears to my eyes with the boys caring for their step-sister.

Also Brody and Melanie, OMG did they come into their own, I will be reading their story and glad they will be having one.

So yes there are so many good things about the book – you will enjoy the read- I did.

My Rating: