Gasping for Air

I am not a HUGE fan of this cover to be honest. Yes, it's a good representation of the story, but I am not digging the font used or the place of the author's name. I think the sidebar thing throws the composition off and the author's name would have looked better under the title and the tagline. I also believe a thicker font would have looked better as well.

I really struggled to decide on a rating for this one. I enjoyed it a lot overall. There were a couple of issues that I will address in a bit and one in particular that brought my rating down some.

This book was a MUCH heavier book than I anticipated. To be honest by the end, I was mentally drained. It was also VERY well written. Had an interesting plot. Had flawed but likable characters. Alex and Lincoln (from book one) make appearances. It had SMOKIN' sex scenes. It had angst. It had drama. It had feels. It had a sweet two years in the future epilogue.

So what stopped this from being a 5-Star book? It was L-O-N-G. Like epically LONG. Like SO long I though my husband and kids might just find a skeleton holding a tablet when they finally discovered they hadn't seen me in awhile. Becuase of the length of this one not finding out about Dakota's secret until 80% was FRUSTRATING. On top of that Dakota doesn't let Trystan fully in until right at the end of the book. With a book of this length that was just too long IMO.



The second issue and this is where I am going to gently suggest to the author that she add a trigger warning to the blurb. I REALLY didn't need to know in such graphic details what happened to Dakota. Knowing in the most basic of details was MORE than enough. I had to set the book aside because I was crying and sick to my stomach. When I read a good dark romance, I go in mentally prepared for this type of stuff. This was unexpected. Of course, I had guessed what had taken place early on, but like I said the details were just too much IMO.

So overall this was a great read with a lot more depth and complexity than I had anticipated. I thought I was going to get a smokin' hot sexy read and I got that and SO much more. Two thumbs up from yours truly.