Review: Holding Her In Madness By: Kimber S. Dawn

If you have not read A Woman Gone Mad, stop reading this review and read it first!

In A Woman Gone Mad we experienced Lil’s heart breaking and maddening pain.  In Holding Her In Madness, this is Leo’s story, his POV and his own pain and heart break brought on by the one woman who could bring him to his knees and how he feels while Lil has hit her lowest point.

Leo fell for Lil hard, obsessively can’t live without her hard.  She was his EVERYTHING.  He lived and breathed for her.  When he is forced away from her and threatened, it begins his own downward spiral of drugs, alcohol, heart break and pain. He goes to the edge, almost falls over but is saved.  He never thinks he will be able to live without Lil in his life, even if he has to stay away from her, she will always own his heart.  That is, until something happens that makes him forget Lil and move on with someone new.  He gets married and you think that he really had gotten past his feeling for Lil, but when you learn the truth you are surprised that he doesn’t hurt the person who deceived him and took Lil away for so long.

Leo is his own brand of fucked up, but luckily he is stronger than his demons and is able to pull himself from the depths of his own hell and heal.  When he has his second chance with Lil you think that finally Leo and Lil will have their chance at happiness but tragedy strikes and Leo is unable to pull Lil from her madness and gives up on her in a way.  He knows everything she is doing since they have been separated and while it is killing him he doesn’t know what to do to save her.

When Leo gets a call that changes the course of everything, he knows that he needs to be there and be Lil’s savior, rock and love.  He saves her from the brink of destruction just in time, his pain is just as powerful as Lil’s.  He is her knight in armor, it’s not shinning by any means but dinged, dented and well used but he will protect her with his life so he never loses her again.  Too much time and pain had come between them and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

I loved this follow up to A Woman Gone Mad, I had wondered what had transpired in Leo’s life that he left Lil and didn’t look back.  These are not pretty stories, they are filled with pain and suffering and heart break.  Both books moved my emotions, that for days later I felt so emotional that I couldn’t explain it.  By now those of you have read my reviews I will tell you if a book or series is one that I feel you should pick up and give a chance.  Well, A Woman Gone Mad and Holding Her In Madness are two books that not only still have me emotionally fucked up but are two of the best books I have read so far in 2014 and need to be put on your TBR lists immediately if they are not already on there.  Just. Trust. Me.  Kimber S. Dawn, babe you have a fan for life in me, keep on writing these emotion engaging reads cause I will keep on reading them!

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Madness-Leos-loving-Woman-ebook/dp/B00J74FOQ0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396148701&sr=8-1&keywords=holding+her+in+madness

Review: A Woman Gone Mad By Kimber S. Dawn

How many times can one woman’s heart be broken before it can no longer be healed and she goes mad from the pain?  Love and happy endings are only true in fairy tales, love is destructive, painful and at times deadly.

Lil’s heart has been broken one too many times, it won’t heal.  Her pain has sent her into a downward spiral that is so heart wrenching that you feel the madness take you over as it does her.  Your heart breaks right along with Lil’s.  You feel each and every piece shatter into smaller pieces that can never be healed again.  Betrayal, the loss of a love so obsessive that it turns destructive, meaningless sex, the chance of true love and happiness only for it to be ripped right out of her hands, and a second chance at love has made her take a path down a destructive spiral that she may not be able to reverse.

Every time Lil would suffer I felt like a knife was stabbing me in my own heart.  Each piece of her heart and her sanity breaking made me feel her pain.  Beginning with her first heart break you see that Lil will not have a smooth road to happiness but one that is filled with so many twists, turns, pot holes and bumps that it is a miracle that she is able to maneuver her life through it.  Lil tries to put her heart back together after each heart break but it’s only being held together by the tiniest amount of glue that even a small tap will break the pieces again.

When her first true love leaves and shatters her world completely you never think that Lil will be able to bring herself out of the depth of despair that she is in.  You finally think that maybe, just maybe her knight in shining armor that could make her fairytale come true will be the one to save her comes in to her life and for a while Lil is happy once more, that is until he plunges his sword into her heart as well. 

When her first love, Leo, returns he helps bring the light back into her life and they begin their life together. But even the love of Leo can help her when she suffers a loss so heart breaking that she spirals out of control and pushes Leo away.  She hits such a low, one that has her ending her pain in a way that is final, you never think that she will be pulled from her madness, but the same love that has broken her heart and sanity is the one that pulls her from her madness and heals her heart and mind.

I can’t begin to tell you what this book made me feel, there is so much angst, heart break and pain that it is a total mind fuck.  I cried almost from the prologue alone and each time Lil’s heart broke I cried even more.  My emotions were on such a roller coaster that at times I had to let myself cry out the pain I felt.  To feel such despair and pain drained me both mentally and physically.  To feel such a low that the only choice you have is to end the pain is sadly for some the only way to make it end. 

Kimber S, Dawn has written such an emotional, angst filled story that shows that love is painful, heart breaking and sometimes maddening.  I have a feeling a lot of people will connect with Lil’s pain and have felt how she has at times, this reviewer being one of them.  This is a must read and one of the best books I have read this year so far.

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Gone-Mad-Kimber-Dawn-ebook/dp/B00HJ6S1TK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396145390&sr=8-1&keywords=a+woman+gone+mad

Review: Jilted by Kelly Jamieson

Jilted is the story of a hot fireman who get left at the alter. Literally. Left. At. The. Alter. His bride is standing next to him, when another guy, Gavin, shows up, picks her up and waltzes right out of the church with her.

Josh stands there, dumbfound (I mean, who wouldn’t be right?). Then he goes after her only to have no idea where to look for her. Devon, his ex-girlfriend and his ex-bride’s ex-best friend, helps Josh look for her.

Confused yet? Don't be. It’s actually pretty straightforward.

Josh and Devon enjoy a week together, in the honeymoon suite Josh was to be in with his new wife. Over that week they grow closer together again. But what happens when they go back to reality?

I really wanted to like this story. I loved the premise. The mixed up, what in the world is going on premise. But it fell a little flat for me. I was annoyed with Devon through most of the book. She was sneaky and underhanded. I know she has mommy-abandonment issues, but that doesn’t excuse the sneakiness. Josh, bless his heart, just let it go. He was jilted by one fiancé, just to be used by his ex-girlfriend. He just let it go? Saint? Nope. Martyr.

I was hoping for more from this story. Two-star crossed past lovers reconnecting….fabulous! I just couldn’t get past Devon’s sneakiness and Josh’s ability to forgive anything.

Find it on GoodReads!