Crossfire special edition book club

Hello, lovely ladies 🙂

My week of holiday has come and gone *sigh* How come times of rest never feel long enough? LOL! And before it slips my busy mind, thank you so much for all the well wishes. Thanks to laser surgery I’ve now ditched my spectacles! Yay!

Let’s move onto movie news: this last week saw a lot of fresh pics from FSOG sets/scenes. I bet you remember when Christian naively lead Ana to Esclava for a haircut. Silly, silly man!

See more from The Stir.

Then, the Laters, Baby site reported that Hugh Dancy landed the role of Dr Flynn:

Personally, I think he looks a little younger than expected, but otherwise, he seems suitable.

Lastly, Susan shared this fascinating article: Unsloppy Seconds taken from Entertainment Weekly and posted by the Fifty Shades of Grey Fan site. I was particularly interested in reading about the high level of Erika’s control in the movie, and her vision to focus on the meat of Ana and Christian’s relationship rather than the steamy side. It made me feel VERY hopeful for Darker.

This week I read:

NB: Please note that the review WILL contain spoilers from below the warning stamp.

DO NOT READ BELOW THE STAMP IF YOU’RE NOT KEEN FOR SOME POST READING INSIGHTS.

I finished my re-read of the Crossfire series, book three and four, Entwined With You and Captivated by You by Sylvia Day. Though I STILL love the series, I maintain that book three, and especially book four, felt like long chapters rather than books that stand on their own merit. The stretching of the series, to me, made the writing feel just a little lazy. It’s also very interesting to note that she softened the intimate language over the course of all the books. My guess is that she wanted to make it more appealing to those readers whose first brush with the erotic genre was with FSOG and Erika’s “good-girl” language. Intriguing…

 One With You by Sylvia Day, book five in the Crossfire series was a loooong read. Not that I’m complaining. After the epic wait it was great to sink into something substantial. Also, it was jam packed with all the things that made Gideon and Eva so special, and, as ever, Sylvia’s beautiful writing style did not disappoint. I’ve always loved Gideon’s specific brand of Alpha. Overall I liked it, awarding it four stars on Goodreads, but it’s not without it’s issues. One of the main things we’ve been discussing through the course of the series were the loose ends, and though a lot of questions were answered, I was surprised to be left with some serious unanswered story lines, and even some new ones.

• Firstly, I struggled with the Cary, Trey, and Tatiana plus baby dynamic: is it his or not and is he and Trey going to patch things up?
• Gideon’s mom: why does she refuse to believe/acknowledge his abuse? What’s the story there?
• What about Corinne’s book? Will it still be published? And if so -naturally – we’d like to see the blowback of that.
• There was also no resolution from the Landon’s. Did the GenTen blow away the competition? We also never found out if Landon’s wife, Angela, was genuine when she invited Eva to Fashion Week or if she was hiding some dodgy agenda.
• One of the things that bothered me the most was the whole Hall thing. This was, in my opinion, the pivotal moment of the book, but she had SO MUCH going on that I don’t believe she brought the scene justice, needing to move on to the next thing to keep the book flowing and not growing too long (though, it has to be said, that a good book can never be too long). The whole scene was short and poorly explained. And the fallout?? What on earth happened to Anne as a consequence?? Considering Gideon’s tremendous resources, why the hell don’t we know more?
• I absolutely loved the addition of Lucky, though I would have liked to see Eva’s thoughts on the matter and whether the puppy’s instincts was the actual reason she got him (that’s not what she told Gideon…) or was it all just a happy coincidence?
• Lastly, and most confusingly, the ending with Eva’s mom’s secret background revealed, to me, seemed like a gratuitous complication. One that the book didn’t need to make it more riveting. There was more than enough brewing in the background, tension wise. Not only was the explanation unclear, but why take on the identity of an existing person, someone she knew and who knew her (and could possibly follow her movements/keep tabs on her)? Especially the daughter of the family she must hate. Why keep their name despite never hiding Eva’s dad’s identity? And if she had an affair with Eva’s dad in the course of that abusive relationship with her first husband, and considering the bloodhound cop instincts of Victor Reyes, would he not have known that the woman he loved was being assaulted? He does NOT strike me as the type of man who would let that go.

As a sidenote, and for those of you who REALLY like to nitpick, with Monica’s developing headache after Gideon’s talkshow interview, Eva offers her the guest bedroom, the one that was made up like Eva’s from her apartment, but in the previous book, that bedroom was cleared entirely for the swing… Huh.

Well, girls, that was a mouthful. Let’s discuss! Don’t you just love a big, juicy story? 😉

Let me leave you with this, the next dress I might invest in…

Happy week, ladies!