Customer Reviews

Forbidden (Harlequin Blaze)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am new to Tori Carrington's work, but am glad I found this book! I loved the heroine, Leah. I felt she was a complex character who acted like someone in real life would act. J.T., also was very believeable and the spark and action between these two made me keep turning the pages! I would definitely recommend this book. I kept me so interested that I read it in one sitting

If you are ready for an emotional roller-coaster then hop on to read this book! I really felt the emotions of the characters. If you like the writing style of Tori Carrington then this one will not disappoint.

I liked this story. It played out like it could have been a real life story. I think you'll like it as much as I did. The characters are characters the reader will connect with early on.

A year ago and a half ago J.T. West rocked her world, and just as she broke up with her husband, disappeared from town. So Leah Dubois Burger has spent the last year recovering from a broken heart, a divorce, and the resentment of her eleven-year-old daughter. Now she verges on recommitting herself to her ex-husband and making her daughter's dream of them as a family come true. Then she sees J.T. at the local Kroger and her world tilts again.

J.T. did not want to leave Leah, and he returns because he has to know if they share more than sizzling chemistry. Every time they are together they share mind blowing sex, but he wants to know if Leah's heart is involved as well. Unfortunately, J.T. is a man on the run and cannot offer Leah the future that she deserves. No matter how good the sex is or how much either of them might want more.

Author writing team Tori Carrington has a gift for creating sensual romance that meets reader's high expectations of the Blaze line. But they also have a flair for characterization. This husband/wife team consistently gives both the male and female characters a unique roundness, as especially demonstrated in FORBIDDEN. I admit that this is the first series romance I have encountered that the heroine has an affair that breaks up her marriage, and on the brink of remarrying, returns to the forbidden. And J.T. is defiantly a forbidden pleasure. Moreover, Leah's ex-husband is not a bad man, neither having abused her nor treated her particularly badly. They simply did not have a good marriage that satisfied both of their needs, thereby depriving Leah the standard moral clauses that excuse pursuing another man. Certainly Leah faces choices that many women confront with courage and strength, however challenging and difficult this real-life situation might be. While this is a plot that could go badly awry with reader sympathy, Carrington makes the forbidden both understandable and forgivable The result is a sizzling, sensual and daring, making FORBIDDEN very highly recommended.

With sharp characters, a savvy understanding of their motivations and a strong dose of deep emotions, you have a heady mix, and that is what the Carrington duo delivers.

Leah Dubois came from a family of lawyers, but she never found her niche, opting instead to marry and have a child. Now, life is a day-to-day of just going through the motions, of living to serve the whims of others. She has fixed her mind, with a grim determination, to reconcile with her ex-husband, basically because he is pushing for it and her 11-year-old daughter wants.

But all determination goes out the window, when JT comes back. JT, the first man she ever loved, actually the only man she ever loved, back when she was in her teens and again a year ago. Their affair was the straw that broke the camel's back of her loveless marriage. But then he vanished.

JT has always loved Leah, but he's been carrying a dark secret that could make him have to walk away from that love once more.

Leah is a very down-to-earth, every day person, facing every day questions and problems, and through it all, she cannot kill the love that has always been there, and JT is making her face that.

A quick read, but very well done.

The story of Leah and J.T. West. They seemed to have a bit of chemistry. Was a bit disconcerting that she was married when she hooked up with J.T. She then talks of a divorce with her husband but then J.T. left town for about a year and a half and then he returns. He is of course running from the law. That part of the story could have been better drawn out in order to creat more suspense yet it wasn't. Felt a bit let down by that. Then we believe that Leah committed adultery and her poor husband still wants to take her back. He wants to work things out. Yet he has been keeping a secret too. So somehow while the heroine did something bad, her husband comes out looking even worse!

Though he has not been in Toledo, Ohio in well over a year, Leah Dubois Burger has not forgotten J. T. West. She gave up her life as the happily bored spouse of Dan for a fling with J.T. who left her with the baggage of divorce and nothing to show for it except memories, good, bad and ugly. Leah knows her eleven years old daughter Sami still does not understand why daddy is not living with them. Though she wonders if her ex-spouse would take her back, she knows she would be doing him a disservice as she only wants J.T. to touch her even though the rat left without a word.

J.T. regrets what he did to Leah, the woman he loves. He dreams of her everyday. Though he knows he must let her get on with her life, J.T. needs to see her again though he has nothing he can provide beyond the moment for he is a man with no future as befitting someone on the run.

J.T. is an interesting lost soul who readers will feel for and hope for the best. Sami and Dan are nice support characters who deserve better than what Leah does to them. On the other hand Leah's behavior makes her very unsympathetic though quite realistic as readers will dislike what she does to Dan and Sami. Still fans will hope Dan finds happiness and J.T. can straighten out his life and take Leah as his wife. FORBIDDEN is a solid interesting relationship drama, just not quite as terrific as Team Carrington tales usually are.

Harriet Klausner