*Kindle Edition
Carter Reese hated me from the moment Mom and I moved into his dad's house. Grief-stricken over the loss of his mother, he never accepted my mom as his dad's new girlfriend. He claimed we were intruders and never missed a chance to insult us. I wanted nothing to do with him.
Neither of us counted on falling for each other.
For a year and a half, he was the guy of my dreams. He was my lover, my best friend, my twinkling star. Everything was perfect.
Until it wasn't.
Memories work in funny ways, depending on the circumstances. One moment, they can be a source of great joy, and the next . . . they're just a painful reminder of happiness lost. Because when Carter was injured in an accident, he woke up missing all of his memories of the last two years, forgetting he ever loved me. Now he refuses to believe we’re no longer enemies. He refuses to let me be close to him. Now those missing memories only cause me pain.
Despite that, I refuse to give up on our love and our memories. I’ve decided to fight for him. No matter how hard he tries to push me away, I'm going to show him we're meant to be.
But I don’t count on the scars his continuous insults create. And when our family dynamic shifts, I'm worried that not only have I irrevocably lost him, but there also might be serious consequences of his hate.
Warning: This series includes sensitive themes and situations that may be triggering for some readers, so caution is advised. Please note that Shattered Memories is part one of a duet within the Hurtful Love series and ends in a cliffhanger. Book two ends in an HEA.
First of all, I have to thank the author, Vera Hollins, for sending me an advance reading copy of her first book in the Hurtful Love series and for her constant friendliness and availability whenever I emailed her. Thank you :-)
This book took me by surprise, I have to be honest. I know that the author has, by habit, writing books with stories of suffering and enormous traumas, causing the reader serious episodes of anxiety and suffering (I'm just kidding :p)... However, in addition to the story between the main couple, we have the present story that causes us even more frenzy as we are having access to what happened and what, due to a sudden decision, is happening again in the present.
Zoe and Carter are the main characters in this first book. Both are seventeen years old and have a very troubled recent past, full of resentment and hurt towards each other. However, we will find them together and in love as if that past never happened. It turns out that on one moment they were fine, and in the next one, things have completely changed. One moment they are happy and in love and the next, by the quirk of fate, they are again against each other, exactly, or even worse, than they were before they gave in to the love that united them.
Without any memory of what happened in the last two years, Carter finds himself, once again, involved in a bubble of hatred and resentment towards his father and towards Zoe and her mother, now his father's girlfriend and, consequently, his stepmother. When Carter's father decided to move on after his wife's death two years ago, Carter fell into a spiral of grief and rage clashing head-on with everyone who lived in his home. Against Zoe he invested even more hatred because he knew that, in addition to the anger he had for her, he also felt something else. After an accident, Carter loses his memory and with it were the moments and the love he felt for Zoe. Of course, knowing everything that happened, she will fight with all her strength for him to remember everything or, at least, to conquer him again. If he got it once, why wouldn't he get it a second time?
I don't want to dwell on my opinion, even more, but I'm just telling you that her struggle and suffering, and also his, will be so intense that we even feel in our hearts that tightness that we've all felt at some point in time...
The good thing about Vera Hollins' writing? It's light and fluid. It always makes us want to read more and the endings it gives us always leave us wanting more. It's these suspended endings that always leave us full of curiosity and wondering what will happen in the next book. This type of writing is addictive.
I really want to read the next volume and see what happens to Zoe and Carter at the end of it all... Will love or hate win?
Primeiro que tudo, tenho de agradecer à autora, Vera Hollins, por me ter enviado uma cópia de leitura adiantada deste seu primeiro livro da série Hurtful Love e pela sua sempre constante simpatia e disponibilidade sempre que lhe enviava um email.
Este livro apanhou-me de surpresa, tenho de ser sincera. Sei que a autora tem, por hábito, escrever livros com histórias sofridas e traumas enormes, causando ao leitor graves episódios de ansiedade e sofrimento (estou só a brincar)... No entanto, para além da história passada entre o casal principal, temos a história presente que nos causa ainda mais frenesim pois vamos tendo acesso ao que se passou e ao que , devido a uma decisão repentina, está a voltar a acontecer no presente.
Zoe e Carter são as personagens principais deste primeiro livro. Ambos têm dezassete anos e um passado recente muito atribulado e cheio de ressentimentos e mágoas um para com o outro. No entanto, vamos encontrá-los juntos e apaixonados como se aquele passado nunca tivesse acontecido. Acontece que num momento eles estavam bem, e no outro, as coisas mudaram completamente. Num momento eles estão felizes e apaixonados e no outro, por capricho do destino, eles estavam, de novo, um contra o outro, exatamente, ou ainda pior, do que estavam antes de cederem ao amor que os unia.
Sem qualquer lembrança do que acontecera nos últimos dois anos, Carter vê-se, de novo, envolvido numa bolha de ódio e ressentimento para com o pai e para com Zoe e a mãe dela, agora namorada do pai e, consequentemente, sua madrasta. Quando o pai de Carter resolveu seguir em frente depois da morte da sua esposa, dois anos atrás, Carter caiu numa espiral de sofrimento e raiva embatendo de frente com todos os que viviam na sua casa. Contra Zoe ele ainda investia com mais ódio porque sabia que, para além da raiva que tinha por ela, também sentia algo mais. Depois de um acidente, Carter perde a memória e com ela foram os momentos e o amor que sentia por Zoe. Claro que ela, sabendo de tudo o que acontecera, vai lutar com todas as suas forças para ele se lembrar de tudo ou, pelo menos, voltar a conquistá-lo. Se tinha conseguido uma vez, porque não conseguiria a segunda?
Não me quero alongar na minha opinião, ainda mais, mas só vos digo que a luta e o sofrimento dela e, também dele, vão ser tão intensos que chegamos a sentir no coração aquele aperto que já todos sentimos algures no tempo...
O bom da escrita de Vera Hollins? É leve e fluída. Faz-nos querer ler sempre mais e os finais que ela nos proporciona deixa-nos sempre com vontade de mais. São estes finais suspensos que nos deixam sempre cheios de curiosidade e a pensar no que será que vai acontecer no livro seguinte. É viciante esse tipo de escrita.
Quero muito ler o volume seguinte e ver o que acontece com Zoe e Carter, no final de tudo... Será que vence o amor ou o ódio?
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