Title: Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)
Author: Eden Butler
Genre: NA | Contemporary Romance
Release Date: August 31, 2015
Hosted by As the Pages Turn
Synopsis
He doesn’t ask their names.
He doesn’t deserve to know them.
Ransom Riley Hale’s friends think his life is charmed: first string as a freshman on a championship-winning college football team. A father with two Super Bowl rings. A mother with platinum albums and multiple Grammies under her belt. But that brilliant shine on the surface hides the darkness beneath; it’s all Ransom has ever known.
Despite the shadows he walked in, once there was a blinding light fracturing the darkness. It brought the promise of hope and happiness. He’d been careless, filled with pride and stupidity and lost that light. Ripped it from the world.
Now, the shadows are dimming again. Aly King surges into his life threatening to pull him from the darkness. She is everything Ransom can never be again. Her light feels too warm, promises him that there is more waiting for him beyond the shadows.
But the shadows are relentless, resurfacing when he thinks he is safe, and Ransom knows he must keep Aly from them too before he pulls her down into the darkness with him.
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Review
I adore Eden Butler’s writing; there’s something quite lyrical about it, which allows for a smooth read, and the way Butler develops her characters leads readers to truly understand them to their core, which is essential in Ransom and Aly’s story because there’s an immense amount of inner turmoil that both characters experience and in order to grasp all of the self inflicted torment, readers must be aware of what makes the characters who they are – their past experiences, their current mental state, and their innermost feelings.
Ever since I met Ransom in Thin Love, I hoped Butler would write his story, and she did – every tortured, guilt ridden moment of his young adult life is illustrated in Thick Love, and the title exudes Ransom’s book because his thick love nearly destroys him; his parents thick love for Ransom holds him somewhat together, and Aly’s thick love for herself leads her to make difficult decisions – ones that affect way more than just her.
In a way, the ups and downs of Aly and Ransom’s friendship/relationship plays out like a dance – there’s a push and pull between them…a give and take, where sometimes Ransom leads and other times, he needs to be led because his footwork, his mental state of moving forward, can’t quite take him where he needs to go in order to heal.
Butler ensures that readers have a clear perception of Ransom’s state of mind by using his own internal musings and allowing us a clear picture of all that he deals with on a daily basis. The ghost of his past continually haunts him and puts him in a state where the voice inside his head, which I truly believe is his own not who he perceives it to be, taunts him, punishing him for his actions and forcing him to continue to only exist not truly live. Ransom’s feelings of shame, guilt, heartache, and rage resonate off of the pages; readers feel every dark and twisted emotion that travels through Ransom’s thoughts, and we can’t help but want to hug him and shake him at the same time because while what he’s feeling is perfectly natural for the events that occurred, he can’t see what’s standing right in front of him, trying to help him heal and hoping he’ll stop punishing himself.
I absolutely adore badass heroines, and Aly King has more strength and perseverance than so many people who have been through far less than she has in her young life. She doesn’t allow Ransom to deflect or use her as his punching bag. She stands up for herself like she has done for many years, living on her own terms, but there is a softer side of Aly – one that sacrifices herself for everyone else, and while she refuses to chase Ransom, she also doesn’t push for what she wants and needs because she’s used to be in the background.
There are so many lessons to be learned through Ransom and Aly’s journey in Thick Love, and readers witness both of them struggling to understand how to free themselves from the past and feel worthy regardless of the events that happened. Although I’m not particularly happy with how Butler ended Thick Love, I understand why she chose to do so; Ransom and Aly’s relationship was just beginning to develop, but there is still a lot of work to be done, especially because they aren’t necessarily moving in the same direction with what they want to achieve.
And so Ransom and Aly’s complicated dance continues, and readers will have to wait and see if the voices holding them back will be completely dealt with so that they can be free to love each other with nothing standing in their way.
A complimentary copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.
5 poison apples
Excerpt
“Dance with me,” I said. He only stared up at me blankly.
“I don’t feel like practicing.”
“I’m not asking you to practice. I’m asking you to dance.”
Ransom’s body stiffened when I picked up his hand, but he didn’t fight me. “Just be here with me. Me and you and the music.”
We came together in the center of my living room with that slow, soothing music wrapping around us. There was no Kizomba, no prequel to a seduction we both wanted to avoid. There was just Ransom bending low, arms around me, hand taking mine to hold against his chest. After a few seconds, the tension lessened, and his body did not feel as rigid. It felt peaceful, and safe, and simple—just two people, holding each other, swaying to the music.
His mouth hovered near my forehead and as we moved together with no form or practiced steps, Ransom’s grip on my waist got tighter. “I wish I could breathe again. I want that so bad.” The words were whispered, low.
I closed my eyes, reminding myself that I couldn’t touch him.
“Ransom. You can.”
He looked down at me and right then I saw just how lost he was. This realization didn’t come from flippant comments he made to me or desperate excuses I overheard him make. It was all there right in his eyes—the loneliness, the pain, as though each mistake he’d made was etched into the rise of his cheekbones and the worried, faint lines on his forehead. He was still drifting; he had been drifting for so damn long.
The pain in his eyes drew me in. There was nothing I could say that would make his hurt lessen. There was nothing that would take him from the lingering sorrow he’d created for himself. So I didn’t speak, didn’t give him advice I knew he’d never take. I just watched Ransom’s eyes, and felt the slow way he moved. And then with my hand on the back of his neck, I pulled his face towards me, I took his lips, kissing him, pouring into that kiss everything I’d held back from him since we first met.
This is who I am. This is what I want. That voice came from someplace hidden and secret inside me.
It was minutes, minutes of nothing but my mouth on his, nothing but two people finding solace in each other, before
I realized I’d messed up.
He didn’t seem to want me to pull away, but didn’t stop me when I did. Shaking my head, I smoothed the collar on his shirt, unable to look at him. “I’m…modi, Ransom, I’m sorry.”
Ransom pulled my chin up and smoothed his thumb over my cheek, down the slope of my chin before he returned his attention to my eyes. “I don’t think I am.”
It was a moment I thought I’d always wanted. Him looking at me like I was real, like he saw me, finally saw me. I’d seen that look once before, just as Ransom whispered my name and kissed me over and over the first time. It wasn’t the look of someone hopeless. It was open and raw and I realized right then that I’d give anything for Ransom to never stop looking at me.
But this was against our rules. This wasn’t how we were supposed to be. I took his hand, thought of pulling it away from my face but didn’t have the strength, liked how it felt on my face too much. “Friends don’t kiss, Ransom.”
A small nod, and his eyes narrowed. His grip around me tightened. The music around us swelled. “No, they don’t,” he said, still touching my face, inching closer and I knew, right then, he was definitely not my friend.
Books in the Thin Love Series
Thin Love Series Purchase Links → Amazon | Amazon UK | B&N | Kobo | iTunes
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About Eden Butler
Eden Butler is an editor and writer of New Adult Romance and SciFi and Fantasy novels and the nine-times great-granddaughter of an honest-to-God English pirate. This could explain her affinity for rule breaking and rum. Her debut novel, a New Adult, Contemporary (no cliffie) Romance, “Chasing Serenity” launched in October 2013 and quickly became an Amazon bestseller.
When she’s not writing or wondering about her possibly Jack Sparrowesque ancestor, Eden edits, reads and spends way too much time watching rugby, Doctor Who and New Orleans Saints football.
She is currently imprisoned under teenage rule alongside her husband in southeast Louisiana.
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