Dirty Red by Tarryn Fisher (Love Me with Lies #2)
Dear Opportunist, You thought you could take him from me, but you lost. Now, that he's mine I'll do anything to keep him. Do you doubt me? I have everything that was supposed to be yours. In case you were wondering; he doesn't ever think about you anymore. I won't let him go....ever. Dirty Red Leah Smith finally has everything she has ever wanted. Except she doesn't. Her marriage feels more like a loan than a lifelong commitment, and the image she has worked so hard to build is fraying before her eyes. With a new role and a past full of secrets, Leah must decide how far she is willing to go to keep what she has stolen.
Kindle Edition, 278 pages
Published December 20, 2012
Current Goodreads Rating: 4.21 Stars
I would like to write a novel that every, single person loves, but not even J.K. Rowling could do that. Instead, I try to write stories that pull on people's emotions. I believe that sadness is the most powerful emotion, and swirled with regret the two become a dominating force. I love villains. Three of my favorites are Mother Gothel, Gaston and the Evil Queen who all suffered from a pretty wicked case of vanity (like me). I like to make these personality types the center of my stories.
I love rain, Coke, Starbucks and sarcasm. I hate bad adjectives and the word "smolder". If you read my book-I love you. If you hate my book-I still love you, but please don't be mean to me; I'm half badass, half cry baby.
This was my favorite of the three in the Love Me with Lies series. The treachery, deceit, and the LIES ranged from disgusting to down right entertaining at how the author could fit that many into such a small book. Leah was written so well though that I wondered how someone could capture a character like that so flawlessly? Was it all just her creative imagination or had the author suffered from postpartum or had any similar circumstances to inspire this dirty red character?
The disgust towards Leah was intoxicating and almost palpable, yet as soon as you were about to blackout in hate, the author would provide you a little insight that would melt away some of that dislike. For me, I spent the entire story trying to figure out if I should feel bad for Leah or hate her, and I think that was the point because that's exactly what Caleb was doing.
Very well written, extremely entertaining and more of a drama and psychological guessing game than any romance I've read. I love an author who can make me hate someone, but apparently that was too easy for Tarryn because she provided me with a character I was supposed to hate but couldn't. Blue balls from wanting to hate a character, but never getting quite there. Very interesting feeling.
"I file through all of the other emotional bombs I can drop on him. I have told so many lies that I have an entire buffet of shadiness to choose from. I pluck out the worst one and rub my chin on my shoulder. This one will hurt him, probably deeper than anything that I could do or say about Olivia. Ready … set …"
“I wanted what Olivia had and threw away — someone who adores me even though my insides curl and lash like a poisonous snake.” "I knew what a woman with a secret looked like; I stared at one in the mirror every day. Women wore their secrets in their eyes, and if you paid attention you would catch glimpses of sharp emotion, pooling through in regular conversation.” “I had a second — no — a fraction of a second where I wanted to hug her. Then, it was gone and I wanted her to die and rot in the ground.” "Go back to your husband, before he realizes that he’s still in love with me.”
"I felt like he’d dropped me from the highest building. Shattered. Every part of me. He was a liar. He was a thief."
"Caleb always said just enough to leave you feeling both incredibly charmed and wondering exactly what he was getting at. Seth spewed truth like it was Old Faithful: too much, too fast, too hard. No wonder no one ever spoke to him."
"Human eyes are the sign language of the brain. If you watch them carefully, you can see the truth played out, raw and unguarded."
“I didn’t choose her,” his voice breaks. “Love is illogical. You fall into it like a manhole. Then you’re just stuck. You die in love more than you live in love.”