Title: Destroyed
Author: Pepper Winters
Genre: Dark (Lighter) / Romance (Grey Romance)
Release Date: March 7, 2014
Tour Hosted by: As the Pages Turn
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*Synopsis*
She has a secret.
I’m complicated. Not broken or ruined or running from a past I can’t face. Just complicated.
I thought my life couldn’t get any more tangled in deceit and confusion. But I hadn’t met him. I hadn't realized how far I could fall or what I'd do to get free.
He has a secret.
I’ve never pretended to be good or deserving. I chase who I want, do what I want, act how I want.
I didn’t have time to lust after a woman I had no right to lust after. I told myself to shut up and stay hidden. But then she tried to run. I’d tasted what she could offer me and damned if I would let her go.
One secret destroys them.
Buy Links - Destroyed
Reviewed by Carmie Varela
Destroyed: put an end to the existence of something by damaging or attacking it.
Is it possible to eradicate all goodness from a person? Obsidian Fox (a.k.a. Fox) knows that it is; he knows it because he is empty inside after years of “programming” to become the perfect killer. He was stolen from his family at a young age, deprived of human affections and contact, tortured and starved until he would follow his handler’s instructions. The blood of the innocent and not-so-innocent stain his hands. Every scar a reminder of the heinous acts he was instructed to perform. He is dead inside; he doesn’t feel anything anymore. He doesn’t want to take the poison pill yet – he’s not ready to end it all yet. He can’t even tolerate the touch of another person. He’s not sure why he is sticking around, but while he does, he spends his nights running his exclusive fight club.
It becomes clearer once he lays eyes on Hazel Hunter. Hazel is with her friend Clue and Clue’s boyfriend Corkscrew (a.k.a Ben) at the fight club appropriately named Obsidian. “Women meant nothing to me. I neither wanted them nor needed them. But the instant my eyes landed on thick mahogany waves draping over porcelain shoulders, I wanted with a ferocity that I’d never felt before.” He couldn’t look away – he needed to keep watching her like he needed air to breath. “The longer I looked the more I noticed: weakness, anger, strength, resilience, but beneath it all, the same raging confusion that lurked inside me. The same helplessness for a life we couldn’t do anything about.”
Hazel felt his eyes on her and couldn’t help wanting him as he walked on past. Her body sparked with physical attraction which she tries to ignore. The last time she bowed to her bodies demands was eight log years ago and resulted in her daughter Clara. Clara is her reason for being. That helplessness that Fox saw in her eyes is Clara dying from cancer – she has a short time left.
Fox corners Hazel at the club and gets her to agree to be available to him at all times in exchange for $200,000 half payable now and half payable later. For Hazel this is a godsend – she has a chance to get investigational medicine for Clara that will prolong her life. For Fox it’s his last chance at being normal – he hopes his attraction for her will override his programming. Things get off to a rocky start with Hazel and Fox – towels are ready to be thrown in when Clue brings Clara to Obsidian and Clara meets Fox. Hazel did not tell Fox about Clara and he doesn’t about her illness.
“This girl was everything I needed. Everything I was running from and to, and I didn’t even know it. Her sweet fearlessness clutched my heart and in a matter of moments, she’d monopolized my every thought. My gravity shifted. I fell madly fucking in love. I knew I shouldn’t do it. I knew I should run and never look back. But I didn’t.”
Clara instantly likes Fox as much as he likes her. Fox talks Hazel and Clara into staying with him for a while. Hazel knows that every minute that ticks by could be the last for Clara. How is Hazel going to tell Fox the little girl that is helping heal him is dying? How is Fox going to take – will he go off the deep end again? You’ll need to read the book to find out.
I liked the writing style of Pepper. Loved the characters! Liked the story line even more. Really like the fact that it wasn’t a HEA like life. Reading this book I went from one extreme of the emotion scale to the other. I felt the author’s words so deeply inside.
Back to the definition of destroyed – sometimes you damage things so much they break into pieces and when you re-assemble them, you find the recreation is so much better than what you started with. It’s like a metamorphosis. One might be able to say that Pepper destroyed these clean and blank pages with ink and scribbles – I say she created a masterpiece!
I DIDN’T BELIEVE HER WHEN SHE SAID SHE WAS COMPLICATED.
SHE DIDN’T BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAID I HAD SECRETS
I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH, EVEN WHEN SHE LET ME GLIMPSE BEHIND HER MASK.
SHE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THAT I COULDN’T LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES.
SHE THOUGHT I WAS A SINNER.
TOO BAD WE DIDN’T TRY TO FIND THE TRUTH.
WE BOTH PAID THE PRICE.
WE DESTROYED EACH OTHER.
I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. In one move, Fox gave everything that he was. He bared his soul; he dropped every barrier, so we could understand him better.
I hated myself in that moment for keeping so much from him. For judging him. For not understanding or granting more compassion.--HAZEL
*About Pepper*
Pepper Winters wears many roles. Some of them include writer, reader, sometimes wife. She loves dark, taboo stories that twist with your head. The more tortured the hero the better and she constantly thinks up ways to break and fix her characters. Oh, and sex… her books have sex.
She loves to travel and has an amazing, fabulous hubby (who speaks French—hot!) who puts up with her love affair with her book boyfriends. She loves to hear from her readers so hit her up at pepperwinters@gmail.com
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