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Review: One With You (Crossfire #5) by Sylvia Day

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Title: One With You
Author: Sylvia Day
Publisher/Year:  St Martin’s Press 4/5/16
Length:   480 pages
Series:  Crossfire #5

Overview

Gideon Cross. Falling in love with him was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. It happened instantly. Completely. Irrevocably.

Marrying him was a dream come true. Staying married to him is the fight of my life. Love transforms. Ours is both a refuge from the storm and the most violent of tempests. Two damaged souls entwined as one.

We have bared our deepest, ugliest secrets to one another. Gideon is the mirror that reflects all my flaws … and all the beauty I couldn’t see. He has given me everything. Now, I must prove I can be the rock, the shelter for him that he is for me. Together, we could stand against those who work so viciously to come between us.

But our greatest battle may lie within the very vows that give us strength. Committing to love was only the beginning. Fighting for it will either set us free … or break us apart.

My Thoughts

so, to be clear, i’ve spent the last week re-reading all of the books that preceded this one in the series to make sure that i knew EVERYTHING and didn’t miss a detail, just knowing that we’d get an amazing finale to this series that we’ve all been invested in.  What i have to say is that there were twists and turns that i wasn’t expecting at all, and some of which surprised me to the point where i’m deeply upset, but still pleased with how things turned out.

As you recall, we’re at the point in the series where Gideon and Eva are married, but they aren’t in a great place just yet.  there are people coming at them from every angle, and it seems like they’ll never catch enough of a break to help build a strong relationship together.  If that weren’t enough, it seems like Cary still has his issues w/ his relationships, and all of the supporting cast have more complications coming their way.

So this journey in book 5, we get to see the process in strengthening Gideon and Eva, in the hopes that they can find a good balance personally and professionally.  I feel like we want to see Eva test him more and more, but there’s a huge part of me that really wants to see Gideon catch a break since he’s being pushed further than ever before and it’s not something that can be changed overnight.  Thankfully there’s the trusty Dr Peterson who will help them wade through.

What we do get here is an interesting depth to the relationships of family.  We see that there’s still hate and discontent between Eva and Gideon’s mom – and we can’t tell throughout if that will ever be resolved.  We do however see an interesting change in how the relationship is with Chris – Gideon’s stepfather.  And then how that has an impact on Christopher.  Ireland gets to spend more time with her brother and it’s nice to see how that evolution happens in this book – since we saw the beginnings of that last book.

Then there’s the issues that we see with Stanton, Monica and Eva.  There’s so much complexity there, and the paths that we see each go through in this finale is really impressive – they find a good way to make each other happy without sacrificing too much.

What i do have to say though is that there’s a lot that’s uncovered here.  Someone isn’t who they seem, and that’s something potentially catastrophic.  Then there’s the fact that there were secrets hidden or made up about another supporting character and i wonder what impact that will have in the future.  We see revocations and moves, we see deaths and new relationships, and yet we’re also left with some unanswered questions – not that they have huge impacts on the outcomes of things.

All in all, i’m incredibly pleased with how this series was wrapped up, but quite sad since i really love the level of passion and investment that Eva and Gideon have.  they give you hope on how to manage a tough relationship, yet they don’t sugar coat things.  they have this chemistry that leaps off the pages, and you want to see yourself in each of them, since you realize that they make the other better, stronger.  So on that note, thank you Sylvia Day for giving us the closure to this story that it deserves, and i’ll still always wish that there was more coming.

Review: Captivated by You (Crossfire #4) by Sylvia Day

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Title: Captivated by You
Author: Sylvia Day
Publisher/Year: Penguin Group 11/18/14
Length: 368
Series: Crossfire #4

Overview

Gideon calls me his angel, but he’s the miracle in my life. My gorgeous, wounded warrior, so determined to slay my demons while refusing to face his own.

The vows we’d exchanged should have bound us tighter than blood and flesh. Instead they opened old wounds, exposed pain and insecurities, and lured bitter enemies out of the shadows. I felt him slipping from my grasp, my greatest fears becoming my reality, my love tested in ways I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to bear.

At the brightest time in our lives, the darkness of his past encroached and threatened everything we’d worked so hard for. We faced a terrible choice: the familiar safety of the lives we’d had before each other or the fight for a future that suddenly seemed an impossible and hopeless dream…

My Thoughts

I don’t know about everyone else (although i’m pretty sure that many agree), we’ve been WAITING FAR TOO LONG for this continuation of the series.  but, i’m so excited to be back in the world of Gideon and Eva – since nothing is ever dull.  We pick right back up with these 2 and if you thought that their lives were complicated before with ghosts and people trying to get in the way, you’re in for something new.

Before i get into the meat of the story, there’s something that i have to say about our author.  What i find to be challenging sometimes with other series is that authors have trouble sticking to the heart of what makes us love characters and what makes a dynamic exciting.  Sylvia Day doesn’t have that problem – at least with these 2.  We’ve been with them now for 4 installments and the passion and pain and chemistry and all of those other deep emotions are still there, raw and at the surface and that’s something that makes you really want to keep reading.  (even if you didn’t want to – and that’s def not the case here).

So back to the story – we pick up with Gideon and Eva back from their secret wedding and they’re trying to get back into the thick of life without making any waves with others since they want to do things at their own pace.  Once people learn of their engagement, they find that they are facing mixed emotions, but that’s the least of their problems.

If you’ll remember, at the end of Entwined by You, Eva thinks that she’s see Anne Lucas at an event – seducing Cary of all people, but she’s not sure.  Well, i think that it’s safe to say that once Gideon gets wind of that notion, things get ugly, and while we don’t even get to the crux of what Anne’s got planned in this 4th book, you know that it’s going to be good.  she’s got a vendetta against him and i think that we’re going to see things get bad fast.

The undertone of this story really is that Gideon feels that he’s off his game and that everyone that he’s ever wronged is coming after him since his focus is now on Eva – and that means that they are all going to go THROUGH Eva.  While we know that Eva’s a strong woman, i think that there has to be a breaking point for her, and we actually see that happen at various points and in varying degrees here.

Corinne’s back and has her own agenda, as does Brett.  While i think that both are rather minor in comparison to the love that Gideon and Eva have, it still makes a challenge of things just when they want to settle in.

In addition to this main story line, we also get to see a few things come and go.  First being Cary’s ‘baby’. situation.  While it seemed to me like it would play a bigger role in this book, it hasn’t really . we know that it’s stressing him out, coming in between his relationship with Trey and all that, but there’s really not much movement on that piece.  the other bit though is that we see Gideon’s relationship with his step-father change drastically because of information revealed and i’m curious to see how that affects things in the next installment.  I have a feeling that Chris will become a big help in a situation down the line, but what that is, i’m not quite sure.

Regardless of all that, we get the same tension that we’ve come to love with these 2.  It’s hot and sexy, there;s so much passion between these 2 that you can’t help but to get turned on just by their scening.  Gideon has some very specific habits that Eva begins to see more of and it’s HOT.  i can’t wait to see what’s next for them, and i’m really hoping that we get the same roller coaster that we’ve gotten in all of the books so far since it makes for some great reading.  I hope you guys enjoy!