Wicked Heart by Leisa Rayven

Title: Wicked Heart 

Series: Starcrossed #3 

Author: Leisa Rayven

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Release Date: May 3, 2016

Liam Quinn is talented, gorgeous, and one of the biggest movie stars in the world. 

He's also the only man Elissa Holt has ever truly loved. 

After being out of her life for six years, he and his gorgeous fiancé are set to star in the new Broadway show Elissa is stage managing. The only trouble is, when late night rehearsals bring Elissa and Liam together, the line between what is and what could have been gets blurred, and one moment of weakness will lead to a scandal that echoes around the world.

Elissa knows that falling for Liam again would be a tragedy in the making, but as any good romantic will tell you, love doesn’t always follow the script.

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"Thank you for being my lobster."

I love Bad Romeo and I knew I liked Leisa's writing style. She mixes romance with humor and very hardcore angst. Knowing this I couldn't wait to read Wicked Heart. Wicked Heart is about Ethan's sister Elissa. Elissa Holt is in the theater but she is not an actress. She works as a stage manager. She has sworn off men who are actors since the last few boyfriends who were actors dumped her for another woman. 

The first time she meets Liam Quinn she is enjoying a day out with her best friend Josh. She immediately recognizes that Liam is not like other guys. She feels an immediate attraction to him. Liam is tall, strong, funny and he's freaking gorgeous. Elissa thinks he's safe since he works in construction until the next day when she finds out he is auditioning for the next play she's working on. Elissa is firm in her conviction to stay away from actors. Liam is not easy to forget especially when he makes it clear all bets are off once the play is over.

"Just so you know, I'm going to respect your work ethic and keep my distance while this show is happening, because I agree that working and romancing aren't the best mix. But in two months, when this production is over, all bets are off, and then".."Well, by then I'm sure we're both going to have so much sexual frustration, we'll be begging for relief. And I intend to relieve you, Liss. Over and over again."

As luck would have it, when they finally get together, Liam gets an offer he can refuse, leaving behind Elissa. Soon a broken heart follows.

"Just be with me. Please. We don't have much time left. And I have the strongest feeling that having a part of you is going to be better than having all of anybody else."

Fast forward six years later and Liam is back in the picture, only he's not alone. His fiancée is with him and Elissa will need to work in close contact with both....A disaster waiting to happen.

“If I wasn’t such a selfish asshole, I’d wish for men to fall all over themselves to be with you. I’d want them to flatter you and buy you presents, and dedicate themselves to making you happy. But every time I have those thoughts…every single time, the deepest parts of me know without a doubt that the only man on this planet who could ever make you truly, deeply happy…is me.”

Like I said before Leisa loves to give us angst. It was hard for me not to hate Liam for everything he made Elissa go through. I was upset with him more than once. It almost made me wish Elissa would find someone else who valued her and chose her first. I'm not sure how Leisa did it, but she was able to make me like Liam again, especially with the last few chapters. 

Both characters had great chemistry together. They could be funny but also, they could be super hot together. Between Elissa's honesty and Liam's charm, there was no other way.

"Is that any way to speak to the "hottest man you've ever laid eyes on."

I can't finish my review without saying how much I love Josh. He was my favorite secondary character. He was so good to Elissa. He was always there for her ready to step forward to defend her.

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Wicked Heart by Leisa Rayven

Title: Wicked Heart

Author: Leisa Rayven

Series: Starcrossed, #3

Liam Quinn is talented, gorgeous, and one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

He's also the only man Elissa Holt has ever truly loved.

After being out of her life for six years, he and his gorgeous fiancé are set to star in the new Broadway show Elissa is stage managing. The only trouble is, when late night rehearsals bring Elissa and Liam together, the line between what is and what could have been gets blurred, and one moment of weakness will create a scandal that echoes around the world.

Elissa knows that falling for Liam again would be a tragedy in the making, but as any good romantic will tell you, love doesn’t always follow the script.

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Writing has always been a passion for Leisa, and even though she originally intended to be an actress, it wasn’t long into her time at drama school that she began writing plays.

Those plays were bad. Very bad. Well, her friends thought they were good, but that’s because they were always cast in them and any opportunity to be on stage was met with an obnoxious amount of enthusiasm.

Since then, she’s honed her craft, and several of her plays have been produced and toured throughout Australia.

These days, playwriting has given way to fiction writing, and Leisa’s debut novel, BAD ROMEO, will be available in a worldwide release through Macmillan Publishing in December 2014.

Leisa lives in Australia with her husband, two little boys, three cats, and a kangaroo named Howard.

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Broken Juliet (Starcrossed #2) by Leisa Rayven

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This is the conclusion of Cassie and Ethan’s love story.

Ethan is determined to get Cassie back. He broke her heart twice. He was not ready to be in a relationship. He had trust issues and the first couple of times he couldn’t move forward. In the time apart, Ethan realized his mistake and he made sure to get help. He has been able to overcome his issues with the help of a therapist. His intentions are clear. He is here for her and no one else. 

On the other hand, Cassie is the one who’s unsure of letting herself fall in love with him again. In the past she opened her heart twice and the only thing she gained was pain. She was broken. She lost herself and when he left her the second time she thought they were done forever. In the present, this new Ethan is so different, so sure of them. If only he could make her believe it too. 

~~

I love Bad Romeo, it was of my top favorite books of 2014. I loved everything about it. I loved it so much that I was scared to read Juliet. What if this second book didn’t measure up to it? What if I didn’t find it as entertaining as I did Bad Romeo?  All those doubts and my high expectations made me so leery of reading it. 

In the end I’m happy that I liked it. I think the author did a great job at making us see why Ethan was so scared to love her. His diary was in a way his own POV. And don’t get me started with the Ethan in the present. He was amazing. He was so sure of his feelings. He was supportive, tender and caring. He waited until Cassie was ready for him. 

In regards to Cassie, I don’t blame her one bit for wanting to protect her heart. Ethan has broken it too many times. I’m glad she gave him a third chance although in real life I will have told her to loose his number. However, there is no denying that these two characters were meant to be together. Their love and passion for each other was always there. Ultimately, love sometimes can conquer it all. 

I’m glad that Leisa is not done with this world and soon we’ll have a different couple to angst about. 

Cliffhanger: No 

Favorite Quotes:

“Yes, I enjoyed it. A lot. You were, without a doubt, the best I’ve ever had. But thinking about it right now isn’t going to end well for me. So please, for the love of inconvenient boners everywhere, let it go.”

“Yes, I love you. But you have no idea how many times I’ve wished I didn’t.”

“<Really want to tell you I love you, but I’m not going to. How hard am I rocking this ‘taking it slow’ thing, huh? (Please don’t take out a restraining order.)>”

 “I look like Hagrid if he’d been electrocuted in a wind tunnel. Ethan’s looking at me as if he’d like to do very bad things to Hagrid.”

“I mean, you’ve always smelled like sex to me, but today … you smell like the very definition of incredible, earth-moving, seeing-the-face-of-God sex.”

“You’ve met me, right? I’m Ethan. Late-night drunk-dialer. Compulsive ass-groper. Shameless boob-ogler. Forever-erect-in-your-presence serial masturbator. How the hell could I possibly outgrow that? If anything, it’s gotten worse over the years. Did you not just witness me coming from you fondling my cock for less than three minutes?”

“No buts. If our relationship was only based only on sex, do you think we’d have gone through all the shit we have? Sex is easy. It’s an itch that needs to be scratched, and as much as I love having sex with you, what I want from you isn’t easy. It’s messy and complicated, and it’s filled with so much fucking passion, I don’t have a clue how to cope with it all. But I find a way, because I love you. And love is hard, but it’s worth it. You’re worth it. And I hope one day you’ll realize I’m worth it, too.”

“You had a huge impact on Ethan. No doubt, in the story of his life, you’ve left your mark everywhere. It’s unfortunate that a lot of other people did as well. Ethan made a choice to delete their contributions and only keep the things that made him stronger. He reprinted himself, if you like. The only person who was capable of doing that was Ethan. Just like the only person who can rewrite your story and how it ends is you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

 “In a nutshell, it says ‘Make Cassie smile every day and tell her you love her even when she doesn’t want to hear it.’”

“The thing is, if people were books, Ethan would be a bestseller. A sexy, intelligent, page-turner you’d find hard to put down, even after it reduced you to a sobbing mess.”

 “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to forget I called you my girlfriend. I’m going to take you back to my place, peel off your clothes, and make sweet love to you until you beg me to stop. At no time will I repeat the ‘girlfriend’ comment, nor pressure you about labeling our relationship. Which should be labeled ‘fucking awesome,’ by the way. I’m just happy to be where we are.”

“Together.

Writing our own unconventional and dramatic love story, one page at a time.”

4.5/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"There is beauty born from tragedy. Look at these precious fault lines of experience."

It kills me that I didn’t love this book. What I expected to be an epic read after my love for Bad Romeo turned out to be nothing but a major disappointment. I don’t know if I built my expectation up too high or if I wasn’t in the right mindset, but either way this just didn’t work for me. The whole story felt pointless.

Broken Juliet picks up right where Bad Romeo left off.  With Ethan trying to convince Cassie that he’s changed and they belong together. With the time period once again switching between past and present, we get to see what made Ethan walk out on Cassie not once, but twice before. I thought his reasons were lame and I couldn't help but to think she was weak for taking him back so easily. I’m just not sure why there needed to be a whole book centered around why he broke her heart. Seems to me this could have been revealed in the first book and saved us from this mess.

Three years later, they’ve basically reversed roles. She’s the broken one and he’s trying to convince her they can make a relationship work. He’s been celibate and gone to therapy, which somehow morphed him into a totally different person. He lost the edge that made me love him in the first place.  I just didn’t like the overly perfect Ethan, him convincing her to go to therapy and the journals.  Some of the entires made me cringe, they were so corny. 

"Do you feel this?" he whispers. "This is what makes us keep coming back, despite everything we've gone through.  This is why I had to change, and why, despite how much I hurt you, you can't walk away. The way we sink into each other. The way I can't tell my heartbeat from yours. We have this perfect rhythm, whenever we're together, and that's the essence of us."

I’m happy to see that so many of my book friends loved this one.  I wish I had felt the same way.  The passion and excitement that was so prevalent in the first book wasn’t there for me in this one. I just didn’t see the two characters that I fell for in Bad Romeo.  

3/5 Fangs

*Complimentary copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*