This time I'm participating in a blog tour organized by with AToMR Tours. Help me welcome Eva Márquez and her two books: Sweetest Taboo and Tainted Love!
Review
Sweetest Taboo
by Eva MárquezSeries: Sweetest Taboo #1
Release date: 1st October, 2012
Publisher: Terra-Mía Press
Pages: 295 (eARC received for blog tour in exchange of an honest review)
Summary from Goodreads:
Isabel Cruz was fifteen years old when she met Tom Stevens. She was 15 when they started dating, and 16 when she lost her virginity to him. By the time she turned 18 and went to college, everything had fallen apart.
This hadn’t been an ordinary love, though. Not a love between two dear friends, or even high school sweethearts. This had been the most taboo sort of love there was: a relationship between a student and her teacher. Isabel started her high school career as a normal student, but set her sights on Tom Stevens as soon as she met him, and pursued him with an intense – and sometimes reckless – fascination. When he finally approached her after swim practice and told her that he shared her feelings, it was the start of a forbidden and dangerous relationship.
Join Isabel as she makes her way through this dark love story, hiding from teachers, lying to her parents, and defying the authorities to make a life with the man she loves. Watch as she discovers the wonders of love and romance, and the terrible betrayal of jealous friends. And cry with her when she learns the hard truth about life and the people in her world.
Sweetest Taboo is inspired by the true and tragic stories of students who fall in love with their teachers, and live with the hard truths of forbidden romances. In a world full of after-school specials on sexual predators, this touching book seeks a different path, casting both student and teacher in a gentle light, and showing that true love may lie at the base of even the most illicit romance.
Isabel Cruz was fifteen years old when she met Tom Stevens. She was 15 when they started dating, and 16 when she lost her virginity to him. By the time she turned 18 and went to college, everything had fallen apart.
This hadn’t been an ordinary love, though. Not a love between two dear friends, or even high school sweethearts. This had been the most taboo sort of love there was: a relationship between a student and her teacher. Isabel started her high school career as a normal student, but set her sights on Tom Stevens as soon as she met him, and pursued him with an intense – and sometimes reckless – fascination. When he finally approached her after swim practice and told her that he shared her feelings, it was the start of a forbidden and dangerous relationship.
Join Isabel as she makes her way through this dark love story, hiding from teachers, lying to her parents, and defying the authorities to make a life with the man she loves. Watch as she discovers the wonders of love and romance, and the terrible betrayal of jealous friends. And cry with her when she learns the hard truth about life and the people in her world.
Sweetest Taboo is inspired by the true and tragic stories of students who fall in love with their teachers, and live with the hard truths of forbidden romances. In a world full of after-school specials on sexual predators, this touching book seeks a different path, casting both student and teacher in a gentle light, and showing that true love may lie at the base of even the most illicit romance.
Review By Alaiel Kreuz:
Seems like lately books full of controversy are my thing and Sweetest Taboo is about one of the most controversial situations out there: a relationship between a student and a teacher.
Thruth to be told when I read the summary I imagined something slightly different: a 15 year old girl that falls in love with the youngest teacher and therefore they have to hide their love, bla, bla, bla. As you can see, I imagined the easy situation but what I really found was completely different.
This book is more of a memoir and as so Isabel, the main character, begins her story when she was 15 and as most teenagers do has a crush on the Swim coach, Tom Stevens. Until now everything is pretty normal... except for the fact that he is in his late 30s, is married and has two daughters.
Yes. All that. And when he notices Isabel's attraction towards him he decides to go for it.
As you can imagine, the next pages are about their secret affair, their love towards each other and the lies they have to tell in order to keep their relationship a secret. In this aspect Isabel's behavior is very mature and most of the time she is the one that puts some sense into things.
One thing I enjoyed very much was to see Isabel mature throughout the book because everything begins when she is 15 but by the end of the book she is already 18.
As for Tom, my feelings toward him are mixed. I do believe he loves Isabel but to what extension I'm not sure. He cares for her a lot and as far as sex is concerned he never pushed her and always waited for her to be ready. But then again, he was married and had two daughters. See? I like him -kind of- and at the same time I want to punch him for being so damn irresponsible.
Eva Márquez writing was well structured and elegant, situations were told with respect and there wasn't a single moment for me to think this was an erotic book. She describes perfectly the way a 15 year old thinks and from there evolves flawlessly while rising the normal questions: Is Tom taking advantage of Isabel? Does he truly loves her? Is it possible for this to be real love? I often found myself thinking that not long ago girls like my grandma married men that doubled their age and it was normal. But times change and now society sees these relationships as disgusting.
At the end of the day you will have to be the one to answers all those questions.
Do I recommend the book? Yes, I do. Do I think everybody will like it? No, I don't think so, it depends of how you see things and while some people will think it's interesting other people will think it's horrible.
Alaiel's Rating:
If you really liked it, you can order it here:
Review
Tainted Love
by Eva MárquezSeries: Sweetest Taboo #2
Release date: 5th March, 2013
Publisher: Terra-Mía Press
Pages: 310 (eARC received for blog tour in exchange of an honest review)
Summary from Goodreads:
“My name is Isabel Cruz, and I’m nineteen years old, almost twenty. I go to Lincoln University where I’m majoring in English. I’m a straight-A student, and I know what I’m doing with my life, but things weren’t always that way. Or rather, I’ve always known what I wanted, and it just hasn’t always gone along with society’s views. In high school, I had an affair with my swim coach. I wanted him, and I took what I wanted. We were together until I graduated, but he had a wife and kids, and I left him behind to come here. I left everything behind to come here. At least that’s what I thought.”
Isabel was never like the other girls at her school in the sleepy town of Hillside, California. At sixteen she fell in love with Tom, a married swim coach at Royal Oaks High School; their exhilarating and sultry affair continuing in secret for several years. Finally, Isabel realized that her own future had to come first, but even after relocating to Washington, D.C. to study at Lincoln University, she finds herself still wracked by guilt over jeopardizing the happiness and security of Tom’s young family. Now almost in her twenties and desperate to start a new chapter in her life, free from past controversies, Isabel will once again find that her beauty and precociousness will captivate another older man, this time a professor at her university. Confronted by this burgeoning affair, Isabel realizes just how deeply she still loves Tom and, in spite of the disapproval of her hometown community, her feelings become too strong to deny.
When Isabel returns to Hillside, reunited with Tom, she feels herself falling for him all over again, only this time with the tantalizing promise that things could really work out for them, especially since she is no longer the naive teen she used to be. But all is not as it seems; Isabel begins to hear rumors about Tom’s involvement with other girls at Royal Oaks High. Quickly this salacious gossip leaks to the local media and the authorities begin to investigate the claims. Only then does the true gravity of Isabel’s misguided choices begin to profoundly affect those around her and threaten to derail her life completely.
Tainted Love is the thrilling follow up to Sweetest Taboo by Eva Marquez, and rejoins Isabel Cruz as she tries to put her complex and forbidden romance with Tom behind her. Written from the perspectives of both Isabel and Tom, the irrational and desperate love they share is brought to vivid life by Marquez. Inspired by the conviction of one of her former high school teachers for sexual misconduct with a minor, it addresses a poignant modern taboo, one that is becoming increasingly common in the US, with unnerving insight and precision. Tainted Love is a must read for young adults, their parents and all fans of romantic fiction.
“My name is Isabel Cruz, and I’m nineteen years old, almost twenty. I go to Lincoln University where I’m majoring in English. I’m a straight-A student, and I know what I’m doing with my life, but things weren’t always that way. Or rather, I’ve always known what I wanted, and it just hasn’t always gone along with society’s views. In high school, I had an affair with my swim coach. I wanted him, and I took what I wanted. We were together until I graduated, but he had a wife and kids, and I left him behind to come here. I left everything behind to come here. At least that’s what I thought.”
Isabel was never like the other girls at her school in the sleepy town of Hillside, California. At sixteen she fell in love with Tom, a married swim coach at Royal Oaks High School; their exhilarating and sultry affair continuing in secret for several years. Finally, Isabel realized that her own future had to come first, but even after relocating to Washington, D.C. to study at Lincoln University, she finds herself still wracked by guilt over jeopardizing the happiness and security of Tom’s young family. Now almost in her twenties and desperate to start a new chapter in her life, free from past controversies, Isabel will once again find that her beauty and precociousness will captivate another older man, this time a professor at her university. Confronted by this burgeoning affair, Isabel realizes just how deeply she still loves Tom and, in spite of the disapproval of her hometown community, her feelings become too strong to deny.
When Isabel returns to Hillside, reunited with Tom, she feels herself falling for him all over again, only this time with the tantalizing promise that things could really work out for them, especially since she is no longer the naive teen she used to be. But all is not as it seems; Isabel begins to hear rumors about Tom’s involvement with other girls at Royal Oaks High. Quickly this salacious gossip leaks to the local media and the authorities begin to investigate the claims. Only then does the true gravity of Isabel’s misguided choices begin to profoundly affect those around her and threaten to derail her life completely.
Tainted Love is the thrilling follow up to Sweetest Taboo by Eva Marquez, and rejoins Isabel Cruz as she tries to put her complex and forbidden romance with Tom behind her. Written from the perspectives of both Isabel and Tom, the irrational and desperate love they share is brought to vivid life by Marquez. Inspired by the conviction of one of her former high school teachers for sexual misconduct with a minor, it addresses a poignant modern taboo, one that is becoming increasingly common in the US, with unnerving insight and precision. Tainted Love is a must read for young adults, their parents and all fans of romantic fiction.
Review By Alaiel Kreuz:
And Eva Márquez does it again. I'm not even sure how but her writing is so captivating that I couldn't put Tainted Love down for a mere second. The plot continues almost were we left it and the whole situation has changed.
I don't want to spoiled things for anybody so I'm going to try to keep things simple. Now Isabel is in her freshman year and is trying to leave her past behind, not because she is ashamed of it but because she wonders if they handled things well.
Isabel is a woman now, almost 20 years old, in a new city and eager to find her place in the big world. The only problem is that she misses Tom.
And Tom misses her a lot. How do I know? Well, Eva Márquez wrote from his PV too and I loved it. Now all those questions I had while reading Sweetest Taboo were answered and I understand Tom so much better now. The way he describes Isabel and his feelings for her were so sincere, so full of love that it's impossible to think he doesn't really love her. On the other side, does Isabel really loves him now?
In this book so many things have changed that right now I'm kind of angry with Isabel and the lack of communication between the two of them. New rumours about Tom and younger girls reach Isabel when she finally goes home and the truth behind those will rock her world. At the same time another relationship with a teacher, now at her college, begins for Isabel and things become very confusing.
I want their love to surpass everything but is real life like that? Will they get a happy ending? I can't wait to read the third book to have all the final answers I so much need.
Alaiel's Rating:
If you really liked it, you can order it here:
You can find Eva Márquez here:
Twitter // Facebook // Official Web
Remember to Follow the Tour
No comments:
Post a Comment
Something to share? (cheese would be awesome!) I love to read your comments :]