{"id":46043,"date":"2019-09-10T09:52:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T13:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=46043"},"modified":"2019-09-10T10:08:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T14:08:52","slug":"audio-review-arranged-by-r-k-lilley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=46043","title":{"rendered":"Review: Arranged by R.K. Lilley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook\u00a0<\/a> |\u00a0 Paperback\u00a0<\/a> |\u00a0 Audio<\/a><\/b><\/h4>\n
\n

\r\n <\/div><\/div><\/b><\/h4>\n
\n

Review<\/b><\/h4>\n

3.5 messed up stars<\/b><\/p>\n

I was so excited when I saw that R.K. Lilley was coming out with a new book. And a standalone! Like a lot of other readers, I\u2019m a big fan of R.K. Lilley\u2019s early work. I loved the Up in the Air<\/a> series, and Tristan and Danika\u2019s angst-filled mess of a relationship (Tristan & Danika<\/a>) is still a favourite and holds a very special place in my heart. Lilley doesn\u2019t shy away from unconventional relationships, and she\u2019s given us a doozy with this one!<\/p>\n

Just a warning \u2013 before diving into this book throw away your judgements, your common sense, and your dreams for a heart-pounding and emotional romance. Instead, embrace the hot sex, the enemies-to-lovers\/arranged marriage trope and the soap opera-worthy drama, and try not to judge.<\/p>\n

Noura is an 18 year old model who has sold her virginity and herself into marriage. Doing it for no other reason than just to set herself up financially and securely after a difficult and painful childhood. Good for her. Banks is her groom, who has agreed to the marriage at the insistence of his father, so that he can get his hands on his family\u2019s billions. It\u2019s not sunshine and roses, he doesn\u2019t treat her well, there is even true hatred there. But there is also a sizzling sexual chemistry. Banks does his best to ignore his new bride, but when his father forces him to at least have some sort of contact with her, that chemistry ignites, and they soon find themselves unable to keep their hands off each other.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a messy situation because there\u2019s no actual feelings between them, and they don\u2019t really like each other that much, but physically, they can\u2019t get enough. The sex is hot and steamy as always, and as Banks becomes increasingly possessive and protective over Noura, rocking her world with each and every encounter, she begins to fall for him.<\/p>\n

I really like Noura. She\u2019s been through a lot, and she\u2019s very mature for her age. She understands how things are and she goes with the flow, and she deals with it all sensibly. She\u2019s agreed to the terms of her marriage but she\u2019s not afraid to live her own life, and I really like the way she balanced Banks\u2019 expectations with her own needs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a really twisted dynamic between them. You can see that Banks has a lot going on in his tormented mind, and I really appreciated the chapters from his POV that gave us glimpses into that, because he really is unlikable. He has his moments of protectiveness which were fun to see, as was his blatant (initially unwanted, eventually embraced), lust for his wife, but on the whole he treats Noura appallingly! She takes it because it\u2019s what she signed up for, and also presumably because he gives her earth shattering orgasms that leave her a shuddering puddle of goo on the bed. She does fall in love with him, though honestly, I don\u2019t know why. Outside of his epic bedrooms skills, and his alpha possessiveness that could be interpreted into some sort of feeling of attraction, the guy is an asshole. A sexy, growly, broody asshole, yes, but still an asshole.<\/p>\n

And still, I was hooked! I wanted to see the shift as their relationship went from arranged to something more<\/i>, and it was happening, but then comes the drama. Of course there is drama! And while it was frustrating, it did serve to push the story forward, and I was caught up as it all unfolded.<\/p>\n

And then the warning\u2026 There\u2019s a pretty big trigger which will turn a lot of people off, but I do have some thoughts on that\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/span>Spoiler<\/div>
Yes, Banks cheats on Noura. With his ex-fianc\u00e9e, who is a complete troll. We don\u2019t find out about it until towards the end of the book, and it happened within the first month that they were married. But let\u2019s just put this into context:<\/p>\n
    \n
  • Neither of them have any feelings towards each other when they get married, in fact they had barely spent any time together at all.<\/li>\n
  • Noura knows that Banks is marrying her against his will, and he is blatantly open about that fact.<\/li>\n
  • Noura goes into the marriage knowing that Banks will have other relationships and that she\u2019ll just need to ignore it \u2013 it\u2019s written into the marriage contract – and she agrees to this.<\/li>\n
  • Yes, the cheating happens after they\u2019ve \u2018been\u2019 together, but their wedding night is perfunctory and clinical (and actually kind of uncomfortable to read), after which she leaves her new husband in bed and runs to the bathroom and throws up. She doesn\u2019t even see Banks again until a month later.<\/li>\n
  • Once they start actually spending time together and having sex on the regular, he doesn\u2019t so much as look at anybody else.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    I\u2019m not justifying his behaviour, I\u2019m just saying that I understand how it happened and I understand how Noura could (eventually) forgive him. I actually think the cheating isn\u2019t the worst thing he puts her through \u2013 that dubious honor would be overhearing him refer to her as a \u201cwhore\u201d and a \u201ccum dumpster\u201d while he\u2019s talking to a friend. Ouch! <\/div><\/div>\n

    Bottom line \u2013 the whole relationship is whacked. I wasn\u2019t taking anything too seriously by the time it all went down, so it didn\u2019t really impact me that deeply.<\/p>\n

    There is a satisfying amount of grovelling that accompanies Banks\u2019 behaviour, which I was glad to see. But overall, I think there was too much time of Banks being a dick. He sort of redeemed himself, but we didn\u2019t see enough of that to really embrace the change.<\/p>\n

    So the romance\u2026 it was there\u2026 but it also wasn\u2019t. It took a while for Noura and Banks to get their shit together, their early relationship is a hot mess, and they have a lot of drama to overcome. And they don\u2019t really spend much time together when they\u2019re not having hot, sweaty animal sex, so I didn\u2019t feel<\/i> the build-up or their emotions towards each other. But they were feeling it, and I was happy that they finally got there.<\/p>\n

    In love there\u2019s no free will. That\u2019s how I know it\u2019s real. I couldn\u2019t stop it and I can\u2019t deny it. This is it for me.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    I did enjoy this one. Very different from what I was expecting, and yeah, it\u2019s a bit messed up, but Lilley writes it well.<\/p>\n

    3.5 stars.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Buy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback\u00a0 |\u00a0 Audio Review 3.5 messed up stars I was so excited when I saw that R.K. Lilley was coming out with a new book. And a standalone! Like a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":3.5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"Product","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[297,454,52,29],"tags":[170,48,76],"class_list":["post-46043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-angsty","category-audio-recommendation","category-drama","category-steamy","tag-r-k-lilley","tag-review","tag-standalone"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Arranged.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-bYD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}