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Blake Carson can\u2019t afford to have a life. Between working full-time as a tattoo artist and caring for his disabled twin brother Jacob, his plate is more than full \u2013 and he prefers it that way.<\/p>\n
But his meticulous planning is turned on its head when he meets the upbeat and beautiful Audrey Wright and her butterfly tattoo.<\/p>\n
Now, through a complicated maze of coincidence and fate, Blake begins to question if maybe there could be more to his life than just work and Jacob.<\/p>\n
That is, if the guilt doesn\u2019t eat him alive first.<\/p>\n
With the help of Dr. Vanessa Travetti and a girl he doesn\u2019t think he deserves, can Blake convince himself that even the bad guy deserves a happy ending?<\/p>\n
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Add to Goodreads<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.5 stars<\/b><\/p>\n This is a love story, but it\u2019s also so much more than that. It\u2019s a dramatic and emotional story of a broken, tortured man living with his demons who meets a woman who helps him finally find the strength to face them and to fight for the life that he wants. It\u2019s a simple premise, but this is a multi-layered story with depth, and Kingsley writes it well.<\/p>\n It took me a while to get through this book, and it\u2019s been a few days since I finished it, and I\u2019m still sitting here trying to gather my thoughts, so please bear with me as I purge my feels and hopefully come to a rating at the end of it.<\/p>\n Blake is a talented tattoo artist whose life revolves around his work, and caring for his disabled twin brother, Jake. Tormented by events from his past, he has few friends, no social life to speak of, and he avoids anything which has the potential to divert his attention away from Jake or his job. And then he meets Audrey.<\/p>\n Audrey comes into Blake\u2019s studio asking for a butterfly tattoo. It\u2019s all very meaningful for her, and it becomes a bit of a \u2018moment\u2019 for them before she leaves. And then they Audrey continues to show up in Blake\u2019s life. She makes it clear that she\u2019s interested in him, and of course he does his best to push her away, but slowly and surely, she chips away at his walls, and things begin to change. She opens up to him, he slowly does the same, and they become a part of each other\u2019s lives, forcing Jake to begin to question everything.<\/p>\n She left me terrified. This book is written entirely in Blake\u2019s POV, so we get to see all that he is thinking and feeling, and though I\u2019m a big fan of a tortured hero, for me, Blake came across as a bit of a doormat. He just accepts everybody\u2019s crap, thinks so poorly of himself and is very much resigned to a bland existence. I get that he\u2019s been through, and continues to go through, hell. He is dealing with a lot, and as the story progressed, I could see that we meet Jake at a low point of his life, and this is only the start of his journey. But it did take me a while to warm up to him.<\/p>\n Audrey is such an intriguing character. Bright and bubbly with a strong faith and seemingly endless enthusiasm, I honestly didn\u2019t know what she saw in Blake in the beginning. Sure, he\u2019s gorgeous, but he\u2019s a bit of a dick and doesn\u2019t treat her nicely – he doesn\u2019t really show any redeeming qualities at all, really – and yet she persists in pursuing him. Why? I\u2019m not sure, and it took me a while to warm to her as well. But she is patient, kind and understanding, and she eagerly and earnestly fights for her man \u2013 even before he\u2019s really hers.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are certain thing in our lives \u2013 certain <\/i>people – that are just supposed to be there. We don\u2019t choose them, or what they\u2019ll mean to us; they\u2019re just a part of who we are.\u201d You\u2019ve got to admire a woman who puts it all out there like that!<\/p>\n Like I said, I guess we have to see Blake at the bottom before he begins his fight to deal with his demons and take charge of his life, and once that started to happen, I became more invested. I loved watching him slowly start to let Audrey in, to admit that he had feelings for her and that he wanted and needed her by his side. Audrey turns his life right around, and seeing him acknowledge that and allow it to happen leads to some amazing character development which was beautiful to watch.<\/p>\n \u201cYou make me so fucking vulnerable, Audrey, and I hate it so much. I fucking hate that I don\u2019t have a choice in any of this shit, and that nothing makes sense anymore. But I love you, and I guess that\u2019s all that really needs to make sense.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Once they were together and Jake was starting to take more control of his life, I definitely began to enjoy the story more. There is drama, heartache, sweet moments which had me grinning into my kindle, and real character progression, and I loved watching him deal with it all.<\/p>\n The storyline with Blake\u2019s brother was just beautiful. They have such an incredible bond and the moments with them together just melted my heart. It ties in really well with the family drama, which is shocking at times, but it all forms a picture of Blake\u2019s past and how he became the man he is.<\/p>\n There are a whole series of coincidences in the story, and discussion of spirituality and signs are sprinkled throughout the book. They didn\u2019t really resonate with me, which is probably why I didn\u2019t feel the story as much as I would have liked, but I was happy at the way it all played out, I loved seeing Blake find his happiness and take charge of his life, and I loved the happy ending.<\/p>\n This is my first read by Kelsey Kingsley. I\u2019ve wanted to read her for a while now, and I\u2019m looking forward to checking out more of her work soon.<\/p>\n Definitely a good read \u2013 3.5 stars.<\/p>\n An Advanced Review Copy was generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kelsey Kingsley is the author of nine, almost ten, novels. She lives in New York with her family and a cat named Ethel. She loves tattoos, music, makeup, and Frasier reruns. Kelsey is a Slytherin. She curses a lot, and she fucking hates cheese.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Website\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Instagram\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Goodreads\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Bookbub<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Newsletter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amazon Blurb Blake Carson can\u2019t afford to have a life. Between working full-time as a tattoo artist and caring for his disabled twin brother Jacob, his plate is more than full \u2013 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48614,"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":[52,9],"tags":[59,1084,48,76],"class_list":["post-49226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","category-romance","tag-arc","tag-kelsey-kingsley","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\/12\/Warrior-Blue.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-cNY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49226","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=49226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nReview<\/b><\/h4>\n
\nTerrified of letting her in. Terrified of letting her go. Terrified of the day she\u2019d finally open her eyes and see me for the person that I am \u2013 paranoid, surely, hateful.
\n<\/i>Terrified.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n\u2026
\n\u201cAnd what is it you think I am to you?\u201d \u2026
\nWithout hesitation, she answered, \u201cYou\u2019re the man I\u2019m meant to love.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nAuthor Bio<\/strong><\/h4>\n