Reviews

Breathless by Willow Winters, W. Winters

happy_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

1.5

abowlin's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

cierra_mccauley_cierrascorner's review against another edition

5.0

OMG!!! What did I just read?!?! Breathless is the third installment of the Merciless series and its not finished. Boy does it keep you on the edge of your seat! So much has happened and the hits just keep coming! I am so consumed by Aria and Carter! Like please Willow just put me out of my misery already!! Ahh! It's so good! And my brain is absolutely scrambled by the ending of this book! So much emotion and pain! I'm torn and heartbroken and I just don't know how much more my heart can take! The War is Here this is it..it all comes down to this last few days and I honestly don't know what's going to happen. Will Carter and Aria make it? Will they survive? This is a love story that was just doomed from the get go, it makes you scream and wish so hard for these characters! I am so ready for the fourth and final book! Breathless literally will leave you Breathless! Buckle up Buttercup because this one intense ride full of Anticipation and Danger! I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

renaes01's review against another edition

5.0

This has got to be my favourite book in the series so far holy shit!! These books keep getting better and better and I am enjoying them so much!

I was actually really routing for Carter and Aria in this book which I found really shocking.

However I was pissed at the beginning when everyone was so mad at Aria for saving her family!!! I was like wtf you know she loves her family, she has literally been telling you the whole time and you think she’ll just stand there nicely while you kill them!?!?!? I could not believe how disgusted everyone was, even Daniel and Jase, that she defended them even though they have treated her like shit! Come on now!???

I was actually dying at how heartbroken Carter was this whole book and it actually made me feel bad for him. I just love when guys go into a rage over their women I guess lol. I’m really starting to warm up to him the more he cares and protects Aria.

I was so proud of Aria in this book. I felt terrible for her at the beginning because she was so upset but she became stronger and stronger throughout the book by defending herself and those she loves and was doing everything she could to stop the war. She was also becoming more unpredictable and feared like a boss ass bitch. But she still goes through so many traumatic things as always. What made me really sad was when she felt that Carter didn’t love her. I can totally understand why especially when she was comparing their relationship to Daniel and Addison’s. But then I loved that Carter heard her and was destroyed because she felt that way. I am so nervous for when he finds out that she wasn’t the girl that saved him and he better not be an asshole to her or I will murder him!!

I haven’t mentioned this in previous reviews but I love the relationship between the brothers and how they care about each other. I also love the relationship between Aria and Daniel and Jase and how they defend her against Carter. What I loved the most was her friendship with Addison. Those two girls definitely needed each other and I was so glad that Addison let her know that what happened to her wasn’t okay!

Also, who the fuck is Marcus!??? He’s been popping up in every book literally since A Kiss to Tell! I also don’t know if this is true and I don’t want to spoil it for myself but I think he’s a hero in another Willow series??? The one with the FBI agent and serial killer? I could be totally wrong though. But I want to know more about him because he’s literally a ghost and appears to be very dangerous. He also sounds like he would be attractive. I don’t know how I know this but I do.

I just hope Carter and Aria find happiness in the next book and that Carter grovels for all the shit he’s put her through. They both deserve love dammit.

stephfutch3's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book is simple a redundancy of the first two with a new setting. 

jackie_of_all_books's review against another edition

4.0

Breathless picks up exactly where heartless left off. Carter is in shock and a little heartbroken that aria is holding a gun at him right now. She demands they let Nikolai and her cousins go. He tells everyone to drop their weapons besides aria and they can leave but Nikolai is refusing to leave without aria even though she tells him that she’s staying. Aria convinced Nikolai to leave her. She apologizes to Carter and says she wanted to warn him they were coming and he fully felt betrayed so when his brothers asked if they were really letting them go he wanted to hurt her like she hurt him and said kill them all. Jace tells declan to not shoot to kill that Nikolai needs to make it back to Talvery and let him know that aria chose to stay. Carter tells aria to leave that she chose them over him when she told him she loves him. He won’t listen to her. She can’t find the painting to get to her cell so she goes back to the lockbox where she had had a panic attack before and puts herself inside of it so he can calm down. Carter stares at the box waiting for her to come out. Jace and Daniel come in to talk to him. And while aria is crying in the box, Addison comes in and sees what’s happening as well and freaks out at the fact that aria had been in a call and is now trapped in a box. Addison finally convinced aria to get out of the box. She tells Daniel she is leaving and taking aria with her and he needs to let her go that she can’t stand to be with him when he knew what Carter was doing to aria. Addison and aria get in a car with one of the drivers and leave. Aria is upset because she really wanted Carter to fight for her to stay but he doesn’t. Her and Addison are taken to the safe house and told they’ll be there for a week and she realizes that’s how long Carter plans until her family is killed and the war is over. They have the girls staying at Sebastian and his wife Chloe’s house. But they never came back. Carter shows up at the house to see aria. He whips her with the belt and then he fucks her. He tells her he fell in love with the thought of her and he fell in love with fucking her but she’s making it impossible for him to be with her. She wants him to surrender and he can’t do that. She tells him she’ll die protecting her family but she would never attack him or his brothers. She tells him she can’t be his songbird anymore and he leaves her. The next morning she receives a letter from Nikolai wanting her to meet him at the candy shop. Eli says that him and Carter have both seen it so now Nikolai isn’t safe either. Carter gifted her a phone and a sketch pad and has been watching her. His brother Daniel says that Romano and Talvery know where the girls are and asks what they should do. Carter says if aria doesn’t come willingly he wants her back in the cell and Daniel tells him he can’t do that. He tells him if you treat her like a partner this could end differently. He calls her and they end up having phone sex. Aria goes and meets with Nikolai and he tells her he’s going to kill Carter for what he did to her and begs her to go with him. She tells him she loves Carter and she doesn’t want him killed but Nikolai won’t listen to anything she has to say and he admits that he’s the one who handed her over to Carter. Carter said he’d get her out and set her free but that’s not the case. Aria can’t believe that Nikolai had turned on her and had turned her in. Daniel tells Carter he has a date with Addison so Carter makes plans for aria. She goes into her room and he’s there in the dark. He hand cuffs her and blind folds her and then pulls out a vibrator and edges her when she won’t answer his questions. He allows her a few orgasms and then he asks her if she’ll still love him when he kills her family and she tells him no and he takes the handcuffs off and he’s gone. Aria asks Eli to take her to the store and on their way he tells her they need to go back to the house. A shooting starts and aria watches a man run away. She chases him and beats him to death. She was so mad at him for attacking them when all they were doing was walking to the store. She killed her second person. Aria has a weird feeling about the night and how quiet it is and she wakes up to Addison screaming. Addison tells her she dreamed of Tyler and he was so real and he was holding her and he told her he’s not upset she’s with Daniel but that she needs to go back to the house. She tells aria she’s going to go back and return to Daniel and asks her to go back with her but aria tells her that Carter doesn’t love her and she has no reason to go back. Carter is there and hears this and it pains him to hear her think he doesn’t love her but he’s never told her. Gun shots begin to fire. Talvery has invaded them. He hasn’t been able to get ahold of his brother Daniel and eli tells him their house was bombed. The war rages on. Cason comes upstairs to tell Addison and aria they need to go to the basement but Cason gets shot through the window and dies. The girls hide under the bed and the door gets kicked in and a man comes upstairs. He attacks aria and Addison takes the gun and shoots the man. Aria goes downstairs to find eli but he’s dead and she sobs realizing these men died for her. Daniel shows up for Addison. Aria goes into the backyard for darkness and peace and then she gets grabbed. Carter is beating a man trying to get info on why they attacked the safe house when jase tells him that Daniel has Addison but aria is gone. And that’s how the book ends. I loved this one. Although aria and Carter were at odds throughout most of it. I love the bond aria and Addison are forming. And Carter is finally starting to show his softness to us. We know aria is his weakness he just needs to tell her that. The war is raging on. A lot happened throughout this one. I believe the title breathless could go towards a number of things. Aria makes Carter breathless. Carter makes aria breathless. When Addison got the dream about Tyler is made her breathless. When aria and Addison both killed it made them breathless. The people they killed were breathless. Lots of route you could go with the title meaning.

nicki_theoverflowingbookcase's review against another edition

5.0

The story continues for Aria and Carter. Promises are broken, territory is marked and death is on the horizon, but in the middle of the chaos Carter and Aria continue with the give and take of a relationship that was doomed from the beginning. Can you fall in love with your enemy? Can you allow the one who hurt you the most back into your heart? With beautifully written characters and a storyline that had me n the edge of my seat, this book is a must read. The way that Willow Winters pulls the reader into her game of chess at the hands and hearts of her characters proves that she has not only mastered the art of storytelling but that she has also created a world that her readers cannot get enough of.

jbenhamji87's review against another edition

emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

paigedonarum's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

jamie_w's review against another edition

5.0

5⭐️ Audible listen. This one was the hardest to listen to so far. The co-dependency is real with these two and it’s so toxic. Yet here I am wanting them together.

I like how Aria refuses to give up her stance regarding Carter killing her family. It seems pretty rational that she’d hate him if he does it. I also like how she told Nik that he needed to move his men. It felt like she was doing what she could to support Carter, while he did nothing for her. But that’s Carter for ya.

Carter is an asshole. As always. He wants what he wants and that’s it.