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A review by kfriend
Brightly Burning Bridges by Ivy Wild
4.0
Ivy Wild is such a fresh new voice in the romance world, and I'm so glad I discovered her stories. Fraught with emotional tension, brimming with complex character development, and complicated but firey chemistry. Brightly Burning Bridges is an intense but redemptive bully second chance love story that completely captures you.
There's an emotional tenacity to the way Ivy tells her stories, and Silas and Skyler bring such intensity to the page. These two have emotional back and forth, especially as this story is told in the past and present where both history and present are full of angst and tumultuous feelings. At first, I wasn't sure I could get behind Silas- though I could feel his thrall. Silas definitely takes a while to redeem himself, but I loved how Skyler is such a strong and resolved heroine amidst his alpha ways. Both characters get a chance to grow and evolve as the story unfolds- and while I'm not normally a fan of narrative structures that alternate between past and present, but here it not only added to the turmoil and angst but also really situated a steady but compelling character arc for both. They've been broken and have kept so much under the surface, and when they reunite again there carefully packaged emotional baggage spills over. There's a chaos to their chemistry, a raw fragility, but also a a tender strength and pulsing intimacy that underscores their fractures. The facades fade, the walls crumble, and Ivy exposes both character's beauty within their broken- and their profound need for one another. And Silas does come through- beautifully, symbolically and emotionally, in ways I never anticipated but felt deep in my heart.
As a new author, Ivy already has such incredible talent. Her stories are carefully constructed, the evocative prose flows and engages, and she has such a keen ability to create tragically flawed and complicated characters whose emotive journeys are told with such care and thoughtfulness. Her stories are intense, unexpected, and engaging- but the true power lies in the emotional resonance of her characters. This is some of the most clear and compelling character voice I've read- Ivy absorbs us and them completely. How intensely she dissects and opens up her characters' hearts and minds and the power of their self-growth- the healing, the forgiveness, the self-actualization and awareness, the redemption, the acceptance- all catalyze by a deep but complicated connection with another broken soul. I'm excited to read more from her and for more emotional journeys to come.
There's an emotional tenacity to the way Ivy tells her stories, and Silas and Skyler bring such intensity to the page. These two have emotional back and forth, especially as this story is told in the past and present where both history and present are full of angst and tumultuous feelings. At first, I wasn't sure I could get behind Silas- though I could feel his thrall. Silas definitely takes a while to redeem himself, but I loved how Skyler is such a strong and resolved heroine amidst his alpha ways. Both characters get a chance to grow and evolve as the story unfolds- and while I'm not normally a fan of narrative structures that alternate between past and present, but here it not only added to the turmoil and angst but also really situated a steady but compelling character arc for both. They've been broken and have kept so much under the surface, and when they reunite again there carefully packaged emotional baggage spills over. There's a chaos to their chemistry, a raw fragility, but also a a tender strength and pulsing intimacy that underscores their fractures. The facades fade, the walls crumble, and Ivy exposes both character's beauty within their broken- and their profound need for one another. And Silas does come through- beautifully, symbolically and emotionally, in ways I never anticipated but felt deep in my heart.
As a new author, Ivy already has such incredible talent. Her stories are carefully constructed, the evocative prose flows and engages, and she has such a keen ability to create tragically flawed and complicated characters whose emotive journeys are told with such care and thoughtfulness. Her stories are intense, unexpected, and engaging- but the true power lies in the emotional resonance of her characters. This is some of the most clear and compelling character voice I've read- Ivy absorbs us and them completely. How intensely she dissects and opens up her characters' hearts and minds and the power of their self-growth- the healing, the forgiveness, the self-actualization and awareness, the redemption, the acceptance- all catalyze by a deep but complicated connection with another broken soul. I'm excited to read more from her and for more emotional journeys to come.