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A review by klindtvedt
Inked in Lies by Giana Darling
5.0
A Brutally Beautiful Book...
Over the course of the last four books in this series I have come to care deeply for Giana Darling’s Fallen MC world. These viciously beautiful tales of loyalty and love have anchored themselves within me and touched a part of my soul I had forgotten existed. Within the pages of “The Fallen Men” books are stories for those of us who have lived lives touched by darkness and who yearn for something that can also flourish in the light. Each and every book in this series thus far, from Zues and Lou to King and Cressida attack your senses, dragging your emotions through a literary field of barbed wire that leaves you gasping, pricked and left bleeding by the intensity of all they contain. None more so than book four, or so I thought, until I read this book, and was confronted with a level of inner turmoil so cavernous it brought me to my knees.
Here within the pages of “Inked in Lies” Darling gifts us the story of our favorite resident pretty boy Jonathan “Casanova” Booth, a biker with abundant arrogant charm and panty melting ways. And Lila Meadows, his onetime neighbor who we are introduced to fleetingly throughout the previous books, but who you quickly come to realize is anything but the flighty hippy chick she appears to be. Theirs is a pairing unlike any of the others. One born in childhood, under dubious circumstances when Nova and his family move in across the street on a day Lila’s father, the town drug dealer, just so happens to commit murder in his livingroom. An act that changes Lila’s life, and the life of her brother Dane forever, in ways that reverberate for years to come.
Unlike the other books, here we are rooted securely in the female’s point of view. Here through Lila’s eyes we are given a retrospective of growth, growth of the club, growth of Nova from boy to man, and of Nova’s place within all that surrounds them. We are given a view of Nova, the all too cocky, seemingly put together MC brother who has had Lila’s back since she was five in most unexpected ways previously unseen. We are shown a man who, despite his haughty, man-whore ways, has been her best friend, her protector, her person, the one she knows inside and out better than anyone else. But also a man deeply removed who hides himself away not only from those around him, but also from himself. And as the years go by he becomes a man afraid of the love rooted deeply in his heart, full of doubts, and fear, and self-hatred, who pushes away everything trying to get close to him because of the feelings of unworthiness forcibly planted deep within his soul. What follows is a powerful and haunting story.
Lila and Nova's friendship is forged from neglect and violence, forces that shape them in unexpected ways, and as they grow they morph, and unlike the other installments of this series, this story is as much a tale of the many ways we incorrectly see ourselves as it is a story of perseverance and overwhelming, all consuming love. It is the story of a girl born of violence into violence, with tragedy etched in her tiny five year old eyes, forced to grow wise long before she should have. A shining, loving, girl, who survives everything life has to throw at her including Nova’s own demons, demons that may destroy him and lead her to endure the loss of him, something far more brutal then everything that has come before it.
It is a brutally beautiful book offering an unexpected but welcomed perspective. While the other Fallen women are strong in their own right, Lila is different. She has a strength skewed differently than the other women. Every ounce of emotional fortitude within her is born from pain and the subsequent deep seated fear of abandonment her father, her mother, and even her cherished brother seed within her. As a result she martyrs herself in ways the other women would not, does not view herself as having the same connections to love and care with those around her that the other couples do. It is a revelation by the author that propels you forward through each and every page of this book, a state of being that fractures your soul and makes you ache for Lila in ways you have not yet ached for any other character so far in the series. And as she grows, makes discoveries about herself and about Nova. As Nova in turn makes discoveries about himself through Lila’s actions and reactions, the emotions will overwhelm your senses. You will be helpless in preventing the knot that forms in the middle of your chest, your soul will ache as you watch their connection emerge and evolve page after emotionally churning page. It is a heady experience that is as awe inducing as it is magnificent.
This series continues to be one filled with stories about love rooted in darkness. Of the kinds of human connections that can withstand the blackness and depravity around it, be made stronger by it. Where other series fall flat after the first few installments this one just keeps getting better and more intense, taking you to emotional heights previously unknown and unexplored.
I will honestly mourn the loss of these characters when this series ends. I will grieve the loss of their heartaches and pleasures, their revelatory journeys and found joy. But mostly I will grieve the feeling of recognition and kinship I have with them, many of whom triggered profound, long let go of memories within me, and forced to the surface specters of things not thought of in years. I have written much on Sadt Cookie about my life and why I read romance books often viewed as too dark, too violent, too sadistic or unkind for the mainstream. I am a lover of dark things and honest emotions, and this book contains a depth and honesty I cannot thank Giana Darling enough for. An easy five stars from me for this book, and I cannot wait to read Priest’s story in book six!
Over the course of the last four books in this series I have come to care deeply for Giana Darling’s Fallen MC world. These viciously beautiful tales of loyalty and love have anchored themselves within me and touched a part of my soul I had forgotten existed. Within the pages of “The Fallen Men” books are stories for those of us who have lived lives touched by darkness and who yearn for something that can also flourish in the light. Each and every book in this series thus far, from Zues and Lou to King and Cressida attack your senses, dragging your emotions through a literary field of barbed wire that leaves you gasping, pricked and left bleeding by the intensity of all they contain. None more so than book four, or so I thought, until I read this book, and was confronted with a level of inner turmoil so cavernous it brought me to my knees.
Here within the pages of “Inked in Lies” Darling gifts us the story of our favorite resident pretty boy Jonathan “Casanova” Booth, a biker with abundant arrogant charm and panty melting ways. And Lila Meadows, his onetime neighbor who we are introduced to fleetingly throughout the previous books, but who you quickly come to realize is anything but the flighty hippy chick she appears to be. Theirs is a pairing unlike any of the others. One born in childhood, under dubious circumstances when Nova and his family move in across the street on a day Lila’s father, the town drug dealer, just so happens to commit murder in his livingroom. An act that changes Lila’s life, and the life of her brother Dane forever, in ways that reverberate for years to come.
Unlike the other books, here we are rooted securely in the female’s point of view. Here through Lila’s eyes we are given a retrospective of growth, growth of the club, growth of Nova from boy to man, and of Nova’s place within all that surrounds them. We are given a view of Nova, the all too cocky, seemingly put together MC brother who has had Lila’s back since she was five in most unexpected ways previously unseen. We are shown a man who, despite his haughty, man-whore ways, has been her best friend, her protector, her person, the one she knows inside and out better than anyone else. But also a man deeply removed who hides himself away not only from those around him, but also from himself. And as the years go by he becomes a man afraid of the love rooted deeply in his heart, full of doubts, and fear, and self-hatred, who pushes away everything trying to get close to him because of the feelings of unworthiness forcibly planted deep within his soul. What follows is a powerful and haunting story.
Lila and Nova's friendship is forged from neglect and violence, forces that shape them in unexpected ways, and as they grow they morph, and unlike the other installments of this series, this story is as much a tale of the many ways we incorrectly see ourselves as it is a story of perseverance and overwhelming, all consuming love. It is the story of a girl born of violence into violence, with tragedy etched in her tiny five year old eyes, forced to grow wise long before she should have. A shining, loving, girl, who survives everything life has to throw at her including Nova’s own demons, demons that may destroy him and lead her to endure the loss of him, something far more brutal then everything that has come before it.
It is a brutally beautiful book offering an unexpected but welcomed perspective. While the other Fallen women are strong in their own right, Lila is different. She has a strength skewed differently than the other women. Every ounce of emotional fortitude within her is born from pain and the subsequent deep seated fear of abandonment her father, her mother, and even her cherished brother seed within her. As a result she martyrs herself in ways the other women would not, does not view herself as having the same connections to love and care with those around her that the other couples do. It is a revelation by the author that propels you forward through each and every page of this book, a state of being that fractures your soul and makes you ache for Lila in ways you have not yet ached for any other character so far in the series. And as she grows, makes discoveries about herself and about Nova. As Nova in turn makes discoveries about himself through Lila’s actions and reactions, the emotions will overwhelm your senses. You will be helpless in preventing the knot that forms in the middle of your chest, your soul will ache as you watch their connection emerge and evolve page after emotionally churning page. It is a heady experience that is as awe inducing as it is magnificent.
This series continues to be one filled with stories about love rooted in darkness. Of the kinds of human connections that can withstand the blackness and depravity around it, be made stronger by it. Where other series fall flat after the first few installments this one just keeps getting better and more intense, taking you to emotional heights previously unknown and unexplored.
I will honestly mourn the loss of these characters when this series ends. I will grieve the loss of their heartaches and pleasures, their revelatory journeys and found joy. But mostly I will grieve the feeling of recognition and kinship I have with them, many of whom triggered profound, long let go of memories within me, and forced to the surface specters of things not thought of in years. I have written much on Sadt Cookie about my life and why I read romance books often viewed as too dark, too violent, too sadistic or unkind for the mainstream. I am a lover of dark things and honest emotions, and this book contains a depth and honesty I cannot thank Giana Darling enough for. An easy five stars from me for this book, and I cannot wait to read Priest’s story in book six!