A review by beckiebookworm1974
To Burn in Brutal Rapture by Nyla K.

4.0

What in the ever-loving hell did I just read I’m slightly gobsmacked and a bit blind-sided I’m not even sure quite what I think about the whole of this just yet.
What I do know though is this is very different to what I was originally expecting and the writing itself was fabulous.
It also gripped me reeled me in and invested me in the unfolding drama but and this is big but I’m still not quite sure about how we got to where we did and how I actually feel about it.

I mean I’m happy for Lazarus and Traci but
for me, it was slightly bittersweet and felt a bit like they arrived where they did due to circumstance rather than choice and that did leave a slightly sour taste in my mouth.
I can’t help thinking would Lazarus have made the same choices with a different set of circumstances and this bothered my somewhat.

So that aside I did enjoy this and it was a read that though lengthy didn’t feel like it needed condensing in any way like some books do.
I felt every word here was important and significant to the story itself, it needed to be told.

We follow Tracy from twelve in the aftermath of her mother’s death right up until her present timeline and she does deal with some serious stuff on this journey experiencing a great deal of personal growth along the way and though in some ways you could see her young years in some of her personal choices in other ways she seemed an old soul, She grew from a child to a woman during the course of this.

The relationship between Lazarus and Traci was very slow-burn which was as it needed to be to work and it was all very tastefully done.
You could feel the forbidden vein running throughout more because of who Lazarus is to her than the actual age-gap which didn’t really bother me.
I'm in an age-gap relationship myself of 20 years so this one struck very close to home for me.
As for Lazarus well he was a complicated one he’s actually a bit of a hot mess with no clue what he really wants I liked him but it was obvious he was broken in a lot of ways and Damian’s friendship was the crutch that centred him.

This has three POV’s Traci Lazarus and also a few from Damien Traci’s dad and Lazarus best friend.
Lines were blurred and the fallout here was epic this definitely was an angsty one.
I’m being vague due to not wanting to spoil but this is all about blurred lines.
I do have very mixed feelings regarding this one but I did enjoy it and the writing was top notch.
I rated this a four-star mostly due to my mixed emotions.
I’m going to be mulling over this story for a while.



Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
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