Patrick Gallagher’s future was mapped out—and it didn’t include Amy Henderson or the IRA.She was everything he’d never wanted. Too young. Too naïve.Unfortunately, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the girl who took refuge in his old bedroom, staying with his mum more often than not.She looked like a Renaissance painting and argued like a solicitor. He couldn’t resist her, and before long he … her, and before long he didn’t even want to.
Instead, he loved her unreservedly… then he married her.
But he couldn’t have prepared for what happened after.
Actions, no matter how large or how small, have consequences—and when the IRA comes knocking, he’s sucked into a life that he’d never anticipated.
Choices were made.
Hearts were broken.
Trust was shattered.
Lives were lost.
Through it all, he loved her.
It was a love that spanned decades.
Epic.
Intense.
Unquestionable.
Unbreakable.
Warning: This book is meant for readers over 18 years old and contains scenes that depict torture and sexual assault.
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** spoiler alert ** I have read all of the books in this series and they have all been 5 star reads for me. Call me a fan girl if you must but the real reason I love this author’s writing style is because she drags me into the characters. I feel their pain, their happiness and the soul searching struggles they go through on their relationship journeys. These stories are not lite romance with a perfect hero or heroine, so if you’re looking for a sweet romance with flawless characters, then don’t read these books.
We meet Patrick/Poet in book 1, Craving Constellations, and he has intrigued me since then and through the other books in the series. In Craving Resurrection he is the epitome of an anti-hero making so many bad decisions along the way, you wonder if he is redeemable. Your heart breaks for Amy and her inability to cope with much of the crap that is thrown at her by her parents and Patrick. It is easy to forget while reading this epic love story that Amy is only 17 and Patrick was 22. Young people in a world turned upside down and incapable of making the right decisions it would seem. Amy lives her life making herself numb and closing out the things she does not want to deal with. In doing so, she often fails to communicate her wishes and feelings. Patrick is a young, philosophical man who would rather loose himself in classic literature than become as assassin for the IRA, as he was forced to do. He comes with his own emotional baggage, being raised by his mother while his fanatical father fights for the IRA. Amy has been ignored by her parents when she wasn’t being verbally and physically abused.
Amy develops a relationship with Patrick’s mother, a woman who treats Amy as a loving mother should. In comes Patrick and the two slowly develop a romantical relationship. Patrick tells Amy there are two types of women, the ones you f**k and the ones you marry and she is the one you marry. They get married at age 18 and 23. Yes Patrick has a one night stand that comes back to change his whole life. He does it before there is a real commitment between he and Amy and later admits that was a poor justification. The one night stand appears later pregnant with Patrick’s child. The Aces MC is there in Ireland and are working with Patrick to get him away from the IRA after his father is killed in a car bomb, but everyone can’t leave at the same time. Only two can go at a time. Patrick begs Amy to go but she refuses and says Moira, the pregnant one night stand, should go. I had real problems with Patrick leaving Amy to come later, but then I also had problems with Amy not stepping up and voicing her wishes.
When Amy is then captured, tortured and raped by the IRA she decides Patrick is the cause of every bad thing that has happened to her. I agree with that to a certain point but when do you realize that you can’t let anyone push you into decisions you really don’t want? She eventually comes to the US and the miscommunication continues for years with she and Patrick. Patrick continually reaches out and when rebuffed, turns around and makes more bad decisions. But I never doubted his love for Amy. He ends up living with Moira, the mother of his child, and states while he “loved” her, he was not “in love” with her. I can understand that. She birthed his child and was a good mother until she died eight years later.
I don’t begin to defend Patrick’s behavior and often times didn’t like him at all. But to be honest, there were times I wanted to shake Amy with her resistance to fighting for what she wanted and especially her failure to communicate to Patrick her feelings about how she felt he abandoned her. But then you think, well he did try to reach out many times. So many bad decisions. So many flawed individuals. So much love that was wasted. But that loved kept living in each heart even through some of the most wrenching heartbreaks. I wished so bad that Peg, Patrick’s mother, would have lived to see them finally put their ghosts to rest and start to live the life they should have lived all along. In my opinion, this is an epic love story and one that makes your heart heavy, makes you cry and even in the happy end, you’re still heartbroken about the suffering Amy, Patrick, Peg and Nick experience in this story. This is a book I’ll read again I’m sure.
Holy cow this has to be, hands down the saddest, most depressing dang book I have ever read to date, and still good enough to get a 3 star review. I am all over the place on how I feel about this story. I had to sleep on it before I could even start this review, because one minute I wanted to give it a 5 stars and the next I wanted to give it a 1 Star. I am going to try to explain my feeling on this book clearly, but I have a feeling there will be ranting, rambling, and tons of spoilers so yeah…. Okay so for starters, I went into this book with a knot in my stomach. I read some of the reviews and my heart just sank. I knew this was going to be a hard read for me because cheating is a trigger for me, and with OCD once I start a book or a series, I just can’t stop no matter how miserable it makes me. I expected to hate Poet with a passion as hot as the fires of hell, and at first I did, but he wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. Don’t get me wrong I sure didn’t like Poet. I think Poet is a huge butthole. He made 2 huge mistakes ( I will go over those later), but I’m not sure I would call him a cheater.
Now I feel like his “Cheating” would fall into a gray area. See when he slept with Moira(who I hate and think is a triflin’ hoe) He had only kissed Amy. They weren’t even dating. He only slept with Moira one night, and then when he went back home. Where he asked Amy to marry him. The 2 huge mistakes I think he made are that 1st he slept with Moira, and 2nd He left Amy in Ireland to follow him in a week. Okay see this is what happened.
Amy meets Poet’s mom Peg, walking home from school. Peg is great btw, and becomes like a mom to Amy, because Amy’s parents are worthless. That’s how Poet meets Amy. He finds her sleeping in his bed, on one of his visits home from college. He ends up kissing Amy right before he goes back to school. They aren’t dating, but he makes hints that he wants more. Then when he get back to school while drunk off his butt, he sleeps with Moira. Then the next morning he regrets it. He also gets a call from his mom the next morning that something is wrong with Amy, so he rushes home. Amy’s parents kicked her out so Amy moves in with Peg. Poet stays for a little while and him and Amy get serious. He ask her to marry him. Now from this point he is faithful to her the whole time they are together as a couple.(I’ll explain that in a minute since they never divorce) One day months after they are married Moira’s skanky butt shows up pregnant and beat up. Poet and Amy had planned on go to America together to get away from the IRA that was using Poet as a hit man and killed his father, so they had two spots on a boat to America. Amy being rightfully mad tells Poet to take Moira to America. Now Poet wants to stay with Amy, but she is so mad she keeps telling him to go. I can understand Poet feeling torn at this point because , he didn’t wanna leave his wife, but he wanted to protect his unborn child. So they make plans that him and Moira with some of the Aces will go to America, and the next boat that leaves in a week with bring Amy and his mom Peg. When he leaves, him and Amy have talked and plan on working things out. When Poet leaves with Moira the tramp, her fiance Malcolm a evil member of the IRA kidnaps Amy, shaves her hair off, breaks all of her fingers one at a time with a hammer, and then rapes her to pay Poet back for taking his woman. Now Amy is messed up, and mad at Poet she blames him for everything. so instead of getting on the boat and meeting up with him like planned she and Peg get a plane to America and don’t tell him where they are going. So he doesn’t see his wife again for 4 months, when his mom finally lets him see her because she hasn’t spoken a word since she left Ireland. So when Poet sees her, Amy instead of telling him she has been raped, just says she is pregnant, and the kids isn’t his. Nothing else so of course if thinks she slept with someone as payback. Spits in her face and leaves. Now here is another gray area because even though they are still married he left her. Says she is dead to him and starts a life with Moira. Which ticks me the hell off, but I’m not sure if it’s cheating or they are broke up kinda. Any how, right after the birth of both their kids he finds out that she was raped and he runs back to her begging for another chance she tells him no go home to Moira and raise your daughter. So he does. A few more times through the years he would show up wanting her back and she would turn him away. Because she was angry and bitter which I totally understand.
Wow that was a mouth full. Okay so here is my feeling on all that. I loved Amy. Thought she was brave, strong and just awesome. I understood where she was coming from. I am bitter over it all and I’m just the reader. But I don’t feel like Poet Cheated the whole time they are apart because I feel like they broke up. She dated and slept with other men while they are apart too. The thing that bugged me the most was that he made a life with Moira. I truly hated that witch and was glad she died. See because he slept with Moira before they where dating I could have, as a read, forgiven him and gave him a second chance. But it drove me crazy that he was playing house with that home-wrecking tramp after what their sleeping together costed Amy. I know it makes me mean but I was not only glad that Moira died but I was glad that Amy ripped into Poet and laughed a little at the guilt and pain he felt, but he did “a little” redeem himself. The way he treated Amy’s son Nix so well. I loved Doc. I was so glad when he told Poet off. I was indifferent of their relationship. I didn’t care if they made up are not. But I will say this, the story was still an okay, but very depressing read and I truly couldn’t put it down.