A Hurt So Sweet Volume One: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Elite of Eden Falls Prep Book 1)

Truly one of the best reads of 2019 and I am dying for book 2. The author did a brilliant job laying out the ground work in this book and developing the characters. I found myself angry that I had to put the book down and come back to it and while I was away my mind kept on the book wondering where the story is going. This story line is filled with so much and truly I don’t know who to trust in the best of ways.

A dark bully romance with new girl in a town where the people and rules were twisted. This sounded interesting and Betti Rosewood can write dark stories. The beginning was good. I liked it, but as the story went, I started to lose interest. I didn’t care much for the characters and found Pandora becoming weak instead of the strong fighter that she was in the beginning. She submitted rather easily. She didn’t fight back as I expected her to. I mean, I kept waiting for her to come up with something smart. She did come across as someone that wouldn’t be a pushover and would find a way out of a situation. Dexter has secrets and I’m interested in finding out what they are.
A Hurt So Sweet is the first book in the series. It’s pretty good for setting up the story. I would’ve liked more background on the Pandora and the families like hers. I have many questions and no answers. Hopefully, they will be answered somewhere in the following books.

This is the story I have been waiting on…

A hurt so sweet is Book one in a new dark romance series by Betti Rosewood and although I do love her softer side, This story showcases Betti’s darker side and is one of the stories I have been wanting to read since reading Betti’s first book.

Following the story of Pandora, who has been thrown into a life she didn’t need nor want. It tells us Pandora’s side.

A hurt so sweet is a little dark, a lot intense and a smidge addictive. A must read for all dark romance lovers.

I can’t wait for the continuation of this series.

OMG!!! This book is so captivating it transports you as you watch above seeing everything unfold before your eyes as your reading the twisted, dark, gritty details of bullying and not being able to trust those around you. Taking and not giving two bits about it. They may steal away her innocence, take out their desires, taste her body and try to destroy her but Pandora aka Lily Ann will not break to them. How long can she with hold breaking her strength to their demands? Escape her present and her future in her mind not to feel the turmoil raging around her existence. After all she is a Firstborn too.
I absolutely loved this story. The storyline was so interesting that it completely captivated me and was so intriguing that I couldn’t stop reading it until I finished with the very last word. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for an amazing book. Enjoy happy reading
“I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.”

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Eden Falls was built from nothing by six founding families, who are now middle-aged, but still running the place. The new generation will ascend the throne after them. Only the first children of the founding fathers will have a right to the most influential role in Eden Falls. Only they will become leaders of the picturesque, filthy rich town that is home to the elite. She used to be Pandora Amberly. Now she’s Lily Anna Oakes and the firstborn of Emilian Oakes. He used to be Lily Anna Oakes fiancé until she died. Now Pandora is the replacement for that as well. He is Dexter Booth, firstborn and only heir left to Scott Booth. This is such an intense, bully-filled, mystery. There are so many questions and emotions in this book. The scenes are HOT HOT HOT with a dubious consent on Pandora’s part and cold calculation and vengeance on Dexter and his friends part. And yet, there are flashes of emotion to Dexter that are so brief, it had my mind questioning what was really going on. This is a GREAT book which leads me to believe will be a phenomenal series that I intend to follow closely. Luckily, I was given a copy of this book and then bought my own. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I’m loving Betti Rosewood’s darker side.. A Hurt So Sweet is the first part of a new series about the elite of Eden Falls, and it’s started it with a bang.

Pandora has been brought into a life that she doesn’t want, she has no choice but to take it, she is a Firstborn after all. She is expected to follow rules and marry a complete stranger – all because her father says so.
Dexter Booth is that stranger and also a Firstborn but he loves it. He loves having control and can’t wait to have control over his new fiance.
Being Firstborns in Eden Falls, their path is already mapped out for them, but do they really have to follow it?

A Hurt So Sweet is a dark romance, full of secrets, twists and broken minds. An intense read that is so captivating, it’s impossible to put down. It has left me excited about what comes next.

Five messed up stars for Pandora and Dexter !!!

This is the first book I’ve read by Betti Rosewood and I was really surprised by this book because it wasn’t anything I expected.

I needed to take sleep before writing this review because my feelings were so mixed and they still are.

“A Hurt So Sweet” is also the first book this year I’ve read in only one day.

The storyline is very good and it made me turning pages si fast only because I was so hungry to find out what will happen next.

Before you start reading this book, you have to know that this is truly a dark book.

It wasn’t similar to any book that I’ve read before and I read so many dark high school romance.

So, you know what I am talking about.

My heart was so heartbroken for Pandora.

And still, it is.

There were so many times that I wanted to go into the book and protected her from Dexter and his friends.

Usually, I love the main male character, no matter, how cruel he is, because in some time in the book, he changes.

But this didn’t happen here.

There were several times that I started to like Dexter, but as fast they came that fast ended.

So, I really hope that in the second book he will somehow change and I’ll find out why he was like that, so cruel…

Pandora’s and Dexter’s relationship isn’t romantic. They are forced to marry.

To be together.

But yeah, you can feel that there is some attraction.

Only that, because…

…they don’t love each other .

And the end !

I need to know what was Dexter going to say Pandora !

If you’re looking for a romance with truly dark content, this is a perfect book for you and you need to read it immediately!

Dark, and twisted!

This is the first book in the Elite of Eden Falls Prep series, and the depraved story of Dexter, and Pandora. Sent to Eden Falls Prep, Pandora is forced to deal with the cruel bullying of the schools elite, Dexter, Caspian, Lai, and Julian, the Firstborn. Pandora wants nothing to do with them, but they have her set is their sights. This was an intriguing read, dark, twisted, dramatic, intense, and emotional, the characters are well developed, the story line had mystery, suspense, secrets, and lots of twists, and turns. A must read!!

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Why Glorify Emotional Cruelty and Sexual Violence?

Betti Rosewood asks the reader to dive deeply into a dark, dystopian town called Eden Falls, where money, power, sex and misogyny rule. Pandora Oakes, aka Lily Anna, is the17year old firstborn of her family, a position that should offer unrivaled power in the darkly twisted world that she is unwillingly pulled into after the suicide of her “sister” Lily Anna. In Eden Falls all power rests with the founding families who carefully affiance their firstborn children to assure their complete control of the twisted town. When “sister” Lily Anna, learning that she is not her father’s true daughter, commits suicide, her father hunts down his run-away-first wife and claims Pandora as his true firstborn. For four years, Pandora is “educated/trained” in the ways of society, and now, on the eve of her 18th birthday, is injected into her family, meeting her step-mother and siblings for the first time. She is expected to forget her mother and siblings, and to step into the role of Lily Anna as the firstborn. But, found lacking in comparison to the loved and beautiful Lily Anna, Pandora struggles to “fit in,” torn between the need to remember her own identity, but tempted to assume the name, manner and even style and scent of the dead girl, even the arranged marriage to another firstborn, Dexter Booth.

As the reader sinks into the miasma of Eden Falls, it is difficult to find any reason to read on to the next page, knowing that it will be filled with another act of cruelty and perversion meted out to Pandora or to any other female, especially those like Minnie, daughter of one of the house servants, whose beauty draws the attention of all men, both Pandora’s father and brother, and any visiting male who catches sight of the young girl. Sexual abuse and physical cruelty propel the story forward with little purpose or plot to give meaning. Even the final cliff hanging ending is the sexual assault of Pandora by fiancé Dexter where she begs him to take her virginity, leaving the reader with the conundrum of whether Pandora will remain a virgin until her wedding and thus claim all the rights and privileges of her first born status, or has she been so psychologically and physically damaged that she will counterintuitively yield her potential firstborn power.

I cannot make a positive recommendation for this dark romance. The author yields to the idea that the more perversion and cruelty offered the reader, the better. Little character development is present, and a search of any message is futile. The basic concept of a child switched for another and the consequences for the child and families is an ancient theme and a interesting topic, but not effectively explored in this work

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

TL;DR?

I received this novel from Booksprout in exchange for an honest review.

I have looked at a lot of reviews written by others regarding A Hurt So Sweet, I am clearly not part of the majority. I firmly believe that a reviewer does an author no service in gaslighting stories that are half way to maturation. I will be critiquing A Hurt So Sweet in favor of Betti Rosewood and not in an attempt to flat out slam this novel.

I have no issue regarding the subject matter, subgenre and tropes in relation to this story. I have no prejudice regarding dark romance. I love bully books. I thoroughly enjoy broken heroes. I love despicable antiheroes who cross lines of humanity. I need push and pull between characters and conflict. But I want the complete package. I want to unwrap a book and I want to hate to love the feral madness in with I’m gifted.

The backstory in regards to the plot is that Eden Falls is a particular place with a strict patriarchal hierarchy; the First Born of the founders having ultimate and complete power. It is within the same world as Betti Rosewood’s Lords of Wildwood but outside the common society that we know from those books. I am saying that characters mentioned in both novels know one another but you would be wrong to assume that these two series share the same level of dark romance or bullying. The plot itself–while somewhat a stretch–could easily be rumors regarding a salacious ‘secret society’.

This novel has catastrophic shortcomings from the start in characterization; the characters simply do not equal the potential of the plot. Pandora is a conscripted imposter to fulfill a purpose within the Eden Falls aristocracy. She has the blood of an Eden Falls family but she did not grow up amongst the rules and strictures. Her backstory is not well established by the exposition despite clunky suggestions. Considering the scene that the author is setting for Pandora her characterization and behavior make little sense.

There is no depth to who Pandora is, what her motivations are, and why it is she both assumes entitlement and claims captivity. It is a disrespect to a protagonist for the author to handle her so lightly. It felt to me that Rosewood portrayed Pandora as someone to whom she might have heard of and not someone she was creating. There is no breath of life breathed into her. She was difficult to understand or relate to in any sort, and her actions felt like role play rather than psychology.

When Pandora comes to this Eden Falls Estate she enters a home to which she has no personal history. She is being introduced to this new and baffling family for the first time with all of them virtual strangers. The backstory given is that she, nor the family, realized that the Oakes Heiress had been mistaken with that of another child at birth? We as readers don’t know how this was discovered or why it matters. So the first pages of this book Pandora is as new to the Oakes story as we are. She is dropped into the unknown just as we are. And she is given the handbook for Eden Falls (that is a real thing) and told to begin educating herself on the families and the exceptions of the founders. The first interaction with these strangers she behaves like a two year old without a sense of boundaries. Further into the stories you find that she doesn’t even attempt to understand how to manage or maneuver as an Eden Falls citizen. Her character lays on top of the story rather than being anchored to a purpose. Without having a foundation for her personality or complexity to her persona every time she interacts with another character it reads as if she is made of paper and not written upon it.

Because of the lack of conviction in the writing it reads like the heroine has no backbone. The secondary characters become nothing more word count padding. And it feels like I just wasted my time getting less than I was promised from a really strong narrative platform.

The antagonists–to which there are many–are all of the same shade of gray. With there being no gradient between the denizens of Eden Falls there is nothing to sink into and everyone feels one dimensional. One of the worst sins a writer can commit against their own works is to undervalue the reader. If you won’t give your reader the same reason to invest in your characters as you yourself took to write your novel you fail yourself and your readership. I couldn’t find any reason to care about the narration or plot because there was no one for whom I could rally to succeed and no one to whom I would want to save in a book burning.

Dexter, Lai, Caspian, Julian and Brazen are part of the patriarchy with Dexter holding some higher position than the others. Why? Well that isn’t well established other than that the others in Eden Falls appear to defer to him. Beyond that there is no differentiating aspect other than their names. They need a pathology outside of a corrupt system. They yearn to be molded into characters that will feed a reader enough to make them hunger for more of why the hero or heroes are rotten inside. Dexter needs to be someone that looks delectable but tastes like depravity.

The male First Born are more or less celebrities. They have favor, fortune and power and countless sycophants. Because the fraternal nature of the founders men maintain a higher level of influence. Any rules regarding polite society are brushed aside in favor of the unspoken norm of hedonism. Dexter and his close friends who are all First Born take whatever they fancy and lack of consent isn’t a deterrent. You can’t mistreat something without substance. You can’t defile something that has no profile. But the story is a series of D/s sexual encounters connected by bad script; sadly it’s terrible porn.

The absence of conscience in A Hurt So Sweet needs to be a character just as much as the main and secondary actors. I want to be able to find something inside each individual that is substantive. The story should infuse the reader with the same lunacy of the heroine to want the abuse, shame and humiliation that is taking place in the narrative. I want to experience the same helplessness the heroine does to need the debasement and I want to know that the author wants me to experience it too. If it is being phoned in it reads like nothing more than fan fic and roleplay.

I won’t even get into an analysis of the timeline and suggested sequence of past events because this critique is already longer than anyone will read.

There are so many incredible parts of this story that could be something more.

When I was reading Boys that Tease many of the same issues existed in that novel. Tinsley is a delicate and precious with a genuine psychopathy for which the reader can relate but Rosewood’s writing left her flat for most of the book. And Estella was the paper doll version of a mean girl. The formula and outline are here but the development is missing.

Betti Rosewood has incredible first drafts of stories but she is publishing them when they need to be given a second draft. She needs honest beta readers. The books need thorough editing. And the stories and characters need to be better loved before these books see the light of day.

And I am guessing this review will be disliked by many.