Monsters. They don’t hide in your nightmares. They steal you away from the good life and prevent you from living your dreams.That’s where 17-year-old Gwendolyn Fitzpatrick found herself; surrounded by wicked fiends after everything she thought she had was gone in the blink of an eye. She was shuffled away with one bag of memories miles away to a pair of foster parents that hardly had her best … her best interests at hand. Forced to obey and listen to her caregiver’s commands, Gwendolyn buries her old self and focuses on the pain to become one of them.
A monster herself to seek vengeance.
While yearning for her teeming point to come, Gwendolyn starts to connect with another 17-year-old foster boy living with her who calls himself Welch. Just when Gwendolyn starts to feel faith splice its way through the venom of pain, the connection she has with Welch is put in jeopardy as the harshness gets worse with each passing day.
Will the two tattered spirits make it out alive?
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Gah! You know that feeling when you read something dark and you feel yourself falling and tumbling down a very dark hole but you just can’t seem to bring yourself to stop?
When you can actually feel the despair of the characters?
Yeah, that’s where I went with this one.
If I am in the mood for utter pitch-black, Mary Palmerin is my go-to girl. *fist bump’s Mary…then pinches her arm for causing so much heartache*
And Gwendolyn vs the Band of Barren Hearts was no exception.
This is a very dark journey through a tortured and abused mind. In this book, you witness the birth of a ‘monster’.
Proceed with caution.
GWENDOLYN
Fuck…just…fuck!
Gwendolyn’s world comes to a sudden and soul-destroying halt when her parents die in a car accident and as she’s not quite 18 and has no other family, she is sent into foster care.
She was a kind and beautiful soul with endless possibilities for her future and it’s gone in the blink of an eye.
The pain from losing both her parents while she is so young is bad enough but the absolute hell she enters when she walks through the door of her new foster parents’ home? Yeah…I don’t have the words (nope, that doesn’t happen very often, lol).
She meets another 17-year-old at the foster home but refuses to even consider making friends with him as she doesn’t want to care about anyone ever again.
However, what the future (and her new foster parents) have planned for her makes it impossible to stay away…emotionally or physically.
Omg…ouch!
This one got me right in the feels. ALL OF THE FEELS, DAMNIT!
It’s chaotic, confusing, dark, disturbing, heartbreaking, and scary in her mind and begs the age-old question, is a monster made or born that way?
WELCH
Oh boy…this lad has been so fucked up he’s never going to be able to be anywhere near normal. Ever.
He never even had a chance.
Unlike Gwendolyn, his life has been utter hell from day one. Just utterly brutal.
But the biggest mind fuck when it comes to Welch is that he has been conditioned to prefer certain…acts.
He’s had to perform, so to speak, and in order to make people happy with his ‘performance’, he has to climax. And after so long and with so much conditioning it’s what he has come to…I don’t want to say ‘enjoy’. It’s more like a need.
And as he still has his humanity, this makes him hate himself too.
Och man, the whole story just kills ye!
WARNING-TRIGGERS FOR THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT:
“I have to do things to you, Gwendolyn. Bad things to you-,” he pauses, clenching his jaw and scrunching his eyebrows. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you,” he states, looking down at the corner of the molded tub. Bad things? “Remember, just like before, Welch. Get to it,” shouts Claude as he watches our naked, wet bodies in the shower with the curtain pulled back so he can have a full view. He reaches his hand towards my face like he is going to cup it to comfort me. Instead, he goes past my face and grabs my hair. He pulls it hard and I shriek out in pain. Searing agony shoots down my spine as he yanks my head back and turns me around, pushing my bottom against his hard erection. The hot water is raining hard upon my face and I can’t see or breathe well. All I want to do is scream. Fuck fighting, I want to run. I feel my forehead hit the hard plastic of the shower and my vision goes cloudy. At the same instant, I hear the familiar animalistic groans of pleasure from before as pain shoots through me. So much for a candlelight dinner and slow dancing before the boy who loves the girl takes her innocence. That’s the way I always pictured that I would lose mine. Not in some nasty trailer by a boy in robot- mode who is forced to fuck me while slamming my head into the shower wall. I try to reach out to grab onto something to pull myself away so I can gulp air into my lungs, but there is nothing as Welch jabs himself into me over and over again. The hard movements make me understand that I am alive. This is not a dream that I can simply wake up from. This is the life that I live and I have to take it, play the game, then get even. Then, as quick as it began, the commotion and soreness cease as I feel a spurt of something hot along my bottom. Welch releases my hair, leaving me to fall to the bottom of the tub with the once hot droplets panging my skin. He curls into a ball next to me, screaming out in terror as I hear the door to the bathroom close.
SEX SCENES
I don’t usually like to share so many excerpts in my reviews as it makes them too long and people get bored, lol, but I’m going to do a second one here. I feel like you need to know what you’re getting into, ye ken?
“Pain. Please, give me pain.” I thought I was thinking in my head, but I hear the echo of my own words bouncing around the room. “You want pain, sweet girl?” he asks before dipping between my legs, licking me perfectly. His tongue is swirling about in the most enjoyable manner and I find myself ready to let go. His way. Just as I feel myself ready for the drop, his mouth leaves me breathless. “What are you doing, Welch?” I whisper. I want to shout at him, slap him, and then fuck him into a frenzy. “You want pain, sweetheart. I know all about pain.” He pulls my panties away from me and yanks his shirt and boxers off. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. How can something so fucked up seem right? How can I hate something that I want, him? He turns me over onto my belly and pulls my legs up so my bottom is up in the air. I feel myself dripping wet. Part of me is embarrassed, but the other part of me just wants some goddamn relief from this unbearable, incredible aching between my fucking legs. He slides into me, rubbing his hand along the length of my spine. His movements are slow and methodical. The push isn’t enough as I rock my hips into him, an indication that I need it harder and faster. “Are you ready for pain, sweet girl?” “Yes,” I breathe. So much trust for him. How can that be? We hardly have much knowledge about one another, yet we know so much. He pounds into me harder; he’s tantalizing me along the edge as he pulls out. I want to turn around and sucker- punch him, but I don’t have the energy. The withholding of my pleasure is cruel. Before I can comprehend what is occurring, he is probing himself into my bottom. This should feel wrong, right? I should tell him to stop, but I don’t. I want the pain. I need it. My sweaty palms grasp onto his bedsheets as I push him all the way into my ass. The searing, tearing pain is amusing as my heart whooshes in my ears. My lungs burn and I have to constantly remind myself to breathe. What a goddamn beautiful nightmare this is. Who would have thought this would be such a good hurt? His hand reaches around me, landing on my clit and I am instantly sent over the edge of bliss. My knees give out as he continues to fuck my ass, finally succumbing to his own orgasm as he spurts himself inside of me. As he pulls out of me, the throb from where he was pounding to life makes me remember who was there. Welch trails kisses along my back, hugging me with his sweaty frame. “Do you feel better, sweet girl? Was it too much?” Too much in a way that makes my heart feel again. But I can’t and won’t let him know that. “It was perfect.” For the first time in months, I was telling the truth.
FINAL THOUGHTS on GWENDOLYN vs. THE BAND OF BARREN HEARTS
Jesus fuck, this one was dark! Oh, one other warning…you’ll need a strong stomach. Think ‘Lorraina Bobbit’, okay? Mwahahaha (that’s my evil cackle again btw 🙂 )
5 Stars