They were taken.Off the street. From parking lots. Malls. Playgrounds.Snatched from life and thrust into hell.They took Orion Darby on a perfect summer day, while she could still taste her first kiss on her lips.She joined the others with chains on their ankles and scars on their souls.They turned into nothing more than statistics. Cold cases. Lost girls.Years passed and the world forgot.Until … and the world forgot.
Until the day they escaped.
This is not about their captivity.
This is about their struggle to return to a life that’s passed them by.
This was the real world.
But for Orion, this was hell.
You see… freedom isn’t enough.
She needs blood.
more
I needed to get away from my light hearted Rom Com’s for a few, and boy did this book do it for me. I fully admit I had to step away for a few days after reading it to digest what I had just taken in. This is dark and twisted. It does involve child trafficking and revenge. And finally, satisfaction. Malcolm and Urruela take a twisted world and give it color, description and life.
“I don’t think she is entirely human. I think she had to become a little bit of a monster to survive.”
I don’t want to go too much into the plot for fear of spoilers, but this is worth it.
These two authors alone write great work, but they have outdone themselves writing as a duo. This read grabbed my heartstrings, made me feel all the feels. It was dark, beautiful and broken. I loved Orion and Maddox and the deep friendship with April. I respected that she wasn’t treated like a victim by either of them, they still loved her as if she had never been gone while treating her with the boundaries she set to keep moving forward. If you like a dark read, pick this one up.
“Hush now, girl. You belong to us now….”
Amazing!! Dark, but just enough detail to put you in the moment, to feel. Orion was such a strong woman. BT and Anne did an outstanding job. Their work blended as one. It flowed easily. So good!
This book is dark and dirty and so real that it fucking hurts. It’s painful but such a great read. Taylor and Anne did such a great job with Hush. I loved the story and the brutal, gory bits from Taylor, and the sweet “girl tribe” moments from Anne had me crying and rooting for Orion so hard.
This book is not sunshine and roses, it’s hard and disturbing and tragic. If you like dark reads that rip your heart out, this one is for you.
I am kinda speechless right now! These authors are amazing, individually, but together they are freaking phenomenal!! The writing is seamless, like if I didn’t know already that it had been co-written, I would not of guessed!
This book tore me apart, but I couldn’t out it down! These girls have been through so much, but this is just the beginning. These authors throw you straight in, don’t be expecting to have an easy ride with this book at all!! This is going to stay with me for sometime!
A very unique story from Anne & BT. Beware- it is dark, with sooo many triggers. But the writing is great, the characters have depth, the story keeps interest right to the last page. Orion wins the strongest heroine award! Dexter would be proud.
Holy dark! Amazing story. Couldn’t put this down. This is triggers be warned but it is amazing!! The heroine is one of the strongest I have read in a while. This story sucked me in from the very beginning. Read cover to cover. Definitely recommend!!!
Well, this one is going to be tough to peg.
I’m a self confessed lover of all things dark, but even this one had me questioning my commitment to it and my ability to make it through, but battle on I did, much like it’s characters.
Orion Darby goes missing on probably the most pivotal day of her young life; the day she receives her first kiss.
What follows is nothing short of horrendous, despicable and even in fictional form really hard to stomach.
Upon her escape, Orion must not only navigate a world she has lost 10 years of and a re-integration that is understandably near impossible, but the people who were left to struggle with her disappearance, and what they now mean to each other.
I unfortunately found a sterility in the third person POV that caused a real disconnect for me with characters; I struggled to truly appreciate their feelings as a result.
It certainly is a different style for Malcom, and although I haven’t yet read any of Urruela’s work, I can only assume this leant more to his style.
As Orion becomes what she has determined her experience has made her; a monster, she denies the humanity that the other pivotal characters could give her through their attempts at a relationship with her. This disconnect is justified.
The abruptness of the ending also took something away from the sincerity of either Orion or Maddox, but many will find it satisfying.
This is worth the chance, but bear in mind this is definitely not for the faint of heart, and is a long way from a love story.
No spoilers of any kind included.
I thought Hush was absolutely amazing!
Anne Malcom and BT Urruela are both awesome story weavers by themselves but together they make a fantastic writing team.
I look forward to them blending their talents together again sometime in the future.
So yes I do recommend this book because I loved it and I think you will too!
*An ARC was provided by the author, publisher or a promotional service and I have chosen to publish a fair and honest review*
This book is beautiful and dark. It’s not an easy read but it is really a beautiful piece of work by these two authors. It is a difficult subject matter but they tackled it with sensitivity in do many places without sugar coating it or making it an easy read. The main female protagonist is an amazingly strongly written character. Anyone who has heard of human trafficking would wish for this kind of reality for those who have been the victims of it and in that way it’s an incredibly cathartic read. The characters are easy to connect with and sympathetically written.
This may be a dark subject matter and a dark read but it is really worth it. I really recommend this book. It’s such a good read.
This story captures so many emotions that I don’t even know where to begin. A jaw dropping, unforgettable ride that once you start reading you won’t be able to stop. I don’t even have the words to describe this rollercoaster except that it’s a must read. It’s dark and gritty but at the same time hopeful. A must read that is going on my list of best reads of 2020.
This book was so dark and gritty and I loved everything about it only thing I didn’t like was the ending which literally was the only downside of the book for me. Orion only had one word on her mind, revenge, and that was putting it mildly considering what was taken from her and seeing life through her now damaged soul will cut you deep
5 DARK, RAW AND TOUGH STARS!! This is a dark, raw and very tough story, but so worth the read. It was beautifully told by these two amazing authors. My poor heart felt every feel this book had….there were times I thought my heart stopped beating, but it always came back. This book will stick with me forever….I felt like I was watching a movie all the way through.
What can I say about this book… it was like WOW!!! Anne and B.T have done an amazing job with this story, its one that will take you on an emotional roller coaster like no other. This story is dark, like really dark it will take you to places of your nightmares but its told in such a respectful and honest, raw way that will have you feeling like you want to wrap all the characters up and save them from their hurt. The raw emotions, every character was affected and the way in which they were portrayed was incredibly real this book will keep you glued to its pages, a highly emotive read definitely not for the faint of heart.
This is the first time I have read anything by BT but not my first foray into the magic of Anne Malcom. This was a fantastic collaboration. I am not sure where one stopped writing and the next picked it up or even how collaboration works. All I know is that in regard to this book, it was seamless and never jarring.
It is important to note that these two authors did not write a romance. Although touches of it can be found in the book, it is definitely not one that fits into that sub-genre. This book is heartbreaking. It posits, what would it take to survive something horrible? I had to ask myself would I be irrevocably broken? would I have survived and lost all sense of my moral compass and be basically a monster set on revenge? The context of this book is gritty and hard. It hinted at what had happened for ten years but nothing too detailed other than mentions in the past tense of what had been done but nothing graphic as it was happening. That was a good thing because watching Jaclyn, Mary Lou, Shelby, and Orion talk about it was painful enough. Especially, Orion. Sweet Lord, this girl. Her resilience. She lost so much. When she has her moments of breaking and speaking her truths to April And Mav. Holy hell, it hurt. I found myself both crying at what all she lost, both in the past and in the future. I also felt myself inwardly cheering at the decisions she makes for herself. Sexual abuse is a hard thing to deal with on any level. I know this personally. There are stages to what people go through in this book and in life, and no one way is correct. These authors show that by giving a glimpse of how the girls manage it differently. It also affects those people around them.
Bottom line, as raw and heartbreaking this was, how skewed it could be in regards to having a moral compass, it still makes one think, and that is the sign of not only an amazing book, but also an amazing collaborative effort on the part of these authors who made it okay to step outside of the box and read something that truly is heartbreaking but in doing so manage to see things in a different light.
Phenomenal collaboration between two of my favorite authors . . .
For me, Hush is a raw, gritty and very real story of three women’s survival after enduring horrors I couldn’t even imagine. It’s also about how they found the strength they needed when their escape depended on it and then trying to acclimate to a “normal” life when they’ve known anything but that for far too long.
The writing is so vivid that I felt I was experiencing the story with the characters and it was rather painful at times. Each of the women had her own way of coping with the after affects of their experience, but it’s Orion’s that I found to be the most honest. She finds a way to direct her pain, anger and hate in a way that, while twisted, I found to be real, and because of it, I found her to be the most honest about her emotions and mental state of mind.
The story is also a look into the affects on the ones that were left behind when their loved one just disappears and that too is painful. It doesn’t matter that your feelings have not changed, it’s coping with the fact that that person isn’t the one you once knew, and can you accept that?
Hush is not my typical read, but this is one that I’m glad I’ve read and will be recommending to others. It’s a MUST READ!!!
I hope to see future collaborations from BT and Anne, and I’m also hoping we may see more from the “lost girls” and the significant people in their lives.
I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this one but once I started it I was completely hooked from beginning to end. It was dark and hard to read in places and my heart honestly broke for those Lost Girls.
These talented authors chose a tough subject to write about but they did it in a great way. They told the tale from Orion’s POV mainly were we got to find out how she felt being kidnapped, tortured and raped for over a decade but you don’t get it all in graphic detail you just get the feelings, the emotions. It was interesting how each girl dealt with it all differently. It does bring the questioning of how you would deal with it if you were in their position.
Not only did you see how the girls was dealing with this you also had Orion’s childhood best friend and her brother to deal with. Maddox has always wondered what happened to the 14 year old girl he loved and kissed, he has death with guilt for not knowing what happened to her. Now she is back and he is fighting to be what she needs, to not wrap her up in his arms and promise to keep her safe. She is not the same girl she is dark and damaged.
My only criticism is that i felt this book ended abruptly, i could have read so much more considering the way it ended. My only hope is that maybe this will lead to another book.
Orion Darby thought of herself as one lucky girl until that fateful day when her innocence proved to be her downfall. Maddox knew in his heart that the community’s lack of interest in the poor girl’s disappearance was more than a trailer park run away, Fate brought them back together, but the sparkle that once lit up Orion had faded and the darkness of her tragedy wore heavy on her soul.
Anne Malcolm and BT Urruela unravel the sick underworld of sex trafficking. However, their approach to the subject diverges from the usual victim and assailant trope. The third-person limited, and times almost a hint of omniscient point of view, allows for the reader to experience the disconnect Orion has with her abuse during childhood and in captivity, It’s a unique perspective which certainly proved to be a winner in taking the author’s craft of tone and delivering the proper mood. The selection of Orion as a name is brilliant. It strengthens characterization and builds the resilience needed to cope with such a tragedy. Malcolm and Urruela bring a richness to the psychological damage not recognized by most in the face of the deepest scars left behind from those captured and toyed within the sex trafficking world. While Orion represents the wisdom learned through the eyes of a victim, Maddox juxtaposes her to the true north of justice. The brilliance of the work exists in the paradox which unfolds between the hunter and the prey.
This was my first read by both of these authors, I expected it to be dark and violent, which it was, but I also expected it to be like other books about surviving being abducted and rebuilding your life, but this one has a different take on things, which was good!
The story is based on Orion, a fourteen year old girl who was biking home from spending the day with her best friend and her having her first kiss given to her by her best friend’s brother. She was in a world of her own with her head in the clouds and didn’t see the van until it was too late and she was abducted.
She is raped and thrown into a basement that houses some other girls. She spends the next 10 years of her life in this basement, being raped, abused and tortured, plotting ways to escape. She does eventually get out and the detective working the case is none other than the boy who gave her her first kiss. For years he has searched and wondered what had become of Orion, now he has to help her rebuild her life.
The story then focuses on Orion and the girls who she escaped with and how they go about rebuilding their lives after living through everything that they have and readjusting to ‘normality’.
It if a dark and violent read, beware there may be triggers, but it is also emotional and I was rooting for the girls to get their freedom and for their attackers to be caught. But the outcomes for each of the girls is very different, a stark reality to how we all adjust and cope with what life throws at us.
The ending is not what I expected at all, I saw it playing out differently, so that was a big surprise, but it did feel a little rushed at the end.
Hush is a dark, violent, raw, gritty story that will stick with you long after you’ve finished reading. This is a story that highlights something that is going on in our world that most of us are not witnessed to but should be aware of. Its a story, filled with triggers, that will take you on an emotional journey and will have your heart pounding and make you uncomfortable but its a story that should be read.
The authors did a phenomenal job writing this tale and introducing us to these characters, showing us the struggle of living through hell and then trying to having some sort of life after. The story is not what you would expect and takes a dark turn. Its about strength, survival, and facing monsters. Your heart will just break for these lost girls. Expect to feel it all and then so more as the emotions will be ripped from you as you read this story.
Prepare to be consumed with these characters and this story. You will not be able to put it down. Congrats to these two authors on this amazing collaboration.