ERIK The white picket fence. The happily-ever-after. That life was never meant for him. For years he’s been bouncing from city to city–from one cage fight to another. That’s his outlet. That’s pain Erik can control. But in Seattle, everything changed. River’s an artist. He’s a pretty boy. He does yoga. Someone so soft shouldn’t be intrigued by Erik’s rough edges. RIVER His life was quiet. He … rough edges.
RIVER
His life was quiet. He had a simple routine.
Designing tattoos, avoiding drama. Well, mostly.
Then Erik comes along–scarred and dangerous, shrouded in mystery.
A mystery River can’t resist trying to solve.
Maybe a secret as dark as his own.
Neither of them expected a relationship so complicated, so intense.
Neither of them expected…each other.
Erik and River are both trying to escape a shadowed past.
But the thing about shadows is: the faster you run, the faster they chase you.
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Dark, dramatic, and gritty!
Shadows You Left is a sultry, character-driven romance that takes you on a journey into the lives of Erik and River, two tormented and tortured souls who together discover the comfort, solace, and unconditional love they each need to battle all their internal demons.
The prose is poetic and enticing. The characters are consumed, damaged, and impulsive. And the plot told from alternating POVs is a somber tale of friendship, family, addiction, hope, patience, violence, grief, heartbreak, and the art of tattooing.
I have to admit this was a really tough one for me. There is no doubt that Sierra and Brooke can write a beautiful story about unconventional relationships that push people to understand and accept that there is no one norm when it comes to loving another person. And even though I am confident that some readers will absolutely love the tragic gloominess of Shadows You Left, unfortunately for me it was a tad too long and a little too stormy for me to enjoy it as much as I would have liked.
Erik asks River to give him a tattoo. They find they are both attracted and try to see where it goes. This is hard for Erik since he is often moving around and has trouble with trust.
River does not want to get his hopes up. He knows Erik is struggling to define himself. River normally sticks to his routine, however, his longing for Erik puts him at a whole new level.
This book has so much in it. These characters are seriously in need of one another. The story can be dark at times. I actually liked how they were together and found that if I made it past the grit, there was good heat and and friendship.
***This ARC copy was given in exchange for an honest review by Netgalley and its publisher.
3,5 stars
This book gave me mixed feelings. The first half of the book was really slow. They started out as maybe some kind of friends with benefits, but they weren’t really friends. But even though they had a lot of sex the sex scenes was really tame and I just needed more from that half of the book. It was full of emotions, doubt, self-hate, pain, passion and so much more but it was a little confusing and I needed a little more. It just didn’t catch me as much as it should and I really started to doubt if this book would get good.
But then I got to the last half of the book and it was like they have heard my prays for something more. The sex scenes were still tame but everything else improved. All the emotions got way more in dept and you could truly understand why they felt as they felt. I was starting to really like these guys and got more and more hooked on the book.
I love a good fighter romance, and when you put not one but to tortured souls in it too it just has to get you feeling all sorts of things and this book did that for me. I was hating on Erik so often because you could just see everything he did to punish himself but when he was with River he was such a sweet guy and really showed his heart (sometimes). But at the same time I started rooting for him I also really wanted River and Erik together but I was just as much if not more rooting for Erik and just wanted to see how he started growing and learning his way in life without pain.
I normally isn’t a fan of books with too many drugs in it, but even though we got around some addictions and some of the people in the books took drugs a couple of time it wasn’t the dominant part of the book and that made it okay for me.
I can’t choose who I like most in this book River or Erik. They are so different and affected me to completely different levels. River is so sweet, and caring it almost hurt to see how much people took advantage of him and just walked all over him and he never thought about himself only the other person. I wanted to be his friend, the person he could talk to and get no judgment from or just give him some support.
Erik, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He was in so much pain and lived in self-hate and it was so hard to sit on the sidelines and read about how he was so destructive in his own life. How he hungered for love and kindness but at the same time just wanted the pain to take him away.
The ending is what I liked the most in this book. You really saw the difference in them as a couple, you saw them try to really be there for each other and meet each other halfway. How they started caring for each other’s pain and not just their own. They got to be the person that meant something to the other. It was so inspiring to read a book where the tortured soul didn’t have to change just learn to share it with someone.
So all in all if you can read a really really slow burn book the first half of the book then this was a beautiful story that I think really many people would love and really feel deep in their hearts.
Excellent! The characters in this M/M contemporary romance are intriguing and captivating. River and Eric are two broken souls who are rocked by their attraction to each other. It is unexpected, intense, and swift. They both have secrets and pasts they don’t want to talk or think about and each has handled their pasts very differently. They shouldn’t work but they definitely do. The chemistry between them jumps from the pages. I enjoyed their story very much and would definitely recommend it to everyone.