Valentina was brought into my home when we were teenagers, her virgin body sold to my father to pay a debt. She was meant to be his plaything, but I claimed her innocence for myself.My father discovered us together, and he exiled me from Colombia to America, where I was commanded to run his cocaine empire on the west coast. I bided my time, consolidating power until the day I was strong enough to … strong enough to take my Valentina.
I’d been consumed with plans to rescue her, but she didn’t wait for me. She fell in love with another man, and I loathe her for that.
My hatred doesn’t stop me from stealing her back for myself. After ten long years of separation, I finally return home to claim what has always been mine. Valentina will fight me, but she doesn’t realize that the cruelly possessive boy she used to love has grown into a sadistic man. Her cries for mercy will only fuel my obsession and my burning need to punish her for daring to love someone else.
Valentina has always belonged to me. I will make her mine, whether she wants it or not. I will own her forever, body and soul.
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So if you read the prequel, you will know that Valentine and Adrian have had a rough start in what little relationship they had. It is now ten years later, and Adrian is in town for his father’s wedding to some poor girl.
Neither Adrian nor Valentine knows what happened to each other after they were separated ten years prior all they know is that Adrian and Valentine both were left and they really do hate each other, but Adrian will be damned if he will leave her again. So Valentine gets kidnapped again, but this time from the only man she has ever loved. Will these two be able to figure out whatever happened ten years ago and get over it?
This book brings pain, suffering, misunderstandings, and finally healing to these two people. Julia does a beautiful job with this book. I loved it and couldn’t put it down.
Stealing Beauty by Julia Sykes. This book picks up 10 years after Stealing Innocence which is the prequel to this book. Valentina has been living a life of hell being the wife of Hugo. She is dead inside and she doesn’t know how much more she can take. At Vicente’s wedding she comes face to face with Adrian. He didn’t keep his promise and come back for her. Adrian has become cold and hard. In America he has made a name for himself. He has embraced the drug trade. Now face to face with Valentina, his young love, he sees happiness on her face. How could she!! Adrian ends up taking Valentina. All he needs to do is get her out of his dad and Hugo’s territory in Columbia and back to his territory in California. Their journey to safety is this story. I do say that I liked the first book better. This story was not what I expected and because I had my own ideal of what I wanted the story to tell it didn’t live up to it. Regardless to that fact, I still enjoyed this story. Something about Adrian made me swoon. He was protective but extremely savage. His pain/pleasure needs were really sexy. A truly good story. Would love to know where they go after the end of this book. 4 stars.
This is a perfectly intense read and I did not want to put it down. Adrian and Valentina had such an emotional, unique bond in their teens. He was a protector with a very strong will. Fast forward ten years and that connection is still there. I felt so many emotions while I read their story, heart pounding at times, tears threatened to fall at other times. Valentina had been through so many things in their time apart and my heart ached for her. I loved that bond, that need between them… it’s a must read story. I’m also going to be on the edge of my seat while we wait for the next read.
I received a copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.
Stealing Beauty
5 Stars
This is the second book of Valentina and Adrian’s story. Very well done, Julia!!
Omg! Talk about an emotional roller coaster! Trying to control them all. WOW! All of the anger, hate, rage, love, trust, dark romance, and drama. Surely kept me at the edge of my seat!
“The idea of the boy I’d once loved laying his hands on me with violence made a horrified tremor shake my body, and I moaned into the gag.”
Do recommend.
This was a good fast read. Got my attention from page one. It was well written and I liked the characters. The sex was hot hot hot. There was just a tiny bit of drag in the story line but then picked right back up.
This was a great conclusion to Stolen Innocence! We see Valentina and what she became after Adrian was sent away. The nightmare she lived in.
I have to say, I was a little irritated with the attitude Adrian came in with, in this book, and how angry he was with her and how much he blamed her. It all made sense later in the book, but I thought he was just kind of a jerk at first! LOL
This was a very entertaining read, and I like how the story ended. I would definitely recommend.
I enjoyed this, especially after reading the prequel Stolen Innocence, which I recommend you read prior to this, its not essential, but it really does give a good background to the story and the characters, and helps to explain why Adrian and Valentina hate each other so much at the start of this book!
Its a dark and twisted tale, with some quite graphic violent scenes, captor / captive style in its telling. Its fast paced and really holds your attention. Valentina and Adrian hate each other with a passion – she thinks Adrian didn’t come back to save her from his father and right hand man Hugo, who she was given to and forced to marry, subjected to all sorts of abuse and violence in order to break her and turn her into the perfect wife. Adrian thinks Valentina married Hugo willingly and adores him – this is part of the story that bothered me a little, if he would just have bothered to find out the truth, then of course the story wouldn’t have been as good, but still it bothered me!
Years later and their paths cross, and what ensues is their story of love, passion, emotion, obsession, heartbreak and violence, both mental and physical – its twisted, dark and dangerous, with Adrian being extremely dominant and requiring Valentina’s full submission. There are tender moments in the midst of all this darkness, with the sexual chemistry between them off the charts and leaning towards the BDSM side of things.
I enjoyed this and was engrossed in their story, there were a couple stupid decisions made that could have been avoided I think, but overall it was a very enjoyable read and I am looking forward to reading about Mateo and Sofia next.
Stealing Beauty broke my heart in a million pieces, but count stops myself to read till the end.
This book is so addicted, raw, twisted and dark, and I love it.
Valentina & Adrian love story is so twisted and broken that is almost impossible to find a light of happiness.
Don’t expect chocolate and flowers, and hold your breath this book going to make you breathless.
The sex scenes are scorching gave me a nasty case of the hot flush!
Valentina, she is so strong even after so much s# happen to her, she still delicate and beautiful.
Adrián I was in between a love/hate relationship with his character.
OMG, I hate Hugo with my life!
Can’t wait for the next book.
HEA at least.
3.5 stars
“He awakened things in me that I thought were long dead. He brought me back to life, just so he could decimate what was left of me.”
You don’t have to but I still I recommend you read the prologue Stolen Innocence before you start this book, because I think the background information will help you tremendously in understanding the dynamics between the main characters Valentina and Adrián. After reading the prologue I was looking forward to reading what would happen when these two characters would be reunited again. Both are angry and disappointing with the other. They were expecting certain things from each other that they both couldn’t be able to fulfill in the current situation they were in. I could feel the strong connection between them, but they just had to explain why they acted and behaved the way they did.
“He’d surrendered his black heart to me years ago, and I offered my tattered heart in return. Our ravaged souls fit together: two halves of a whole.”
There were a couple of incidents were in my opinion the characters made stupid decisions, which resulted in dangerous situations that could’ve totally been avoided. I can blame some of it to the stress they were all in, and the author wanting to add a bit more suspense to the story. But it annoyed me a bit, and that is why I rated this book 3.5 stars instead of 4. The anger that they both felt towards each other, was a bit out of place sometimes, but further down the story I understood better why they acted the way they did. The sex had some BDSM elements to it, which is normally not my cup of tea, but I was glad it wasn’t over the top. These scenes were extremely hot and erotic. Stealing Beauty was a fast-paced dark romance, with a great flow. I just thought the ending was a bit rushed, and it left me wanting more.
Stealing Beauty is book 1 in the Stolen series. There is a prequel to this book Stolen Innocence which is free now but, I don’t know for how long and not necessary to read however, it does have some history you might be interested in.
This is Adrián Rodríguez & Valentina’s story. Valentina was sold to Adrián’s father Vicente, by her brother. She was young when she was forced to marry Hugo (Vicente’s right hand man.
Adrián had befriended Valentina & had protected her when he could. His father sent him to the states to mind his drug business to get him away from Valentina. Now Adrián is back after being gone for 10 years. He is not the boy he was when he was sent away. He is a hard and ruthless man that has been a drug lord in California.
Valentina didn’t know that Vicente had sent Adrián away. She thought he was gone by his own choice so she blamed him for abandoning her.
Wow what an ending! Warning there is a pretty brutal but, well-deserved scene very close to the end.
There were some very hot sex scenes but, I felt some of it was forced not in the good BDSM way but, in the writing of the scene. It is a very good story that grabs your attention from the beginning to the end. 4 stars for me.
Next up will be Sofia and Mateo’s story. Pretty Hostage and I can’t wait to read their story.