Black Swan Affair

I teetered on the edge of my seat the entire time, agonizing over how this mesmerizing story would end…

“We can’t help who we love.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

1. BLACK SWAN AFFAIR by K.L. Kreig

SYNOPSIS

I’ve loved him as long as I can remember. The gangly boy with big brown eyes and unruly hair who grew up into an intoxicating man. He wears scruff like he invented it and ambles with a swagger that makes panties drop. Killian Shepard. Shep.

We grew up together. We played Ghost in the Graveyard. Had our own rock band. It didn’t matter that he was five years older than me. It didn’t matter that he looked at me as a kid sister even as I grew into a woman. It didn’t even matter when he left me behind to go to college and start his adult life. He’d be back. He was always meant to be mine. He came back, all right. But instead of smelling of promises, he stunk of betrayal. And he destroyed me—us—the day he married my sister instead of me.

So I did the only thing a girl like me in my position could do. I got my revenge. I married his brother, Kael.

Now we’re one big happy f*cking family.

BOOK REVIEW

Black Swan Affair by K.L. Kreig was such an unexpected multi-faceted read full of angst and all kinds of different emotions. The story was definitely a complicated one within the premise of a gut-wrenching love triangle that showed the very limitations and possibilities of love. As a dedicated romance reader, I’m used to the idea of soulmates and the uniqueness of such a state of tender feeling. But the book reminded me of the fact that love is actually not a constant, that it is prone to endless changes, or rather, adaptation, depending on the circumstances of a given time. The author surprised me greatly with her beautiful writing and introduced me to a whole new world of sparks and torture. I got consumed from the very first page and simply couldn’t stop thinking about never-ending ‘what ifs’ even after the end.

But where Killian is ruthless, Kael is compassionate. Kael is outgoing and chatty, Killian more reserved. He’s serious to Kael’s fun-loving personality. And where Killian would apparently do anything for himself, Kael would do anything for me.

As it was already known from the premise, the heart of Maverick DeSoto was captured in the intricate web weaved by the two completely different brothers who she’d always experienced (as it turned out) rather confusing feelings toward.

The past and present cruelly play tug-of-war.

Maverick went through a cruel heartbreak. And the deeper I delved into her fogged mind, the better I understood the inner battle splitting her very being in two parts with rough and uneven edges. The shame and pain from her selfish decision born from anger gave Maverick a hard time adjusting to a new reality of being married to not only the brother of the man she desperately loved but suffered from, but also to her lifelong best friend who I instantly fell in love with, but his heart had always been in the hands of Mavs, unfortunately.

We let others tug on our stray threads; try to rip us apart at the seams. If we let them, they will ruin us. And I don’t want to end up broken, sad, and filled with loathing for someone I’ve loved since the day I was born.

I found it really interesting and refreshing how the author used a back-and-forth transition between the past and the present, as well as frequent changes of POVs. As a result, I got to witness all the most crucial moments throughout many years that explained the different ways Killian and Kael had loved Maverick. These flashbacks showed me just how stupid one’s heart can be… Kael was obviously a superior brother. But for Mavs, even in times she had the full resolve to return the feelings of her perfect husband, her treacherous heart failed her time and time again (SPOILER! No cheating).

“While he was the sun that lit your world, you were the darkness that shadowed mine.”

Kael Shepard was oftentimes too good to be true, even for a fictional character. He was the very definition of devotion, understanding, and forgiveness. I was rooting for this gorgeous man from the start, while he devoted everything he got to make the love of his mostly miserable life to finally see Them Together Forever. The way it’d always supposed to be…

“And this last year I also realized there are different kinds of love. There’s the dreamy kind you always thought you wanted and then there’s the steady one you never understood but the second you let yourself feel it… it’s nothing like you could have imagined in your wildest dreams.”

I won’t spoiler who Mavs ended up with (but I guess, it’s not that much of a secret). But you need to know that Black Swan Affair was definitely not what I expected it to be, and the book turned out way more meaningful than I could have imagined even in my wildest dreams. It was a raw story, which showed the reality and importance of every single decision made that can turn our lives upside down, as well as the diversity of love and the effects the kinds can have on a state of our soul.

SPOILER! Maybe Maverick’s love for Killian was deep and passionate and real, but it was the love between her and Kael that deserved a happy-ever-after and was destined to be epic!

Also, on a side note:

Black Swan Theory

Black Swan Theory is a metaphor describing an event that comes as a surprise, results in a major impact on the environment or our personal lives, and tends to be rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. Because we’re humans, we try to invent explanations for an occurrence that doesn’t necessarily have one, so it makes sense to our small brains. We try to use that event and those explanations to predict future events like it. To learn from them. Deal with them better, maybe. Stop them from happening again…

In the sixteenth century, when the phrase itself was coined, the black swan was presumed an impossibility, assumed not to exist. Therefore, the Black Swan Theory in and of itself has no merit.

But impossibilities do exist. I am living proof of the Black Swan Theory and that sometimes there is no rationalizing events away. There is no simplifying the complex. Some things happen simply because they happen. And in the end, knowing why doesn’t change a damn thing anyway. The damage is already done.