St. Mary's Rebels

Book reviews

4 Oct

Written By Anzhelika Li

Meet troubled girls with lots of passion and love.

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1. MY DARLING ARROW by Saffron A. Kent

SYNOPSIS

Darling Arrow,

I shouldn’t be writing this.
It’s not as if I’m ever going to send you this letter and there are a million reasons why.
First of all, I was sent to St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers – an all-girls reform school – as a punishment for a petty, totally inconsequential crime. Not to ogle the principal’s hot son around the campus.
Second of all, you’re a giant jerk. You’re arrogant and moody and so cold. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t even like you.
But strangely your coldness sets me on fire.
The way your athletic body moves on the soccer field and the way your powerful thighs sprawl across that bike of yours, make me go inappropriately breathless.
But that’s not the worst part.
The worst part is that you, Arrow Carlisle, are not only the principal’s hot son.
You also happen to be the love of my sister’s life.
And I really shouldn’t be thinking about my sister’s boyfriend or rather fiancé (I overheard a conversation about the ring that I shouldn’t have.)
Now if I can only stop writing you these meaningless letters that I’ll never send and you’ll never read…

Never yours,
Salem

BOOK REVIEW

Saffron A. Kent knows how to write good forbidden romance with a very peculiar signature writing style of hers. I usually find it unique and extremely poetic (especially in The Unrequited), but in My Darling Arrow, it annoyed me so much that I kept skimming pages after finding the sentences ridiculously short and unnecessarily repetitive.

Just because the one you love is in love with someone else doesn’t mean your love isn’t gorgeous or real. It doesn’t mean that your love should be killed or it should be torn out of your heart and thrown into a river or burnt like an extinct piece of architecture.

Salem Sallinger was an interesting main character. She was a smutty rule-breaker pursuing her love interest with over-the-top eagerness and obsessiveness even. She was silently pinning for Arrow for years, restricted by the fact that he was already taken by none other than her older sister. Until he was no longer taken. Until she finally got a chance to be close to the one she was infatuated with for so long… even under the condition of giving up her body with no need for feelings whatsoever… Damn, while I was writing this sentence, I realized what was bugging me throughout the entire book. I realized that all of the author’s heroines are the carbon copies of one another… Still, I would have liked Salem if not her maddening inner thoughts that could be squeezed into a third of what was actually written. All those excessive words made me angry with Salem’s character, highlighting only the negative and undermining the supposed development of hers.

He’s cut open. Like all these years, his emotions were under wraps, they were shoved somewhere deep inside of him. He was calm and collected and unruffled by anything and everything, always focused on his game. But now they’re coming to the surface. Now they’re rushing through his veins and pooling under his skin, making him intense and hot and edgy. Somehow, making him all the more irresistible to me.

Arrow Carlisle in his own right was a pretty good hero. Unlike Salem, he was always a rule-follower, striving for immaculate perfection in every aspect of his extremely grey life. But despite his achievements and constant attention from the mesmerized public, he was the loneliest soul out there, demanding some slack, some freedom… I wish his character received some more time to properly develop. Otherwise, he turned out a little bit bland and somewhat incomplete. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Because in this moment when he’s hurting, I’m hurting. When his pain makes his jaw clench, my insides clench. When anguish burns his eyes, my skin feels it.

Salem and Arrow were a perfect combination of the light and the dark (and you should be the one to decide on who is who). Their relationship was passionate but too messy to my liking. The sexy times were hot, but I honestly hoped for more substance.

Not going to lie, I was kind of disappointed in My Darling Arrow. It was boring for the most part and felt more like a draft than an actual book. But I’m intrigued by St. Mary’s Rebels universe and already waiting for the love story of Callie and Reed in A Gorgeous Villain.

2. A GORGEOUS VILLAIN by Saffron A. Kent

SYNOPSIS

Two years ago, Reed Jackson betrayed Calliope Thorne and broke her heart. So she stole his most prized possession—a white mustang—and drove it into the lake for revenge. Now, Callie is stuck at a reform school while Reed is off at college, living his life without repercussions. Until he comes back.

With him comes back all the feelings that Callie has been trying to bury: anger and heartbreak. But most of all, desire. At the sight of his beautiful but lying lips and his gunmetal gray eyes that still taunt and smolder when he looks at her. Whatever though. It’s not as if Callie is ever going to fall for her ex-boyfriend again. Or let him corner her in a bar one night and touch her, kiss her… Neither is she going to kiss him back. Or worse, sleep with him. Because that would make her naïve and foolish. Oh, and also pregnant.

And there’s no way Callie is ever going to get pregnant at eighteen and with Reed’s baby, no less. The guy she hates. The guy who taught her all about heartbreak. Who might look like a gorgeous hero but really is the villain of her story.

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3. THESE THORN KISSES by Saffron A. Kent

SYNOPSIS

Eighteen-year-old, Bronwyn Littleton is in love with a stranger she met on a summer night a year ago. A stranger who was tall and broad in a way that made her feel safe. He had dark blue eyes that she can’t stop drawing in her sketchbook. And he had a deep, soothing voice that she can’t stop hearing in her dreams. That’s all she knows about him though. Until she runs into him again. At St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers—an all-girls reform school—where she’s trapped because of a little crime she committed in the name of her art.

Now she knows that her dream man has a name: Conrad Thorne. She knows that his eyes are way bluer and way more beautiful than she thought. And that his face is an artist’s wonderland. But she also knows that Conrad is her best friend’s older brother. Which means he’s completely off-limits. Not to mention, he’s the new soccer coach, which makes him off-limits times two. What makes him off-limits times three however, and this whole scenario an epic tragedy, is that, Conrad, Wyn’s dream man, has a dream girl of his own. And he’s as much in love with his dream girl as Wyn is in love with him…

4. HEY, MISTER MARSHALL by Saffron A. Kent

SYNOPSIS

At eighteen, Poe Blyton’s life is in shambles and the reason is Alaric Marshall. After her mom’s death, he appeared out of nowhere and became Poe’s controlling guardian. When she protested his tyranny, he had the audacity to send her away to an all-girls reform school. A school full of iron-clad rules and regulations. But at least she’s graduating soon. Until Alaric himself arrives at the school as the new principal and takes that away from her as well.

That devil. He’s really asking for it, isn’t he? And Poe is going to give it to him.

It doesn’t matter that her sworn enemy has the prettiest dark eyes she’s ever seen. Or that he looks really, really good in his boring tweed jackets. So much so that she wants to rip them off his body and see what’s underneath. Because scorching hot or not, her new principal or not, Poe is going to ruin Alaric’s life.

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5. THE HATESICK DIARIES by Saffron A. Kent

SYNOPSIS

Echo Adler hates Reign Davidson. He’s the reason the love of her life left her all alone and broken hearted two years ago.

So it should be easy to stay away. It should be easy to not dream about his dark and mean eyes, or his cruel but sexy smirks. It should be easy to not think about the guy who ruined her happily ever after.

Only it’s not.

Sometimes his intense stares make her heart race, and those smirks of his make her breathless.

But it needs to stop. Because she has a mission: to get back together with her ex-boyfriend. And Echo will be damned if she keeps dreaming about Reign. The guy who not only makes her sick with hate but who also happens to be her ex’s best friend.