A Brutal Tenderness: A Companion Novel to A Terrible Love

by Marata Eros

There are two sides to every story. In this dark and sexy companion novel to the New York Times bestseller A Terrible Love, experience the sizzling passion and pulse-pounding suspense through FBI agent Cas Steele's eyes as he hunts down a psychopath...and falls for the killer's prey.

Cas has been charged with an unsavory task: manipulate the hauntingly beautiful Jewell MacLeod-a woman he has every reason to hate-and slowly gain her trust in order to use her as bait to lure in a killer. But as the killer draws closer, Cas realizes that he can't deny the scorching chemistry that ignites between him and Jewell, even if giving into his physical desire for her means jeopardizing his mission...and opening himself up to the possibility of a real and terrible love...

• ISBN10: 1476752230
• ISBN13: 9781476752235
• Publish Date: 26 August 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Pocket Star
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

A Brutal Tenderness is one of those companion novels that are simply the same story from a different POV. I was curious to see everything from Cas's end, since he is an FBI agent, and figured it would be more action packed and exciting. Sometimes it was, but mostly I found myself bored. A lot of the story is Cas watching Jess do stuff, and either thinking about how much he hates her (in the beginning) or about how much he wants her and can't stay away (mostly). There is some interesting new information, but not enough to make me feel like this companion was worth it.

One thing that I did really liked about A Brutal Tenderness was that there were some chapters from Thad's POV. He is one sick, highly disturbed individual. It didn't really give me that motivation that I was hoping for, but I was still interested yet uncomfortable being in his head. We do learn a bit more about him, and his home life, since of course the FBI did a background check on him. Then at the end there's another twist that wasn't revealed in A Terrible Love, which I liked. It made the murder partnership make a whole lot more sense.

As for the romance, I still didn't sense that Cas and Jess were in love. From his perspective, he started out hating her for letting his cousin die. Eventually he realized that if Jess had stepped in, both of them would be dead. However, he switches from thinking of her as the spoiled brat who let the person closest to him die to suddenly not being able to breathe without her. Also, I felt like he saw her more as a wilting flower to be protected from the world, rather than an equal partner. That does not scream love to me.

A Brutal Tenderness didn't really work for me. I do think part of my issue was that I read it directly after the first book, so it really felt like I was reading the exact same thing again, but with more swearing (cause guy narratives must be full of foul language). At the end it does fill in the gaps between the final chapter and epilogue of A Terrible Love, which was nice.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.