Dirty Red

Title: Dirty Red (Love me with Lies #2)
Author: Tarryn Fisher
Genre: Contemporary adult
Rating: 5/5
Cover: 10/10

You can find my review of the first book, The Opportunist, here, and of the third book, Thief, here.

Beware: SPOILERS!

Oh, jeez. That ending. I just... I've always hated Leah, and never truly believed that she loved Caleb; more like, she loved his money and his status and that every woman who saw him, wanted him. She loved being the object of envy of every single woman in town because he was hers and not theirs. That's what she loved, not Caleb himself. She loved that because she "snagged" him, her father finally treated her well; she loved that running after him made her mother notice her and give her advice. She loved all of that, but she never really loved the man himself.
Because when she started truly falling in love with him, she realised that being with him when he didn't love her either wasn't enough; she realised she wanted his love, and she knew that she'd never have that.

So, yeah, even though I knew all that, knew that she had ruined and devastated Olivia for all the wrong reasons (not like Olivia was a saint either, but at least she truly, sincerely loved Caleb), I never, ever EVER expected Leah to cheat - and yet, she flirted with the manny, slept with her husband's brother and is already lusting after Olivia's husband (more on that later). So that little bomb at the end... whoa. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.

And yet... while Dirty Red was a fabulous read, it didn't leave me emotionally exhausted like The Opportunist did. More evidence that Olivia is more deserving of Caleb than Leah - even if she did do some pretty crass stuff.

Now, on to the subject of Noah. I like Noah. I really think that comparing how both Olivia and Leah came out from their relationships with Caleb says much more about their characters than the lies and deceit that they committed while with him. Olivia knew she was doing something bad, and in the end, she was strong enough to break that addictive cycle and get to her happy place. Sure, she still loves Caleb - I never expected anything less. But she also had the strength to admit that the person she was when she was with him was not a person she wanted to be. So she let him go and married Noah. Enter Leah, yet again. I know Noah loves Olivia (duh), but I was shocked by his and Leah's interaction. He was friendly. Guess he figures if it weren't for Leah, he wouldn't have married Olivia, so that sort of makes sense. But what really caught my attention was Olivia's description of Noah. It made me wonder. Of course, when she first met Caleb, it wasn't this, but it seems like now, Leah feels inferior to Olivia - to the point where, if given the chance, I'm quite sure she would have cheated on Caleb with Noah, just so she could rub it in Olivia's face that she could. It makes me sad, because Olivia really did move on with her life (I think... at least, that's the idea I got from the end of The Opportunist, but I could be wrong, idk), and Leah is still rehashing the same thing over and over, because she married a man knowing that he could never truly love her.

Now that's desperation for you.

Thief

Title: Thief (Love me with Lies #3)
Author: Tarryn Fisher
Genre: Adult
Rating: 5/5
Cover: 8/10 (seems fitting, as Caleb seems to have spent 1/3 of the book shirtless, ahem)


Jesus. F*cking. Christ.
The second I saw this book was out, I knew is was in for a long night. Five hours later, I can safely say... what. the. hell?

The thing about Thief, though, is that throughout the entire book, you just know that Caleb is going to fight for Olivia. So, no repeats of that god-awfully painful ending to The Opportunist, which ripped my heart to shreds; no goddamn bomb like the end of Dirty Red. So you'd think the pain factor would be smaller, right?
God, no.
Olivia... there's this one scene, towards the end of the book, when she bitchslaps Leah (which I absolutely loved, and have to say - long time coming, that was), when I remembered why I loved her so much in The Opportunist. The girl is feisty, she doesn't take shit from no one, and she doesn't hold back at all. But oh my god, I wanted to strangle her so much. I can't blame her for marrying Noah (though I'm seriously done with him. I really liked him, too...), and I appreciate that for the longest time, her relationship with Caleb wasn't actually cheating. Still, it was cheating emotionally, even though it kind of just felt like Noah got what he deserved (he even admitted it, ffs!), it still wasn't cool.
Caleb... ugh. Stupid, stupid, gullible man. No wonder Leah and Olivia jerk him around so much. The poor bastard knows shit-all about women. His one redeeming quality (which kind of got lost along the way when he married Leah and dated Jessica, but we don't talk about that) is that he loves Olivia so much, I actually think it's unhealthy. I'm still trying to reconcile gentle, sweet, caring and patient Caleb to the dude who is apparently into bondage and read Fifty Shades of Grey (I actually thought that was a reference to Jane Eyre, by the way, until he mentioned Fifty. That's how clueless I was about his kinky preferences).
Leah, to quote Olivia, is the "same stupid slut" as before. Nuff said. (strangling desires amped up to maximum here. I seriously could NOT believe this woman. The bitch is crazy.)
It's easy to understand why it's called Thief, though I'm not sure that's quite the right word, considering...

In short: read it. You know you want to. Because once you've heard Olivia's side of the story, these books become what Olivia and Caleb's love for each other is: codependent and totally unhealthy. And we - just like them - fucking love it.

Thief Blurb

It's been a while coming, but the blurb for Tarryn Fisher's third and final book in The Opportunist trilogy, Thief, is finally here:

Now that we've been assure Caleb will fight for Olivia, let's get down to the good stuff: word on the street is that Thief will be released some time next week, so keep your eyes peeled for it. Ms Fisher has been dropping hints left, right and centre, telling everyone to get their re-reads done now. So, if you need to refresh your memory, now's the time to do it.

For any of you new to The Opportunist, you can read my review of the first book of the same name here.

The Opportunist

Title: The Opportunist (Love me with Lies #1)
Author: Tarryn Fisher
Genre: YA
Rating: 5/5
Cover: 10/10

First of all, fair warning: this book is not for the faint of heart. I mean it. I really do. My. Freaking. Heart.
No, seriously, though. The term 'heartbreak' doesn't even START to cover it. Why do I keep reading books like this? I mean, they're fabulous reads, but OMG books should have happy endings, not sob-your-heart-out-and-eat-a-pint-of-ice-cream endings. Ugh.

Olivia, Caleb and Leah are just so... so... so fucked up, I can't even explain it properly. First off, we have Olivia. She has been in love with Caleb since college. But to get him, she did quite a few not-so-cool stuff, like telling his then girlfriend who was pregnant that she knew for a fact that Caleb didn't want kids (he did - very much), and convincing her to get an abortion. From then, the lies just started piling up, until they became a very Tower of Pisa-like pile. Except, unlike that tower, this pile wasn't made of stone, and it eventually fell...

... but it only fell because Olivia found Caleb doing the dirty with a co-worker when he should have been going out to dinner with her. So then that's Caleb's not-so-cool deed. And then, a few years after the two broke up, Caleb has a car accident, and loses his memory for a brief period of time. But instead of telling people when his memories come back (while he was still in the hospital), he pretends to have amnesia and gets close to Olivia again...

... And Olivia is trying really hard to do the right thing and step back; she knows that Caleb is still with Leah, but she feels bad that he can't remember anything, and having been with him for so long, she can fill in many of the blanks for him, so she agrees to meet with him and they get to talking, which then gets her old feelings towards Caleb to resurface...

Enter Leah. Mean, red-haired bitch, she is the one who snapped Caleb up after Olivia broke up with him. And she is absolutely livid that her amnesia-ed boyfriend is going around to see his ex, because if he can't remember everything she lied to him about, then there's nothing stopping him from falling for her again - if he ever even un-fell for her. But to avoid them getting back together, Leah has a plan. And she has no intention of letting it fail. Because if it does, she will lose all the money and prestige that being with Caleb give her - something she is determined to never let happen.

The thing about this book is that there is no 'good guy' or 'bad guy'; frankly, they are ALL bad guys, and deserve to burn in hell for messing with my emotions so much. And yet we can't help being on Olivia's side, because despite all the horrible things she has done, she truly loves Caleb, while Leah mostly wants his money.