Review : Love in English by Karina Halle

Love, in English by Karina Halle

He’s thirty-eight. I’m twenty-three.

He speaks Spanish. I speak English.

He lives in Spain. I live in Canada.

He dresses in thousand-dollar suits. I’m covered in tattoos.

He’s married and has a five-year old daughter.

I’m single and can’t commit to anyone or anything.

Until now.Because when they say you can’t choose who you fall in love with, boy ain’t that the damn truth.

***

To a restless dreamer like Vera Miles, it sounded like the experience of a lifetime. Instead of spending her summer interning for her astronomy major, she would fly to Spain where she’d spend a few weeks teaching conversational English to businessmen and women, all while enjoying free room and board at an isolated resort. But while Vera expected to get a tan, meet new people and stuff herself with wine and paella, she never expected to fall in love.

Mateo Casalles is unlike anyone Vera has ever known, let alone anyone she’s usually attracted to. While Vera is a pierced and tatted free spirit with a love for music and freedom, Mateo is a successful businessman from Madrid, all sharp suits and cocky Spanish charm. Yet, as the weeks go on, the two grow increasingly close and their relationship changes from purely platonic to something…more.

Something that makes Vera feel alive for the first time.

Something that can never, ever be.

Or so she thinks

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From the moment I started to read this book I was hooked. I have read Karina's The Artists Trilogy and loved that but this book was so different, so fresh and new and I loved every single minute of it. The dedication that Karina wrote in the book is so powerful and I loved it :- For anyone who has ever taken a chance on uncertainty " Love knows not distant; is hath no continent; its eye are for the stars" - Gilbert Parker

Vera ~ She is such a wonderful character, yes she has flaws and insecurities, who doesn't but she is also full of life, she is Tattooed and Pierced and also a person who wants to live her own life.

Wild Hair, Wild Heart, Tattoos and piercings, I love food too much, I love sex too much and I've had part in breaking up a marriage!.

Mateo ~ OMG just the way Karina describes him makes you salivate, he is bronze, athletic, very well built and has the most amazing piercing eyes and oh yes hot as hell, however, he was married and had a beautiful daughter whom he loved to the ends of earth, but was he happy???

Karina has a way in her books that when she describes a place or a scene you feel you are there and you are watching everything that plays out and that is so refreshing and very intense.

From the beginning when Vera meets Mateo on the bus you feel how nervous she is about everything, new places, new people, new faces, so she does what most people do in that situation, she makes jokes to lighten the mood and to make everyone at ease.

To me the first signs of attraction between these two were so obvious to me but when reading this book you know they feel it too but you are left wondering how long will these two pretend that they can only be friends?

From the very first chapter you see how people see Vera the prejudice in people's eyes and how they make you feel simply because you are different or you dress differently " And here we go- I couldn't possibly have eleven tattoos, multiple earrings, a nose ring and a tongue ring and go to university, earning a science degree. I heard it all the damn time, I just thought Europe was more progressive in that area, too. I guess you could find morons in every country" This to me was so pivital to the story of how people saw Vera and what she dealt with all the time just because she was different.

I loved how you also get a bit of an understanding on how Vera's home life is, to me she has had a very lonely life, parents divorced when she and her brother Josh were young, coming from a divorced family myself at the age of 3 I can totally relate to some of the feelings Vera had and why she needed to be herself she needed to find herself and in Spain she does just that, Spain and her time teaching English to he Spaniards is where Vera comes alive and has a purpose and a "family"

I loved Mateo, the intensity of him and the way he appears to be very business like in his expensive suits, his well groomed appearance and his demeanor but you also see the side of him that makes you just want to go and hold him and never let him go, you see how unhappy he is but also when he starts to open up you discover how much love he has to give.

As the book goes on you can see the attraction develop between Mateo and Vera "He gazed at me intently as if I was one of life's greatest mysteries, as if I were utterly mesmerizing. I'd never seen anyone look at me that way and it glued me to my seat". Some of the things Mateo say's to Vera makes her feel special and alive and beautiful, he encourages her in ways no one else has, Vera is constantly feeling ugly and of less self worth but Mateo see's beyond what everyone else see's, he see the beauty in her, in her heart and what she has to give "Ugly?" Mateo said in a fervent disbelief. "No, You are terribly beautiful, Vera. So beautiful it hurts. You would outshine her like the star you are"

The intensity of how Mateo spoke to Vera I sometimes felt was overwhelming to her and that made her afraid, afraid to believe "His eyes slid to mine, burning, smoldering, as if they were lit on fire and my gaze back only stoked the flames. I couldn't look away, couldn't take my hand away. I felt like I was drowning"

You also see all the other characters come alive, Claudia, Ricardo, Josh, Mercy and of course Vera's mom. The characters all come alive in this book and you find yourself laughing and crying with them all.

I loved the intensity in this book between these two people, the instant attraction but also the fight to protect their hearts, however, the pull between these two was amazing and so well written you are constantly kept wondering what will happen next, will they be together.

Life between these two when they realized how they felt about each other would not be easy and they knew that, the heartache that came with loving each other so much was so intense and you were left feeling emotionally drained and wrecked, well I was. There is so much in this story that made my heart hurt but also made me laugh and smile and think, can these two get things sorted. Yes Mateo was married and I did wonder how would this be dealt with, would I hate this or would I love this in the book, would I be angry, but the way Karina wrote it all made me feel OK, there is so much behind the scenes in this book that you really need to read it to understand it all, I could never and will never try and explain it all but Karina does an amazing job at writing everything and making you understand what she is saying, what the characters are saying and why and that is a true gift.

What I will say is that this book will give you so many emotions, so many feelings that you will not want to put this book down, you will love, hate, cry & laugh all the way through this book and it will stay with you as one of your all time favorite books.

I leave you with a teaser made for the book and a saying "We flew together like the stars". Enjoy

With her USA Today Bestselling The Artists Trilogy published by Grand Central Publishing, numerous foreign publication deals, and self-publishing success with her Experiment in Terror series, Vancouver-born Karina Halle is a true example of the term "Hybrid Author." Though her books showcase her love of all things dark, sexy and edgy, she's a closet romantic at heart and strives to give her characters a HEA...whenever possible.

Karina holds a screenwriting degree from Vancouver Film School and a Bachelor of Journalism from TRU. Her travel writing, music reviews/interviews and photography have appeared in publications such as Consequence of Sound, Mxdwn and GoNomad Travel Guides. She currently lives on an island on the coast of British Columbia where she’s preparing for the zombie apocalypse with her fiance and rescue pup.