Forbidden by Lauren Smith

Hey everybody,

First, let me say I am sorry for being absent lately.  Without giving details, the past year has been rough on me healthwise and I am still battling illness.  I have missed being here and hope to be back more frequently. Now to some reviews!

As always, first the blurb:  Kat has always been a good girl. She studies hard and never stays out too late. But when sitting in a pub on her birthday, she realizes she’s a nineteen-year-old virgin who’s never really lived. And she wants tonight to be the night that changes. Then she sees him walk in. He’s tall, dark, handsome, and straight out of her deepest fantasies. His voice makes her knees feel weak, and when he smiles, she imagines him doing wicked things to her in bed. From the look in his eyes, she knows he’s imagining it too. So when he asks if he can walk her home, she hears herself whisper yes

3 stars.  I had to think about this review for a while before I wrote it. I want to be fair to the book. This is the first of 3 books to tell this story. I have only read book 1. I did not have a problem with the story or the characters. Tristan and Kat were both fine–for where each are in their lives. Kat is only 19 and therefore behaves pretty much like a 19 year old is expected to. Same for Tristan–he is a few years older but not much.

I did not have a problem that Tristan and Kat will end up being step-siblings. I normally don’t read this type of story, but it’s okay. The writing was fine and the editing was okay. I did think the author used a lot of “in the head” writing between scenes of dialogue, but I could live with it.

So, why the three stars? Easy–all three books in this series is essentially a novella. This installment had 160+ pages and according to Goodreads pages for the other two installments, the second is 130+ and the third is 150 pages. This could have been one novel and we get the entire story. I don’t know if it was the author or the publisher, but I really don’t like it when this is done. I love series and if it takes 3 or 4 novels to tell a story, I am fine with that. One of my favorite stories took 3 novels to tell. But to take one novel and split it into multiple installments–not so fond of that. I don’t know at this point that I am invested enough from just the first installment to read the other two. Hence, my rating.

Happy Reading,

Debra