Book Review – Saving Grace (Mad World #2) by Christine Zolendz

4 – 4.25 stars

“I promise you, I will pick up every broken piece of you, every single fucking piece, Grace, and for the rest of my fucking life, I will put you back together… I’ll make you whole again.“

This book was a bumpy ride that had me screaming “WTF!!” in frustration at my kindle on more than one occasion but had me swooning so freaking hard over Shane that I just couldn’t put it down!!

I read it in one sitting. I was exhausted but it kept me glued to my Kindle until 3am just flipping the pages!

This sequel to Fall From Grace picks up right where that insane cliffhanger from book 1 ended and because of all the twists in this story, I’m actually not going to say a single word about the plot and I’d highly suggest you not look up anything about it. If the premise of book 1 intrigues you then this one won’t disappoint.

I did really like that after the paranormal intensity of the ending of book 1, this book took a bit of a step back and allowed the character development to take over for while before building back up to the heavier paranormal part.

This isn’t  quite the kind of book I normally go for because there was a lot of back and forth between Shane and Grace- a lot of “are they” or “aren’t they” and “will they” or “won’t they”, and at the start of this one, I honestly wasn’t sure where the story was really going but because the intense sexual tension was just off the freaking charts and oh-so-swoony, and I was laughing, enjoying myself, and occasionally clutching at my heart, I basically let go and just went with it.

It did however lead me ask about a million questions – Who was… ? How did…? But if [important event] happened like this, then doesn’t it mean that….? Is he still…? WHY WOULD HE….? When did she….? What was he thinking when he….? and it went on and on and on…

There were a few situations that pushed me to the very brinks of my frustration limits (to. the. brink) – seriously there were times when I questioned if they were going to make it relationship-wise, but holy SWOON, once I got to the end, I was in heaven. (no pun, honestly, I swear)

 “…just stay with me. I need you like I fucking need to breathe.”

Shane Shane freaking Shane Maxton… the tattooed man-whore rock god. Oh the swoon, the heart ache, then more swoon, and more heartache… and then even more epic freaking swoon!!! I totally LOVED him, I wanted to throttle him, I wanted to hug him, I wanted to geld him, and I totally wanted to do other things to him that I won’t go into right now *winks*

“Dear God, there is just something about this man that makes you want to stick your panties in his pockets and tell him you’re half way there…”  <— *nods* yeah, pretty much.

Everything about Shane and Grace is just so intense! For most of the book, they were either fighting or kissing. There isn’t a whole ton of actual sex in this book until the end but with all the music playing (“Come on, girl, play with me.” *swooooon*), serious UST and eye fucking going on, you really don’t miss it!!

“I think I could have had an orgasm from the mind fuck he was giving me right there.”

I do wish they could have communicated more because I feel like that would have solved like 90% of their issues but at the same time, I enjoyed the bumpy ride of this story so much that even though that’s normally really important to me in stories, I really just kind of accepted it here as character quirks.

And that the ending was gorgeously swoony and I was so glad to finally see them get their HEA!! At the end, when he… hmm, I won’t say what he did, but when he did that thing (and get your minds out of the gutters now, it has nothing to do with that … yeesh), I totally teared up and got chills. It was AMAZING and romantic and heart melting!!!

But! I have to say that if I were to have one complaint about this book its that I found some of Shane’s behavior frustrating to the point of going a little too far. Sigh. My heart really, realllly hurt and I still don’t understand why he did some of the things he did especially knowing what I know about the ending. Grace and Shane always had a bit of an intense, totally-undeniably-drawn-to-each-other relationship and yet at the same time they were really dysfunctional – which I was able to look past for the most part because of the raging chemistry they had going on but I felt that there were two times when Shane took things just too far in ways that could have been easily avoidable and, because this book was only told from Grace’s POV, I found those times made me kinda of fall out of love with him a little – or at least, just so unable to understand his actions that it pushed me away from him… And there were a few questions that I found were still unanswered about the whole story as a whole  in regards to him. BUT, I hear that the author is writing either the next book or a whole collection of scenes from his POV so I’m really hoping that after reading those, I’ll understand his actions more and come to terms with those scenes because I really, truly fell HARD for him. Seriously, he totally worked his way into my heart <3

“Look Gray… A decent guy doesn’t just get born and grow up to be Mr. Perfect. They need to be created by a woman. They’re like a dumb blank lump of clay and you have to mold them into what you want them to be, while erasing everything their mothers ever taught them and all the horrible Internet porn they’ve watched growing up.”

If you want a fun contemporary romance about soul-mates with a unique paranormal twist and a HEA, then you’ll probably really love these!

And at $1.50 each, you really should grab yourselves copies and meet the delicious HOTNESS that is Shane Maxton <3

 

** SERIES READING ORDER **

Book #1 — FALL FROM GRACE
Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback | Read my Review

Book #2 — SAVING GRACE
Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback | Read my Review

Alternate POV novel (same story as first 2 books) — SCARS & SONGS
Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback

CASTING:

• Shane and Grace —> Click here