Book Review – Until I Break by M. Leighton

** THIS BOOK IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE **
(it was pulled from publication by the author)

4 stars

Holy original concept!!! 

From the moment I read the blurb, I knew I just HAD to read this book. I loved the premise!

Until I Break is the story of two broken characters finding each other, struggling to over come their pasts and find happiness in their future. It’s dark, sexy and dangerous.

“I’m intrigued. Tempted beyond what I’ve ever been before. To know her, to open her up. To break her.”

Samantha is a well-known author. But no one in the world knows the real her. The author they know and adore is Laura Drake – a persona created by the aid of wigs, make up and a whole lot of acting. Samantha has always been a private person and for reasons tied up in her past is willing to go to any lengths to keep her true identity private.

She’s sitting at a panel one day at an author signing and is shocked when a man walks in the room who literally IS the hero from her book. His features, dress, mannerisms are uncannily identical and she is instantly drawn to him. His name is Alec Brand.

“I get the feeling that a man like this could be the end of me, the end of my life as I’ve known it. I write about star-crossed love every day, about people who need so deeply and feel so passionately that their world caves in around them. I’d be crazy to risk something like that.

But I’d also be crazy not to. As surely as I’m sitting here, I know I would forever regret it if I didn’t say yes to this man. At least once.”

But there is something mysterious about him. A missing piece to the puzzle that builds as the story progresses and as we begin to see a little of his POV.

“It’s the innocence of a woman like Samantha Jansen that excites me. Introducing her to new things, watching her body come to life, showing her how good I can make her feel, doing things to her that she never thought she would agree to, much less crave.”

For Samantha, seeing a person so like her hero makes it hard for her to keep the identities clear… there’s the real her, there’s her author, and there’s her heroine who is also a part of her in a way. And being around Alec makes it hard for her to separate herself from her character… and the lines begin to blur as he lures her deeper into his dark world.

“I won’t hurt you, Samantha,” I pledge quietly… “This is all about pleasure, pleasure you’ve never known before, pleasure I want to introduce you too. A little fear can heighten the senses; a little pain can feel like ecstasy. Would you like me to show you?”

And then came the TWIST!!!! When characters like these have so many layers to their lives, it’s inevitable for some of them to get tangled so … TWIST!!! I totally called this twist earlier on but still loved where it took the story 🙂

Samantha had serious emotional issues, I guess you could call them traumas, that stemmed from her childhood. What she’d been through was not physical, but rather emotionally scarring and what she needed to bring her through it was not something that came naturally to Alec.

“You aren’t broken. And I’m gonna prove it to you.”
“How?” Although her question is skeptical, I can see the hope in her eyes. And I know why she was so upset with me that night… She really wants me to fix her.”

See he too was scarred. His past doesn’t come out right away but it’s clear that something had happened to him that cut deep. His “tastes”, shall we say, run into the darker side of sexy. But he soon realizes that the only way to reach her is to put a leash on his darker desires and give her what she needed.

I’ll say that at first I kind of squinted my eyes skeptically at the references to his darker side needing to be “chained” or being a “monster”. Surely that was an unhealthy outlook? But then when the reason behind everything came out, it became a lot more understandable. It was darker than what I’d expected and made his issues make a lot more sense.

I liked that the story managed have angst without being too dark. The twists took me by surprise, the plot line was original and the characters were mysterious and made me want to know more about them.

Until I Break has steam, passion, intrigue and kink *winks* and the story is told in alternating POVs so we get to see both sides of the picture. Also, its a standalone and has an epilogue. No cliffhanger! It’s safe to dive in!

4 stars