Twosome Twosday: 53 Letters for My Lover by Leylah Attar

This is not your typical love story. It’s not so black and white. Lines are crossed. Walls are smashed. Good becomes bad. Bad becomes very, very good.

Shayda Hijazi - the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect daughter. For thirty-three years, she has played by the rules, swallowing secrets, burying dreams and doing whatever it takes to anchor her family. Shayda Hijazi is about to come face to face with the one thing that can rip it all apart, the one thing she has always been denied: love.

Troy Heathgate - untamed, exhilarating, dangerous; a man who does exactly as he pleases. Life bends to his will. Until he comes across the one thing he would give it all up for, but can never have.

Born on the same day in opposite corners of the world, their lives collide. And nothing is ever the same again.

Spanning three decades, 53 Letters for My Lover is a fiercely sensual, emotional ride to the heart of an epic love that defies it all - an intimate exploration of love, loyalty, passion, betrayal, and the human journey for hope, happiness and redemption.

  

Check out the FREE bonus novella - 

snippets from Troy's POV!

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5 - Holy Frickin' Wow - Smooches

"Are you happy, Shayda?"

A second.  That's all it takes.  

A single beat of hesitation on my part.

Wow.  Just wow. 

I mean, really, WOW!!!

For the life of me, I can't understand why every blogger is not talking about this book.  I can't remember having this bad of a book hangover since Mud Vein.  I loved this book SO MUCH!!!  A good book friend of mine recommended it (I had never even heard of it before) so I jumped right in.  And I fell in love ...

Shayda immigrates to Canada from Iran in her early 20's.  She's grown up in a different culture, operating under a different set of familial expectations and obligations.   Pretty soon after arriving in North America, she marries another Iranian immigrant, Hafez.  Entering into the marriage with the best of intentions, Shayda is committed to her union and her new life as Mrs. Hafez Hijazi.  Demons from the past, unfortunately, threaten the very possibility of their marriage succeeding and, as the years go by, Shayda and Hafez's marriage is anything but ...

We were a different kind of broken.  The quiet silent kind that gets swept under the bed or stuffed in the linen closet.  And we had become good, really, really good, at leaving those spaces undisturbed.  - Shayda

The story is told exclusively from Shayda's point of view, alternating between the past and the present.  We follow the decline of her marriage, how she meets Troy Heathgate and their encounters over the years.  Shayda's love for her family, her obligation to her marriage, and her need for love all propel her into an on again/ off again affair with Troy.  Yeah, yeah, I know ... cheating.  So many of us hate cheating in books and I am one of them.  But this story ... *sigh* ... it almost makes it okay. 

I can't remember the last time we had sex.  Months have turned into years, and the years have melded into a hazy point beyond recall.  But tonight I want to burn for him.  I want to drive away thoughts of anyone else but him.  I want it here, where it belongs, where it's good and right and pure.  - Shayda

The story spans roughly thirty years and is truly an epic love story.  One I can assure you you don't want to miss!  

I wait for guilt to set in.  I wait for self-loating to roll in.  I wait for my feet to carry me to the door.  But when his lips graze mine, whisper soft, I know this is what I've been waiting for.  - Shayda

Things are not at all what you expect and as a reader I found myself feeling compassion for someone I never expected to.  There is true beauty in this story (and so much passion it's insane!).  Ms. Attar's writing flows beautifully, her words come to life ... she is an incredible story teller.  53 Letters for My Lover reached right into my chest and squeezed the crap out of my heart.  It is definitely one of my favorites!

BB <3 SC

4.5 Beetroot Butterfly smooches!

 

Shayda immigrated from Iran to Canada, where her family sort of arranged a marriage for her.  Her marriage suffers a major blow early on and never really recovers.  But, Shayda and her husband make the most of their marriage and play house for their two children.

“We were a different kind of broken.  The quiet, silent kind that gets swept under the bed or stuffed in the linen closet.  And we had become good, really, really good, at leaving those spaces undisturbed.”

As you can tell from the blurb there is infidelity in this book.  But it is OKAY…  Really!  It is... you will just have to trust me.  The affair is the good stuff!  Troy…. Yummmmmm

Troy is a mutual friend and is EVERYWHERE(he is the other guy… stay with me!).  While there is instant attraction between these two, Shayda tries to fight it.  She is true to her marriage for a very long time.  Troy is a huge flirt and quite the ladies man.  Shayda finds herself very drawn to him.

I’ve crossed oceans and countries and continents. That was the easy part. But sitting here before Troy Heathgate now, I’m teetering on a knife’s edge between honor and disgrace.

This affair spans decades.  Shayda gets sucked in and out…  there is a lot of cat and mouse.  A lot of push and pull.  And a whole lot of heat and sexual tension.  Troy is relentless and Shayda desperate for his love. 

How do you deny a living, breathing feeling? How do you hack it and kill it and bury it so that it never surfaces again?

Troy… I want to say so many things but really you just need to read the book.  I thought I had him all figured out and he turned out to be so much more.

“So, what’s it like?  To have it all?”

“Like flying.  Soaring.  Until you come across the one thing you’d give it all up for, and can never have.”

There are some books that get better with time.  And, what I mean by that is I already really, really loved this book when I read it.  But it is one of those stories that I have thought about every day since finishing it.  Troy and Shayda  have infiltrated my heart.  They have a love that is intense and evoked so many emotions… love, hate, desire, betrayal…  anytime they were together the heat jumped off the page.  It was a living breathing thing and I was consumed!

So why 4.5 and not 5 smooches?  The first half of the book was a little hard for me.  There are so many secondary characters and it took a while to be able to place all of them and understand what was happening.  

That being said, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.  The writing is flawless.  The feels are SO real. So so real.  Looking back, I can’t believe how much content is in this one book and yet it never feels rushed.  This is not insta-love but a slow building, toe curling romance that will leave you breathless.  

Leylah Attar writes stories about love - shaken, stirred and served with a twist. When she's not writing, she can be found pursuing her other passions: photography, food, family and travel. Sometimes she disappears into the black hole of the internet, but can usually be enticed out with chocolate.

LOVING MR. DANIELS

 

Synopsis:

 To Whom it May Concern,

It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates.

When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss.

When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons.

Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection.

It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter.

It was ours.

And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for loving Mr. Daniels.

-Ashlyn Jennings

Purchase:

Amazon | B&N

5+++ smooches

There is something about the tragic stories of Shakespeare. It’s as if we all know how it will end, but the adventure makes it worth it.

This is how I feel about these forbidden romances.  You know it is a train wreck… a heart-break waiting to happen and yet you have to experience it.   And, what an experience Loving Mr. Daniels is!  I have a new author crush on Ms. Cherry!  She seriously blew me away.  This is her DEBUT novel… WHAT?!??!  Still can’t believe that!  This is in my top three reads this year and absolutely somewhere in my top ten ever!

Let me start with our MCs.,  Ashlyn and Daniel.  Oh how I loved them both.  These two have each been through extreme heartbreak and find everything missing in their lives in the wrong place, each other. 

I hated that I couldn’t tell her how beautiful she looked each and every day. I hated that, when she walked into my classroom, I had to pretend that she wasn’t on my mind…. I hated how close we were but how distant we felt.

This starts off like most student/teacher romances.  Girl and guy meet… there is an intense connection… walk into the first day of class and tadah!!!!   That’s about where the similarities end though. 

What makes Loving Mr. Daniels more special than all of the others out there?  The writing for one.  It is so fluid… so poetic.  The FEELS!  From the first chapter I was on an emotional roller-coaster.  From grieving to giddy, swooning to heart-broken, from extreme hilarity one moment to raging mad the next…  this book takes you on a journey.  More than one actually.  This isn’t just Daniel and Ashlyn’s story.  So many relationships  are formed, tested, lost…   It is a rare thing to feel as connected to supporting characters as the MCs but Brittainy does it and does it beautifully.  Gabrielle and Ryan… WOW!  I won’t even go into who these characters are bc I won’t spoil anything but they touched me to my soul. 

Being a teenager is a curse and a gift. It's the age where fairytales cease to exist and Santa isn't real but parts of our hearts want to say 'What if...

With all of the tragedy… and there is a lot in Loving Mr. Daniels.  There is also love and trust.  Above all there is hope.  Where would any of us be without that?  This is a book I feel that just about everyone can relate to and will be touched by.  I cannot say enough good things.  If you haven’t read it yet, seriously move it to the top of your TBR. You will not be sorry!

5 Smooches

Anyone on this planet would be lucky if they had the chance to love Mr. Daniels.

Yet I was the luckiest.  Because for a moment he loved me back. - Ashlyn

Holy tear-jerker Batman!

I put off reading this book for a bit ... I wasn't in the mood for another student-teacher romance.  I'd recently read one and just wasn't feeling it. 

Someone really should've smacked some sense into me!  Loving Mr. Daniels is phenomenal!  Yes, it is a student-teacher romance but it is SO, SO much more.

There are so many facets to this story that I didn't expect.  Brittainy explores many different relationships and the complexities of them in ways that I was not expecting.  This book made me cry too many times to count.  This book made me swoon too many times to count.  This book made me feel so happy and so sad at the exact same moment too many times to count.  Brittainy is clearly an emotional master manipulator.

I love you slowly...

I love you deeply...

I love you quietly...

I love you powerfully...

I love you unconditionally...

I love you gently and hard, slow and fast.  Before time and after...

I love you because I was born to do so...  -Daniel

Seriously.  *SWOON*

Even though there is a forbidden element to the story, there is absolutely no 'ick factor'.  Ashlyn and Daniel are close in age and they met before they realized their relationship was off-limits.  Her estranged father being the assistant principal only complicates matters.

I strongly recommend this book ladies!  It is a definite must-read and worth ever single tear.  And there will be many I promise.  This is my first Brittainy Cherry read and it most definitely won't be my last.

What Our Readers Thought:

We read Loving Mr. Daniels with our fantastic reading group!  Here is what some of the girls had to say!

Brandi:

"I expected to like Loving Mr. Daniels based on the positive reviews I had seen....what I didn't expect was to LOVE this book. One of my favorites of 2014. A beautiful, heartfelt, and emotional love story that made me live and experience every single word Brittiany wrote."

Hilarie:

"This was one of the most well written books I have ever read! I could feel the chemistry from the moment Daniel and Ashlyn met and the array of emotions I went through with this book was crazy."

  

Jennifer:

"Definitely took me on an emotional ride. I was worried that this was going to be yet another forbidden teacher student romance; I am happy to say this book was so much more! The connection between Ashlyn and Daniel jumps off the page."

Donna:

 "A five star read, made me ugly cry!"