Escaping Reality by Lisa Renee Jones Series: The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #1
Published by Julie Patra Publishing on July 22nd 2013
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads
Infinite possibilities….
Infinite passion…..
Infinite danger….His touch spirals through me, warm and sweet, wicked and hot. I shouldn’t trust him. I shouldn’t tell him my secrets. But how do I not when he is the reason I breathe? He is what I need.
At the young age of eighteen, tragedy and a dark secret force Lara to flee all she has known and loves to start a new life. Now years later, with a new identity as Amy, she’s finally dared to believe she is forgotten–even if she cannot forget. But just when she lets down her guard, the ghosts of her past are quick to punish her, forcing her back on the run.
On a plane, struggling to face the devastation of losing everything again and starting over, Amy meets Liam Stone, a darkly entrancing recluse billionaire, who is also a brilliant, and famous, prodigy architect. A man who knows what he wants and goes after it. And what he wants is Amy. Refusing to take “no” as an answer, he sweeps her into a passionate affair, pushing her to her erotic limits. He wants to possess her. He makes her want to be possessed. Liam demands everything from her, accepting nothing less. But what if she is too devastated by tragedy to know when he wants more than she should give? And what if there is more to Liam than meets the eyes?
Julie’s Review:
I didn’t really know what to expect when I started reading Escaping Reality, and now that I’ve finished it, I don’t really know what to think about it. On the one hand I really enjoyed Liam, possessive quirks and all. He really seemed to be falling for Amy and seemed to genuinely want to help her. Amy’s reluctance to let Liam into her life at first made sense, but she ends up giving in to her feelings for him, and I get it. I mean, who wouldn’t want someone to take care of her after running and hiding for so long. But, this book was a bit on the shorter side (about 250 pages) and really had more questions than answers. I still have absolutely no idea who or what Amy’s running from. I assume she’s in witness protection because she is given a new identity and new place to live by her “handler”, but that’s all I really understand. She’s been having flashbacks about something awful, but unfortunately we’re not told what that is yet. I find that incredibly frustrating. The book ends in a cliffhanger scene after Amy overhears something that makes her question Liam’s motives, and she does what she is used to – she runs. Yes, this book is a page-turner. It is also a pretty quick read. But, in that short amount of pages I don’t really feel like I got to know any characters well enough to truly say I want to stick with them and continue their story. I mean, I’m extremely curious now, but I can’t say I’m invested. This book felt less like a novel and more like a teaser – like a pilot of a new TV show that sounds like it might get really good as the story unfolds. Unfortunately, I wasn’t reading a teaser, or a serial novel, or a novella introduction to a series. I was reading what was meant as a book 1 in a trilogy (I think), and therefore am a bit disappointed. I haven’t read anything else by this author, and it looks like she’s written a lot of books so this kind of shorter novel might be normal to her style, but I like to read books that feel a bit more complete and am not a fan of cliffhangers.
I liked this enough to read book 2 but it felt like a big gaping plot where nothing is answered and more questions are raised. I loved her books and her brand of romantic suspense but I felt like it was heavy handed on this one.
Looking forward to reading your thoughts about book 2.
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So is book 2 the same with the lack of answers? I’m not sure I’m interested enough to buy the second book. Maybe if it showed up on Netgalley I’d request it though.
Well, I am happy that this one entertained you, Julie. I’ve read it months ago and I only gave it a 1 star rating. I felt that it was an FOSG remix with Liam being a billionaire. And Amy immediately consented to having sex with him at the first meeting. It was sort of conceivable considering that she was on the run from her would be killer/s and there she was doing it with a total stranger.
Yay! Sorry for my rant.
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I think most of the billionaire romances are going to be a lot like FSOG. When reading things like this I’ve learned to suspend my disbelief about the whole “I just met you lets have sex” aspect. But yea that’s what bothered me too is we don’t know what she’s running from and all of a sudden she’s just with him now.