Tracy’s review of Connected by Kim Karr
What if a ‘Once in a Lifetime’ could happen twice?
Suffering from a past full of tragedy, Dahlia London’s soul has been left completely shattered. Happily ever after is a far cry from reality in her world. But, when she is reconnected with her past, the bonds that form are irrefutable.
When River Wilde, lead singer of The Wilde Ones, comes back into Dahlia’s life, the intensity that fires their relationship combined with underlying feelings that have never died lead her to believe she has met her soul mate.
Struggling with confusion as old connections fade and new ones begin, Dahlia’s grief begins to lift–but guilt remains. River wants to be the one to mend all that is torn within her.
But with a past that is never really gone, can their future survive?
Dahlia has been a girlfriend to Ben for years. They grew up together and were friends and then became much more. When they were in college together Dahlia and her best friend Aerie went to see a band at a local bar. While there Dahlia met River Wilde. There was an instant connection and they both realized there was something there between them that needed to be explored. When Dahlia realized that River is the lead singer of the band and he goes back on stage she knows that she needs to get out of there. River asked her to stay so they could talk after the show but Dahlia loves Ben and she knows if she stays that she will be confused and she doesn’t want to take the chance that she would tempted into doing something she might regret.
About 3.5 years after that incident we see Ben and Dahlia living together. They are engaged to be married and Ben is professing his undying love for his fiancé. He’s acting strange and being overly attentive but Dahlia doesn’t have time to ask him what’s up as they are going to an awards ceremony for Ben who an investigative journalist for the LA Times. On the ride to ceremony their car is cut off and Ben is killed by a masked gunman.
Dahlia spends almost 2 years in deep mourning trying to deal with Ben’s death but she manages. She finally starts to live again when her boss and best friend, Aerie, sends her on a job to interview none other than River Wilde. Dahlia loves his music and of course still remembers that little time they spent together 5 years earlier. Dahlia and River once again hit it off and are instantly enamored with each other. They can’t seem to stay away from each other and though Dahlia has feelings like she’s betraying Ben she knows that he’s gone forever and that River is the her soul mate. Throughout the story they have their ups and downs like any couple but they know they will spend the rest of their lives together and eventually get engaged.
For the most part this story is told in 1st person from Dahlia’s POV. I didn’t mind being in her head but I have to admit to wondering what the other people in the story were thinking from time to time. Dahlia is a pretty normal woman. She lives, she has doubts, she suffers – just like the rest of us do. Now it seems that Dahlia has suffered more than the average woman as both of her parents died in a crash when she was just 13 or 14 years old. Her uncle raised her and she turned out pretty darned good. She truly loves her fiancé Ben but he’s had his moments when he was a trial – just like all men. 🙂
After Ben dies we see Dahlia mourning him and though we didn’t get to know Ben all that well (frankly I didn’t care for him based on what I did know) my heart ached for Dahlia’s loss. I can’t imagine this was easy for her and I appreciated that the author didn’t try to rush her emotional healing. After a couple of years when she meets River once again I thought she was ready to move on from Ben and I loved River and Dahlia’s initial re-introduction to each other as they clicked just as they had 5 years earlier.
Unfortunately this is where I thought the story went downhill a bit. For the whole second half of the book I believe that the author was trying to show us the incredible connection that the couple had together by giving us sex scenes to show their deep intimacy but there was such an over abundance of them, imho, that it was just overkill. I honestly started skimming those scenes and just read the dialogue. Not only were they tedious for me, the scenes seemed to go on forever. They actually slowed the story down for me and that wasn’t a good thing.
Strangely, a few chapters from the end of the book the author switched us to River’s POV. I’m not quite sure what the thinking behind the switch was but it was nice to be in his head. River was a really great guy. I saw him as a kind and loving man who truly loved Dahlia – even if he was sappy at times. 🙂
The story does have some plot as characters allude to the fact that there’s more that Dahlia needs to know about Ben but River refuses to tell Dahlia as he doesn’t want to hurt her. Then there’s the fact that Dahlia’s house gets broken in to and ransacked and she gets attacked – all bringing us to think that there’s someone out to get her. The problem I had with that is that these facts were so spread out over the last part of the story that it was close to being not enough to keep me reading.
Now, the end of the book was a cliffhanger. I have to say that I wasn’t completely surprised at the details that were given to us in the last chapter of the book as I had an inkling this was how things were. Though I wasn’t completely in love with this story it was good enough for me to want to see what happens next. Hopefully the surplus of sex will be curtailed in book 2, Torn, which comes out in October.
Rating: 3 out of 5
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place.
This book is available from InterMix. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.
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