Reviewer: Casee
Dirty English (English, #1) by Ilsa Madden-Mills
Narrator: Summer Morton, John Hartley
Series: English #1
Also in this series: Filthy English (English, #2)
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: October 9, 2015
Format: Audiobook
Source: Audible Escape
Point-of-View: Alternating First
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 272
Length: 7 hours, 46 minutes
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Series Rating:

A scarred fighter.A girl with rules.One night of unbridled passion.

There are three things you need to know about Elizabeth Bennett: she’s smart as a whip, always in control, and lives by a set of carefully crafted rules. She’s learned the hard way that people you love the most always hurt you in the end.

But then she meets Declan Blay, the new neighbor at her apartment complex.

A tattooed British street fighter, he’s the campus bad boy she’s supposed to avoid, but when he saves her from a frat party gone bad, all her rules about sex and love fly out the window.

She gives him one night of unbridled passion, but he longs for more.

With only a cardboard-thin wall separating their bedrooms, he dreams of possessing the vulnerable girl next door forever.

One night. Two damaged hearts. The passion of a lifetime.

*A modern love story inspired by Pride and Prejudice*

Dirty English is the first book that I’ve read by this author. I don’t even remember how I found this book. I just thought the summary sounded pretty good. A tattooed British street fighter? Come to mama. Unfortunately, there was something missing from this book. I can’t put my finger on what it was. It started out interesting, albeit heartbreaking. I really liked the hero and the heroine was too bad. Nonetheless, I was left with wanting more at the end. Or maybe I just didn’t feel like there was closure.

When Elizabeth Bennett was a high school senior, she went through what no woman should ever have to go through. She was violated in the worst possible way by someone she trusted completely. She is barely able to pull herself from the abyss she finds herself in, but she won’t let Colby win. She knows that she will never get justice because he’s the son of a state Senator. All she can do is move on with her life and protect herself. Protect her heart, her body, and life. Elizabeth thinks she’s moved on. She can have sex. Even if she only has one-night stands, she’s not broken. Then she meets Declan Blay, her next door neighbor. Everything that she thought about herself goes out the window.

Declan first meets Elizabeth at a frat party from his twin brother no less. When Dax steals a kiss, he can tell she’s terrified. It’s not like anything he’s ever witnessed. When he learns that the girl he can’t take his eyes off is his next door neighbor, he couldn’t be more thrilled. Then he hears about her “rules”. A guy only gets one night with her, then they get dumped. He’s determined to have more than one night with her, no matter what it takes.

So here’s what I didn’t really care for. It was Elizabeth. It was clear that she had feelings for Declan. She just held onto the fury she felt over the night she lost her innocence so tight, she never wanted to let it go. She always thought about how strong she was. She was a strong woman who could overcome anything. The thing was that she never got over that night. I’m not saying whether that was right or wrong. Just that she was living in a bubble of her own making. She was lying to herself and it really got old. Just like how she was stringing Declan along. That got really old, really fast.

In the end, I really did like Declan, but I didn’t care about Elizabeth one way or another. I felt bad for her, yes, but take her or leave her. I didn’t really care.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

English