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Graves by Katelyn Taylor
Publication date: June 3rd, 2024
Pages: 457
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Synopsis:
Zayden
I thought I had everything I could possibly desire. Until I set my eyes on her. My angel. Too pure for this world, too pure for me. She's all mine. No matter the cost. No matter the lives that stand in my way. She has always been mine. She just doesn't know it yet.
Dominic
My brother has lost it, more so than ever before. I couldn't figure out what had changed at first. One look at her though, and it all made sense. He gave me one job, protect his girl, a girl he's never even spoken to. I held true to my promise and then some. I didn't mean to kiss her, to touch her. One thing is for sure, though. I'm not losing her, even if I have to go through my brother to have her.
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Review:
The Graves brothers had no idea what they were in store for when they set eyes on Blake. First Zayden stumbles across her randomly on one of his jobs and is instantly infatuated and then when he is sent away for months on end he has to turn to his brother to watch over the woman he is in love with. Dominic thought it'd be a silly mission to watch his twin brother's newest obsession. Until he also became smitten with the girl. Now they must navigate secrets about their past and about who they are in order to try to keep Blake and neither brother wants to share the woman they feel to belong to them. When a big, bad evil comes back into the Graves brothers' lives will they be able to protect their angel and babygirl or will their secrets take from them the only thing they have found in their lives worth holding onto?
I started reading this book under the peer pressured guidance of a few of my book pals. They were reading it and gushing over it so, of course, I wanted to be able to be on the same track as they were. Starting out I was fully enthralled with the book. I liked the push and pull of the brothers while also trying to hide away as much of their lives as they could from her. But somewhere along the middle of the book towards the end I started to look at the story a bit more critically instead of under the microscope of my friends.
First, how is everyone so taken with this girl. It seems every single person that she comes in contact with wants to be with her and won't take no for an answer. She gives no flirtation and doesn't put a ton of effort into making herself seem eye-catching to those around her but it seems that everyone wants a piece of her from friend's significant others, drunk patrons, stalker twins, big bad evils, foster parents, their friends... Is there anyone who looks at her and goes, "nah"? That made the character very hard for me to really connect with. I was one of the few who were very 'nah' about her.
Second, the instant love from the twins. They knew nothing about her and yet were willing to throw away their brotherhood for her. Zayden more so than Dominic but it still felt like the two were in lust with her looks and calling it love. It all read very phony to me and made me think that overtime that obsession would wane and they would grow tired of her if this wasn't a book rooted in complete fiction.
Third, the formatting of the book overall needed a comb through by an editor. The author really liked the word 'before' and used it in abundance sometimes (sometimes 2-3 times per sentence). It was a small thing and my book friends didn't even notice it but it made the sentence I was reading hard for me to move past because I badly wanted to go into the book and edit it out so it flowed better. It shook my attention so badly that it was hard for me to refocus on the story for a bit. I am sure I missed some keypoints in things because I was so thrown.
However, there were a few points that I enjoyed. I liked that it wasn't just a cookie cutter thruple dynamic. This was the first book I read that the two men involved actually tried to fight for the affections of the FMC. They were willing to try to best each other to win her over and while she didn't want to be caught in the middle she obviously was and didn't exactly try to get herself out of the middle of the squabbling either. Blake as a character was so wishy-washy and weak that I didn't know why the two hot twins were so taken with her. I wish she had been a stronger FMC to compliment their brand of viciousness a bit more. The author hinted at her having a dark side but didn't really let it blossom fully that would have made her a more well-rounded character.
I would have wanted better for the book and there is room for growth if the author chooses to go back through and beef Blake up a bit, edit the text a bit more, and dull down how many people were in love with the FMC, but it was not the worst book I had read this year.
