September 19, 2017 | No Comments
The Muse
by L.M. Halloran
Date Published: September 1, 2017
Published By: L.M. Halloran
Page Count: 252
Publisher’s Description:
What happens when the future brings the past?
Iris Eliot has survived a lot in her twenty-seven years. Despite the emotional and physical scars she carries, she refuses to be labelled a victim. Now in her final year of graduate school, her dream is within reach. She’s ready to put the past behind her and embrace whatever the future brings.
Until the future brings him.
Professor James Beckett, internationally bestselling author and award-winning poet, is the new head of the Creative Writing Department at her university. Brilliantly talented and obnoxiously sexy, he’s more dangerous than Iris knows.
When Beckett sets his sights on Iris, it’s not just her heart on the line, or her academic and professional careers. Surrendering to the way he makes her feel will rewrite her past.
My Star Rating:
My Review:
The Muse by L.M. Halloran
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
He’s playing me like chess. I’m going to lose.
Where do I begin? I am a huge fan of LM Halloran, and book after book reiterates why. Her writing is so lyrical, her characters so life-like with such depth and relativity. You feel what they feel – every ecstatic, humorous, and gut-wrenching part. Every page of The Muse will keep you turning to read the next. It’s a story that will pull you in and won’t release its hold until the very last page.
In this book, Iris is a grad student and a writer. She’s the TA for a highly successful, best-selling author, James Beckett, whose British accent and his devil may care attitude are the least of his sex appeal. And he used to work for her father.
Their roller coaster of a relationship is so enticing, so satisfying, and in parts, so devastating. The suspense of waiting for things to finally settle between them, one way or another, once and for all, is enough to make this read an all-nighter. It doesn’t have QUITE the level of angst that I’m used to seeing in Halloran’s previous books, and maybe I’ll admit I wasn’t too torn up over that because there was still a fair amount, but let’s just say I cannot pinpoint any single part of this book I felt dragged or stalled the story. It all kept me eagerly reading on!
I loved the multifaceted approach the author took to her family history. The older brother who was killed years prior, which Iris still carries the scars from. The father who was a famous poet and a complicated man, and her mother, who was her father’s one great love despite their divorce and strained relationship.
I loved the chapter titles. And by the way… There was one part that had me saying how brilliant this author is, after having highlighted “desert” as a typo that should have been “dessert,” and then later seeing as part of the story where Iris gets a critique of her latest manuscript and its pointed out that she misspelled dessert twice. WAS THIS INTENTIONAL?! It must be. Hahaha I can’t even. I have to ask. (Should that be marked as a spoiler?)
At any rate, I can wholeheartedly give this book 5 stars and tell any contemporary romance lover to give it a chance. I don’t think you will be disappointed.