Review – Torrid Affair by Callie Anderson

How is it possible that a book can leave you so broken but so whole? How is possible that a book can strip you of every single feeling, but leave you stupidly happy? I’ve never read any books by Callie Anderson before. I really didn’t know what to expect. So to now be sat here in absolutely strung out from having experienced EVERY SINGLE EMOTION, I can safely say I will read every single thing Callie has ever wrote and will ever write.

Callie is an evil genius. In Torrid Affair she ripped out my heart and soul and OBLITERATED it! Crushed me to within an inch of my life. I guess the introduction at the front of the book should have given me some indication but nothing could have prepared me for the utter devastation I’d feel while reading this. I UGLY CRIED. Honestly tears ran down my face while I struggled to breathe because this book, Torrid Affair, is breathtaking. It’s a beautiful disaster, utter perfection, delicious devastation. I cannot even begin to express how emotionally strung out I am now I’m finished..

At 30% I knew I loved this book, those butterflies that us bookworms love to experience deep inside our stomachs began to flap their wings like crazy and started the intense burn that I LOVE.

At 49% I COULD NOT BREATHE. My heart was being painstakingly pulled from my chest and my soul trampled on. I hurt because the characters were hurting. Because I connected to them on such a level that my world was theirs and their pain was mine. I watched as my heart and soul was held in front of me, while words and sentences dropped like bombs onto it, totally blasting every part of me.

At 68% I had to stop and calm myself.. Nothing was ever going to stop me reading this book EVER. But I needed a minute. I don’t know how Callie did it, but she sucked me so deep into this story that I never wanted to leave. I fell in love with Brie, from the start she became a part of me. Some people, I’m sure will not want to read this book because of the warning. But I would tell them to just read it, put aside everything and just read because what Callie does with this story is so fucking powerful you’ll get it. You’ll get Brie and you’ll love her, like I did.

You’ll also love Nate. OMG Nate! He’s my beautifully broken man, so consumed by love. So ridiculously perfect and stupid at the same time. I loved him. So, so much. But I also could have slapped him silly while kissing him better. He’s that guy, you know?

Together Nate and Brie are raw, ugly, beautiful and intense. Imagine the strongest storm. One that starts as a low rumbling across the sky. The closer it gets the more obvious it becomes. With it, it brings pounding rain and strong winds, intense feelings that scare. It also brings lightning, bright, vibrant sparks that light up the sky, crackling with such heat and intensity that you can’t look away. It wreaks ugly devastation but also delivers painstaking beauty. It’s power builds and builds, there are small reprieves where it eases but that just adds to the next wave. It’s intensity never dies and still you can’t hide away. Don’t want to hide away. Because you know when the storm is over it will leave the most breathtaking ending filled with beauty and colour. And it does. It leaves so much beauty. So much perfection. Together Nate and Brie are EVERYTHING.

I’ve read a lot of books this year, books that have upset me and tugged on my heart. But I’ve only read a couple that have actually blown me apart, that have dragged me through feelings so strong I’ve been left broken. But in that brokenness is a happiness that skips hand in hand with it. Its that broken happiness that us bookworms experience when we read books that will stay with us forever, books that elicit the strongest book hangovers. It’s that broken happiness that we savour every single second of because it’s beautiful. Torrid Affair is, from beginning to end, a broken happiness that will forever be more, than I can ever hold in my heart.