Review – Black and White Flowers by Rachel Robinson

Black and White Flowers has well and truly owned me in the 24 hours it’s taken me to read it. It’s stole my heart, it’s crushed my soul, blown my mind and left me deliriously happy. I cannot even begin to describe the amount of emotions this book DRAGGED me through, if it exists, I FELT IT.

Everything from the heart breaking beginning of Carina, to the heat inducing meeting with Smith, to the complete OBLITERATION of ME was written with such beauty and precision.

I absolutely adored how this book played out, the angst lover in me is on cloud nine right now because holy heck did this book pull me in ALL directions. Carina and Smith are so perfect for one another, they know it, we as the reader know it, side characters know it but it’s never that simple. Love and honor play HUGE parts in this book. They are also huge enemies. I found myself at different points completely swooning over Smith and then getting majorly upset over Smith. But at the end, I LOVE him. He’s a stunning individual, his love and affection roots deep, his honor even deeper.. He’s sex and sin. Utterly gorgeous and dangerous to the heart.

When I read a book, character development is a big thing for me. I like to travel a journey with the characters I’m reading about, I like to see them grow and come out the end new and improved, better. The way Rachel wrote Carina in this book was FANTASTIC! Honestly, I LOVED watching her character grow, build in strength and power. Experience love instead of all the hate and pain. I loved that she was a writer and how the story twisted into her own was insanely clever.

At times this book was not easy to read, it was painful, but blissfully breathtaking. Sounds strange I know, like I say, it’s the angst. The deep rooting connection I felt to these characters was my downfall because I was all in, like head over heels in love with everything about them. So reading parts of this story was hard. But with the pain comes the pleasure and this book is a pleasure dome of words and feelings all wrapped up in a perfectly poignant package.

Rachel Robinson has penned a flawless story of pain and heartache, damaged pasts and uncertain futures mixed with soul searing heat, all consuming love and breathtaking beauty. Black and White Flowers is a stunning novel worth an infinite amount of stars.

Carina Painter lives a life she created in between the pages of her bestselling novel. At least, that’s what she outwardly portrays. A heart-rending childhood followed by an abusive engagement leaves her broken in all ways possible. A chance encounter provides the fork in the road she so desperately desires.

Navy SEAL Smith Eppington is fighting the war of his lifetime. One that isn’t fought with weapons and highly sought intelligence. It’s a battle to remember his past. The accident that scarred seventy five percent of his body, and stole the life of his best friend also seized parts and pieces of his memory. When an author asks to interview him for a fiction novel, he’s ready to pour his heart out no matter the cost.

The friendship that blossoms between Smith and Carina is something extraordinary. It’s a living, breathing love story about finding yourself, change that is out of your control, grasping what you can, and letting go of everything else.

In a twist of kismet, remembering could destroy everything, but fiction may be what saves the day. A friendship built on new truths and a relationship torn apart by old lies collide in a poignant novel by International Bestselling Author, Rachel Robinson.