Joe and Myghal want to help and protect Sally, who is bruised from the past. But they both have a past of their own to reckon with…
Which man will win Sally’s heart?
Bleeding Heart matches the plot and characters of this novel to perfection. Emotions are raw and bleeding everywhere! From poor Sally to Joe, to Myghal, to Joe’s brother, Seth. Death or the death of love seems to be happening repeatedly throughout this book. Amber Stokes is certainly not afraid to deal with emotion, which I admire. Also, each character had some sort of flaw. Sally had and Joe were evenly matched in their bull-headedness and pride! But Myghal was sweet and charming, and acted like a buffer between the two for the first part of the book before his wander lust caught up with him. There were some very pretty scenes in Bleeding Heart. I could picture Sally standing before the hills saturated with purple lupine, staring into the horizon. That was probably my favorite scene.
I kept on getting frustrated with Joe because he was obviously falling in love with the girl, but he kept using his pride and sarcasm to act as a wall so that he wouldn’t get too close to Sally. I was thankful they had Myghal there to help them along!
Amber Stokes had excellent character development. Sally, Joe, Myghal, and Seth had strengths and flaws every one of them. I even felt sorry for the villain, Rufus O’Daniel. The man’s reasoning was twisted, but he really just wanted somebody to love him. Obviously, he did not know what true love was.
There were two minor problems with Bleeding Heart that I found. Firstly, I was confused when the characters in this book kept referencing other characters named David and Elizabeth. I felt as if I had missed something somewhere. At first I thought that David was Joe’s brother but then I found out that Seth was. I found that confusing until I read the last few pages of the book and found that there was a prequel called Forget Me Not. Which I think is strange because Bleeding Heart claims to be a debut novel. Also, one more small thing ( and this is really nitpicky). I felt that the scene where Sally fainted was unrealistic. Before somebody faints they turn very, very pale. And after the person wakes up they are usually dizzy and need to sit down and drink something before they feel all right again. Sally just fainted, was out for a moment, and then revived again before walking off to do what she wanted to do.
I give Bleeding Heart 31/2 stars out of five. It was a sweet novel with realistic characters and good character development. And it’s not as predictable as I thought it was going to be either! There was one shocking scene when I just had to stare at the page for a moment and think, “Did that really just happen?” When you come to that part the answer is yes, it did.