Monday, May 19, 2014

Book Review: Inked Armor by Helena Hunting (@HelenaHunting)


Inked Armor (Clipped Wings #2) by Helena Hunting
Publication Date: May 13, 2014
Published: Gallery Books
Source: eARC from Netgalley 

My Rating: 
In this follow-up to Clipped Wings, the emotional love story continues between Hayden and Tenley; two young people who desperately want to love and be loved but are afraid to completely let go of their pasts.

In the wake of losing Tenley Page, tattooist Hayden Stryker's tumultuous past is haunting him. Plagued by nightmares about the murder of his parents, Hayden reaches out again to Tenley. Having run from the man she doesn't believe she deserves, Tenley finally lays her guilt to rest. Despite their intense physical attraction, Hayden and Tenley struggle to repair their fragile emotional connection. As Hayden gets closer to the truth, he must find a way to reconcile his guilt over his parents' death in order to keep the woman who finally cracked his armor, and found her way into his heart.

What a punch in the heart! Inked Armor picks up basically where Clipped Wings ends, (If you haven't read Clipped Wings, READ IT NOW!) and with Clipped ending on a cliffhanger like it was, it was good to start off finding out what happened with Tenley and Hayden.

With the separation between the two after Tenley went back to Arden Hills with her almost brother-in-law, I didn't know how much more I could take. I wanted Tenley back in Chicago with Hayden because he took the separation the hardest in my opinion. Tenley, after dealing with the things she left behind and all of the drama that she was running from in the first place, goes back home. I liked that things weren't so drawn out with her things because I feel like the last book was mostly focused on her issues whereas this was leaning more towards Hayden and his past.

Once the lovebirds were reunited things weren't sunshine and rainbows, which is something else I appreciated.They dealt with trust issues and just finding out how they could work with their pasts.

Midway through this book, you become really interested in Hayden's parents past. For me it was the driving force and the mystery felt strong. Sometimes I found myself wanting to read more from his point of view in this one but that is cause I'm a sucker for a cute boy with tattoos.

At first it took me a while to get into this because I was a little disappointed in how fast certain storylines were being resolved very quickly but looking back on it as a whole, it worked really well. Choosing to wrap up Tenley's past in the beginning and deal with Hayden's was a smart choice. I also appreciated that by the end of the book, neither were perfect or wrapped in a pretty bow. It felt more realistic that way.

Overall, I loved this follow up to the first. I hope to see more from Helena Hunting in the future. Maybe something along the comedy side of things.

 

Until Next Time!


No comments:

Post a Comment