Gifted for an honest review – 5 stars
Ahhhh, Melissa Jane has struck again!! This author can write no wrong and Sofia is no exception. The only thing I disliked about this book was that it is the last of the Bittersweet Familia series, and that made me so sad. This author delivered a pull no punches set of interconnected novels that just took my breath away from start to finish and garnered emotions I have seldom felt when reading. Kindle throwing, gushing, crying….you name it, I absolutely felt it. In every single book.
Sofia goes back a bit in the series. The stern, apparently unemotional woman we meet at Hector’s gets to tell all, and it’s a story that needs to be told in order to tie those loose ends. There is reference to other characters in here and I would strongly suggest that you read the three previous books so that you get the whole picture. Sofia also contains spoilers for those previous books so please be aware of that. It’s a no brainer really, as all these books are brilliant and you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you started at the end.
“It took a breath.
A blink of an eye before it was all over.
A heartbeat to shatter two lives.”
Written in true Melissa Jane style this book captivates you from the beginning to end, and she really doesn’t take long before she throws you in at the deep end and drags you into that dark, gritty experience that I now recognize all too well in her writing. She does it so well; she wrings out the emotion in such a harrowing fashion that it is so difficult to put the book down. I love a dark read, and I particularly like one that holds nothing back. And that’s what you get in Sofia, just like the other three. The descriptive narrative that this author uses produces some pretty shocking yet striking and full on imagery and that is something so many authors struggle to get right. Melissa nails it every single time.
I’ve purposefully not rehashed the story of Sofia, I can’t do it any justice in all honesty and I don’t want to give a single thing away. All I can say is that this is a MUST read, and that this author needs to be taken note of. I thoroughly enjoyed this series and I am extremely sad it has come to an end. However I have forgiven Melissa for her sins, she utterly redeemed herself in the closing chapters, for all the pain that she has put me through over the course of this series. To say that this last book is “bittersweet” would be putting it lightly. I so cannot wait to see where she goes from here.