Shooting Scars (The Artist Trilogy, #2) by Karina Halle

Buy The Book:

AMAZON / BARNES & NOBLE

Author's Page:

Goodreads / Blog / Twitter

Genre:

Contemporary Romance

Summary on Goodreads:

Sometimes the right choice can be the deadliest.

When Ellie Watt made the ultimate sacrifice for Camden McQueen, she never thought it would be easy. But walking away with her ex-lover, Javier Bernal, in order to ensure Camden’s safety has brought a whole new set of dangers. With Javier’s plans for Ellie growing more secretive by the moment, Ellie must find a way to stay ahead of the game before her past swallows her whole.

Meanwhile, Camden’s new life is short-lived. Fueled by revenge and pursued by authorities, he teams up with an unlikely partner in order to save Ellie. But as Camden toes the line between love and retribution, he realizes that in order to get back the woman he loves, he may have to lose himself in the process. He might just turn into the very man he’s hunting.

Told in dual POV from Camden and Ellie.

RATING:

***REVIEW***

“True love doesn't have a sick desperation to it, and undercurrent of doom. People who burn that brightly still get burned in the end.” 

The Artist Trilogy Series is one of my favorite series in the genre of contemporary romance and Karina Halle is definitely a force to be reckoned in the world of authors. As much as I loved the first two book (Review #1 & Review #0.5), I must admit I was a bit afraid and kept delaying to read this one, because after *that* cliffhanger in the 1st book I had pretty good idea where the author will take this story in this book and I was pretty sure that won't exactly like it taking in consideration my reading (non-) preferences. 

At the top of  the list of my non-preferences are: 

1. weak & immature character, 

2. any type of love triangles

Unfortunately, this story had both and it had everything to do with the main character of the book- Ellie. It's very important for me when reading that the book has a likable main character, because he/she is the main voice & focus of the story and we usually see the world of the story through their eyes. Me & Ellie had a love/hate relationship from the very beginning, but in this book it was mostly the later. Why is that? Well, after the strong beginning in the 1st half of the book, she ended up being this weak, needy and whiny character full of contradictions in the second half. I didn't like her and her behavior at all and in the end I became so frustrated with her that I truly didn't care what will happen with her. And what's worse- I ended up disappointed even in my favorite character Camden- Camden...baby, you too??? *face-palm*.

“I'd be there no matter what she chose, even if she wanted another lover, another life, I would still be there when she fell. When she wanted to run. When she wanted to come home.” 

He held a grudge against her for years after what she did to him in high school and now he's suddenly so forgiving after he saw *all that*??? -.- I mean, please, come on, no one can be that forgiving! IMO, he acted totally out of his character and I wasn't happy with it. The only character that was his true-serial-killer/ psycho/ drug lord-self was Javier. There's smth about Javier, there's no doubt. He is a very intriguing character and no matter what he does (and he did some pretty horrible things) it seems that you can't completely hate him and from time to time you get this urge to jump his bones, but STILL, you should take a second and go back and think about his profession and things he did, because no matter how appealing and a sweet-talker he can be, he is and he'll ALWAYS be a serial killer/ psycho/ drug lord. I don't know about you, but in my my world that's not a boyfriend material. That's about all I wanted to say and that's why I'm rating this book with 3 stars, not because of the author's writing style which was good as always, but because of the development of the plot and characters. I still plan to read the next one which will be the last in the series and I hope that it will be amazing like the 1st two books.

“Will you burn with me?" she asked. "Or will you go free?"

I grabbed her face as the heat pressed in. "I'll burn with you.”

xoxo