Love In Spanish
Sequel to Love In English
By Karina Halle
Release Date: November 11, 2014
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Synopsis:
“She sat beside me on the bus – and she changed my whole life.”
Successful, wealthy and absurdly handsome – Spanish ex-football player Mateo Casalles seemed like he had it all. A high-society wife, an adorable little girl, and flashy apartments in Madrid and Barcelona only sweetened the deal. But there was more to Mateo than met the eye – a life of uncertainty and regret that colored his black and white world.
That was until Vera Miles came into his life like a shooting star. Tattooed, wild and young, Vera seemed like Mateo’s polar opposite at first. But you can’t choose who you fall in love with and the two lost souls did everything they could to be together, all while suffering the grave consequences.
Now with Mateo divorced and living in Madrid with Vera, there is a whole new set of challenges and setbacks facing the couple and rocking the foundation of their star-crossed relationship.
Unfortunately for them, the brighter the star, the faster they burn.
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Excerpt:
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
I turn in my chair and give Vera a curious look. Yet another English saying that I don’t know. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
She gives me a soft but tired smile and sits down on the arm rest. I immediately wrap my arm around her waist and pull her down into my lap, where she comes to a rest with a giggle, her hair obscuring the impish smile on her face. No matter where she is, I can never stop touching her and now more than ever I need her to relax, to feel safe, to know I’m going to get us out of this.
“Explain,” I demand. “Or I will punish you with kisses.”
She raises her brow. “Followed by punishment by penis?”
I shrug. “That can be arranged. Now, tell me my Estrella.”
She sighs and buries her lips into my neck. I can’t help the small moan that escapes from me, nor my hardness building beneath her plump, round ass. I close my eyes and fight the urge to pick her up and take her to the bedroom, the only other way I know how to make her feel safe and sated, the only way I know how to escape.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” she says against my throat, “is a saying. I don’t know where it’s from but it means, well, nothing is scarier than a pissed off bitch.” She pauses, sucking in her breath and I know she fears she’s said the wrong thing. “Sorry,” she quickly adds and I feel her body tense up beneath my fingers. “I didn’t mean that Isabel is a bitch.”
She is still so skittish over her words, the way she blurts things out, but it’s one of the reasons why I love her. I cup the back of her head with my hand and let the softness of her hair sink over me. “I know you didn’t,” I assure her. “And, well, she is being a bitch.”
“Can you blame her though?” she asks, her voice rising a pitch and when she pulls away from me, her eyes are wet. It breaks my heart. I’m getting tired of my heart breaking and I know that this isn’t going to change anytime soon. Every day there is another weight on us, another crack appears.
“No,” I tell her honestly. “I cannot blame her.”
A silence lapses over us, heavy like a wool cloak. It does this sometimes. What we’ve done, it coats us.
Finally she clears her throat. “She’s going to hurt for a long time,” she says. “She’s going to be angry. This isn’t going away. I thought everything was behind us now, that she’d move on. You’ve been divorced for a year, if she’s still this mad a year out…”
“She is mad because I am going back to Atletico,” I tell her. “She is mad because of the paparazzi, the way they are hounding us again. She is mad because she feels she is being made to look like a fool. If I had just stayed with my head down, she wouldn’t be doing this.”
“But you can’t live your life in fear, Mateo,” she tells me.
I smile at her and brush her sunset hair from her face. “And neither can you.”
She settles back against my body, sinks, conforms, melds. She is second skin. She is a part of myself I can’t bear to separate from. I pray I never have to. I pray we can survive whatever is coming our way.
And I can feel it coming, that tension, that storm rolling in the weeks and days.
I pick her up in my arms and for all her pillowy curves, she weighs nothing more than a feather. I take her down the hall to the bedroom, throw her on the bed. She glows in the afternoon sun that streams in through our window and it isn’t long before we are both naked and I am climbing over her, pinning her arms above her head and drinking in her body like the most beautiful, decadent wine.
I will devour her until all of this is gone.
I will consume her until we are all that’s left.
I push inside her and let my hunger take over.
Robin’s Review
My sincere appreciation goes out to author Karina Halle for providing an advanced reader copy of Love, in Spanish. I am once again honored to provide my honest review.
Love, in Spanish is the new companion novel to the contemporary romance Love, in English. It’s a brand new story from author Karina Halle that offers a glimpse of characters Mateo Casalles and Vera Miles approximately one year after the events of Love, in English.
Karina Halle has created some impressive male characters, and she is exceptionally talented when writing from a man’s point of view. Dex Foray. Javier Bernal. Sage Knightley. Camden McQueen. And now, Mateo Casalles. Mateo is mature, responsible, a father who dearly loves his daughter. He wants to provide for those that he loves. Mateo is proud. Loving. Sexy. Territorial. Mateo claims Vera as his own. He sees Vera in his future. If you have read Love, in English you know this.
But circumstances have not been perfect for Mateo and Vera. They face problems which seem to be compounded by Mateo being a high-profile public figure. They are citizens of two different countries, struggling to overcome language and cultural barriers. Their fifteen-year age difference seems to be insurmountable. Mateo has a bitter ex-wife, the paparazzi is unrelenting, and they both have work-related issues.
If anything can go wrong, it simply does. For this reason, the tone of Love, in Spanish felt somewhat discouraging to me. But I also found it believable that a couple with this many differences is going to struggle with problems. It was how Mateo and Vera responded to these problems that felt real, emotional and true. This author’s words have a tendency to pull at reader emotions. I clearly felt the desperation and sadness of these characters through the writing. Karina Halle is a gifted writer. She has the capability of bringing a scene to life by combining random details with sensory descriptive words. The overall effect is extraordinary. Love, in Spanish is full of the same top-notch writing that her fans have come to expect. The writing just flows beautifully. For Love, in Spanish, Halle has earned a solid 4-star rating!
Michel’s Review
It’s interesting how two people can read the same book at the same time and walk away with different impressions and thoughts. Robin and I both had the privilege of receiving ARC copies of Love In Spanish.
Love In Spanish is the sequel to Love In English by Karina Halle. Love In English had mixed reactions from readers of the romance genre. It’s subject matter, a forbidden love between an older married man and young free spirited woman rocked the norms expected in a romance novel. This book did not condone adultery. It was a story of two people that found their once in a lifetime soulmate at the wrong time. While Love In English was a beautiful love story, it was also brutally honest about the repercussions of an illicit affair. It portrayed the ugliness of betraying a marriage, hurting all those that you love, losing the respect of your friends, piers, and general population. It portrayed the death of a relationship and the grieving of that loss. It was a story of picking up the pieces and moving on in life. Moving onto the life that was meant to be lived and celebrated. It was not an easy road and the characters wore their battle wounds with pride and regret.
Love In Spanish occurs one year after Love In English. Mateo Casalles and Vera Miles have survived the initial shock that their forbidden relationship has rendered. They are building a life together after tearing apart the lives they once lived. The road is not easy for this couple. They have a lot of obstacles to overcome before their relationship can be a true success. These obstacles could destroy the beautiful bright shining love they have found with one another.
Mateo Casalles is a high profile individual. He was a former soccer star and married into a very affluent family. He was also a highly successful businessman. When he left his wife for a younger Canadian woman it created a scandal that the paparazzi is exploiting. Not only is his relationship with Vera being exploited, they are exploiting his relationship with his young daughter, feeding fuel to his ex wife’s grievances, and exploiting his new career.
If that isn’t enough to destroy his and Vera’s relationship, they have other things working against them. They are from different countries and citizenship issues may pull them apart. There is also the fact that their nationalities create a vast difference in their cultural upbringings and beliefs.
There is also the issue of their age difference and maturity levels. Mateo is at the age where he is more settled, confident in his maturity, and has a firm grasp of what he wants in life. Vera is still quite young. She has not finished her degree and settled into a career, she has not thought about what she wants out of a lasting relationship, in fact she has never been in a serious relationship. She is insecure with her inexperience. Mateo is insecure with his age.
Vera and Mateo have a lot of obstacles to overcome. They will have to learn what works best in their relationship. They will have to choose how to handle all the negative press that is destroying their lives. They will have to choose to fight for their love or let their relationship burn out. Neither one is willing to let this happen.
Love In Spanish is a beautiful continuation of a difficult love story. There is never a question of Mateo’s and Vera’s love for one another. It is beautiful how they cling to one another when the world is tearing them down.
Karina Halle wrote an emotional love story that is brutally honest. She did not skim around the ugly issues that comes in the aftermath of divorce. She allowed these characters to suffer the ramifications of their affair. This made their love more credible. It also made their relationship stronger. Both Mateo and Vera grew as human beings. They also learned that love is worth fighting for.
I highly recommend Love In Spanish.
Love In English
By Karina Halle
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He’s thirty-eight. I’m twenty-three.
He speaks Spanish. I speak English.
He lives in Spain. I live in Canada.
He dresses in thousand-dollar suits. I’m covered in tattoos.
He’s married and has a five-year old daughter.
I’m single and can’t commit to anyone or anything.
Until now.Because when they say you can’t choose who you fall in love with, boy ain’t that the damn truth.
***
To a restless dreamer like Vera Miles, it sounded like the experience of a lifetime. Instead of spending her summer interning for her astronomy major, she would fly to Spain where she’d spend a few weeks teaching conversational English to businessmen and women, all while enjoying free room and board at an isolated resort. But while Vera expected to get a tan, meet new people and stuff herself with wine and paella, she never expected to fall in love.
Mateo Casalles is unlike anyone Vera has ever known, let alone anyone she’s usually attracted to. While Vera is a pierced and tatted free spirit with a love for music and freedom, Mateo is a successful businessman from Madrid, all sharp suits and cocky Spanish charm. Yet, as the weeks go on, the two grow increasingly close and their relationship changes from purely platonic to something…more.
Something that makes Vera feel alive for the first time.
Something that can never, ever be.
Or so she thinks.
Author Bio:
With her USA Today Bestselling The Artists Trilogy published by Grand Central Publishing, numerous foreign publication deals, and self-publishing success with her Experiment in Terror series, Vancouver-born Karina Halle is a true example of the term “Hybrid Author.” Though her books showcase her love of all things dark, sexy and edgy, she’s a closet romantic at heart and strives to give her characters a HEA…whenever possible.
Karina holds a screenwriting degree from Vancouver Film School and a Bachelor of Journalism from TRU. Her travel writing, music reviews/interviews and photography have appeared in publications such as Consequence of Sound, Mxdwn and GoNomad Travel Guides. She currently lives on an island on the coast of British Columbia where she’s preparing for the zombie apocalypse with her fiancé and rescue pup.
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