Sins Of Sevin by Penelope Ward Review
5 Smooches
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of Stepbrother Dearest, comes a new forbidden STANDALONE romance.
What happens when the one you want is the only one you can’t have?
My name is Sevin.
Homeschooled and sheltered by my ultra-religious family, I was always taught that lust was a sin.
Elle was the girl who’d been carefully chosen for me.
After a long-distance courtship, I’d be moving into her family’s guesthouse so that we could get to know each other in the months before the wedding.
Boundaries were set: no inappropriate touching, no kissing, no sex before marriage.
I’d accepted those rules and my fate.
Until I met the one I wanted to sin with.
That was when restraint became a problem…especially since “the one” wasn’t Elle.
It was her sister, Evangeline.
You know what they say about best laid plans.
My name is Sevin, and I have sinned.
***Told in alternating points of view, Sins of Sevin is a full-length standalone novel. Contains graphic sexual content and harsh language. Only appropriate for adult readers age 18+.
Review
“We can’t do this. We’ll go to hell, Sevin.”
“Don’t you know I’d burn in hell for a single taste of you?”
HOLY FUCKING EPIC AMAZINGNESS! Proper words are failing me at the moment as I sit an stew over all that I just ingested. I want to start this review by saying I was extremely hesitant about starting this book. Forbidden romances are hit or miss for me and add that to the “Duggar” quality I thought this book would be centered around and I was just not sure I would get into it. This was a scary thought for me since I have been a fan of Penelope’s books since she first published Gemini. Why did I have such little faith in an author that has never one let me down, I am ashamed of myself honestly. Sevin and Evangeline’s struggles and passion touched my heart and it is a story I won’t soon forget.
“Despite the fact that he hated me, I was staring into the eyes of the only man I’d ever loved. My sister’s husband.”
Here is where writing this review get the hardest, how do I describe a plot that I never expected and every twist and turn is a spoiler that I would never want to give away. Sevin is the rebel in his uber-religious family but when a major life event forces him to reevaluate his choices he decides to get on track and start doing the right thing. The first step in that process is entering into a courtship and then engagement to Elle. Elle is as sweet as they come and even though she barely knows him and is only permitted to hold his hand and see him with a chaperone she loves Sevin and he is happy to live this life with a sweet girl like Elle. Only on his way to move to live on Elle’s family property he meets a spitfire of a girl who gives as good as she takes. Instantly attracted to both her body and her mind he forces himself to push her from his thoughts. That is until she shows up at the dinner table, the sister of his fiance.
“I felt guilty because I knew that even if given the choice to go back and erase out moment in time, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
Sevin was not an easy man to fall in love with, he can be an ass but he can also be gut wrenchingly sweet and loving. He’s alone in the world basically and the one person who really gets him is the only person he has to stay away from. When time and life prove too much for these two he lashes out at her and it hurts. It’s ugly. It’s painful. But it’s real. It would have been so easy for Penelope to write a story where the two forbidden lovers steal secret kisses for a bit then come clean about their love and ride off into the sunset HEA style. But she took the hard road. The road few authors are brave enough to take where life events force tough decisions and the consequences of those choices will haunt them forever. Don’t get me wrong you will get a HEA here but not only do you have to work for it but the bow it is tied up with is a messy knot. That is life though, even when we get what we want it is not always clean and easy. I loved their struggle an I loved their mess but mostly I just loved Sevin and Evangeline.
“You have me, Evangeline. You. No one else. From the moment we met, it’s been you.”
My co-blogger likes to make fun of me because in real life I cry at the drop of a hat, but when it comes to my fictional characters I might get emotional but it takes a hell of a lot to make an actual tear fall down my cheek. My Skylar did that to me and now Sins of Sevin has been added to the very short list of books that made me take a moment to gather myself as the tears poured out. Sins of Sevin was epic. How else can I describe it. If you enjoy a torrid love affair where the two people get hurt and heal, where you know their love is strong because of the trials they faced than this is a book I urge you to get.
“You’re my truth. Everything else is a lie.”
~miranda
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