Finding self-acceptance is not an easy thing to do, and in Bethany Kane’s book Addicted to You, both Rill Pierce and Katie Hughes discover that you have to work hard at not only loving someone, but also at loving yourself.
Author Bethany Kane (a.k.a Beth Kerry) has the uncanny ability to write erotic romance that is driven by emotion and fueled by characters that are in search of acceptance and healing. This is never more true than in her current release where both Rill and Katie have come to a cross roads in their lives; and it’s in the small mining town of Vulture's Canyon that they finally discover a sense of peace, happiness, love, and most of all a sense of self.
Falling in love with your brother’s best friend is not the easiest road to love. It becomes even more difficult when the object of your desire has never seen you as anything more than his best friend’s little sister. The difficulty factor gets proportionality higher when the man you love has cut himself off from the rest of the world and is drinking himself to an early grave after the death of his wife. But Katie Hughes is not easily deterred; she has loved Rill as long as she can remember. She loves him for the man he was and man he could be.
Leaving her job as a respected tax attorney, Katie willingly faces down inner demons and flat out rejection because she believes so strongly that she can help Rill live again. She believes in him as a person, as a friend, as a film maker and as a partner and wants to help heal his deep emotional wounds. But more than that, she wants to see Rill whole again.
Rill's past and his inner demons loom large and are the basis for his actions and his sense of failure. His inability to come to terms with his desires combined with the reality of how they may potentially manifest in a relationship, cause him to drop out of life fearing he’ll never be able to reconcile the two. He feels it is better to be alone than to be revealed. What he wants he believes he can't have for fear he'll destroy it.
The magic of this book happens on many fronts. First, Ms. Kane is a great story teller. Her ability to write both prose and dialogue that immediately capture the essence of an angst ridden drunken Irish film maker, a hopeful woman in love, the sleepy mining town of Vulture's Canyon as well as the characters who live there is quite remarkable. You easily and readily get a sense of all the people who populate this book and the dynamics between them.
Secondly, Rill is a finely drawn character whose emotional journey is written lovingly and with care. His realizations and revelations are hard won, and in many ways he becomes the hero who slays the metaphorical dragon. Katie is determined but not necessarily brash. Her amusing entry into the town and her introduction to the people of Vulture’s Canyon is fun to watch, but what’s more gratifying is watching her learn to become part of the town.
Ms. Kane is skillful at creating characters that have depth, where motivations further the action and where the dynamics between the erotic and the romantic are balanced, thoughtful and well played.
At the core, Addicted to You is about accepting yourself, but more importantly it’s about being able to take a risk and open yourself up to another person, lay yourself bare emotionally and let someone else in. In the end, when they open up and share what they truly feel, is when they can begin. Romantic? You bet.
