ADORE : A SPIRAL OF BLISS NOVEL #4 by NINA LANE

“I love you,” he whispers, “you’re so goddamned beautiful you break my heart in two. I will climb mountains and oceans to get to you. You fill every fucking part of me, my blood, my heart, my would. I will slay monsters for you until the end of time. “

Liv and Dean have become like our friends and each book we pick up a book feels like a catch-up. We revel in experiencing more of their love story, not to mention the exquisite prose of Nina Lane. When Nina told us another Spiral of Bliss novel was in the works, we were ecstatic! This series is up there as one of our most favourite, delivering a level of romance, passion, erotica and heartfelt emotion that is forever etched in our hearts.

‘Olivia Rose Winter was a woman you’d wait an eternity for. And then you’d sit back and wait even longer.’

We’ve been there with Liv and Dean through every heartbreak, every triumph and every milestone in their relationship and each book has been a stepping stone to their growth and happiness.

Adore begins with a dishevelled, frazzled and exhausted Liv welcoming home Dean after his trip overseas continuing his work on archaeological digs. He’s missed his family terribly and returns to find Liv looking anything but her best, however, this wonderful man only sees the exquisite woman who owns his soul and utters those words ……….”Hi, beauty” rendering us putty in his very capable hands. Those two words were spoken by this man that never fails to convey the passion, the romance and the intensity of his soul aching love for this woman.  Nina Lane really did give men around the world something impossible to live up to when she gave us Dean West….sigh…

“You’re the book I want to open. The story I want to read. The lesson I want to learn, the music I want to hear, the painting I want to study for eternity. If I know nothing else in life except the truth and heart of Olivia West, I’m the luckiest man alive.”

See what we mean?  So, did we adore, Adore? Well to be honest, some of it really worked and some sadly didn’t. As always we loved Nina’s breathtaking writing as she again delivered the complexities of Liv and Dean’s relationship in a way that left us speechless. Her words truly are a work of art.

‘My love for my wife is powerfully intense and secure, bone-deep, the essential part of me. It’s the solid ground under my feet, a feeling as inevitable as a sunrise.
With Nicholas, my love is almost scary in its fierceness and layered with so many other emotions  I can’t even define them all. Awe. Wonder. Fear. Amazement. Hope. ‘

We found ourselves falling in love with Dean West even more, which we didn’t think possible. This sexy, intelligent, passionate, loving, demanding (oh Dean…when you demand, we listen!) and very dreamy Professor Hottie is like no other.  Just his name sends shivers down our spines.

“You’ve always rocked my world hard, professor, and you know it.”

We revelled in Dean’s growth as a man, a brother, a friend, a father, a husband and a lover in Adore. Dean has one goal in life and that is to make Liv happy, protect his family and to always convey physically and emotionally what Liv means to him, and he really does this in the most powerful and heart-gripping way. Not much rattles Dean, but any hint of Liv’s unhappiness brings him to his knees.

We loved how the relationship between Archer and Dean is explored further in Adore and this is something we desperately would’ve loved more of.  We’ve always wanted these two brothers to find their way back and their work in progress in that area was such a welcome inclusion in Adore.

‘I look away from the window at my tall, strong husband. It’s in him too – the twelve-year-old child who fought with his brother and divulged the secret that tore them apart.’

So what didn’t work? It kills us to say this, but Liv tended to grate on us in Adore. We have loved this character since day one and we’ve been behind her all the way as she battled her demons and insecurities. In Adore, these insecurities are revisited but this time around we found Liv’s inner monologue a little tiresome and this broke our hearts. Liv came across whiny and irrational at times and the story-line focusing on her dilemma between family and her Café became monotonous and somewhat annoying. The love between Dean and Liv was unquestionable; even though they were physically at a crossroad. However, we felt the sex scenes came across a little stilted and somewhat awkward in Adore which is something we’ve NEVER experienced previously in this series.

‘Strange how when your life gets richer and bigger, you still sometimes miss the days when it was smaller.’

Some parts of this story were stunningly beautiful, yet there were times where we felt we had gone through a whole lot of angst to arrive at a similar point where we left Dean and Liv in Awaken. We did love being back with these characters again and always felt the intensity of their love, however, we didn’t really feel as though this book contributed anything further to their relationship.  In saying that, any time spent with Dean West is time well spent, our love for this man knows no bounds! His love for his wife, well, it sears in our souls. We do know fans of this series will delight in being back with Liv, Dean and their family just as we did. This is one love story on the whole which we adore!

“Right or wrong, make no mistake, Miss Winter. I’m not a circumstance.”
“What are you, then.”
“I’m your goddamned destiny.”