SEPARATION GAMES (The Games Duet #2) by CD REISS

‘I was mad that I loved the wrong parts of him, and that I felt closer to a sadist than a kind man. I was mad that he’d opened me up and I couldn’t close the wound without him. I was mad that I could only really cry when he hurt me.’

Once again, in the conclusion to the Games Duet, we found ourselves entangled in a dark intense web, with a real, disturbing, conflicted and intense insight into a marriage where the two people in their each respective way was as messed up as the other. It’s hard to call this a love story because it really was a hard to understand love. Push pull – push pull. It got too much at times and it became a love – hate relationship for us as well as them in some respects.

‘He was making me crazy. He was confusing me. He was yanking me toward him and pushing me away, at the same time. I was angry, frustrated, vulnerable, defensive, and broken.’

However, the passion, the bared souls, the ugly honesty and the addiction translated into a love where love was at times questionable. It’s a very fine line but the many faces of love do not necessarily equate to complete love of body, mind and soul. But love it was, of that there was no question. There were no frills or sugar sweet romance, but then again this is CD Reiss and that is one of the many reasons we fell in love with her writing. It’s hard-hitting, raw and more gritty than pretty. Though, flip the coin and turn the words and it’s incredibly poetic, vivid and thought provoking.

“Your problem isn’t that you don’t love. Your problem is you love so much it scares you.”

Whilst we found the build up quite slow, somewhat detached and cold, the story suddenly took flight and heightened and heated emotions became tangible once more. The writing from that point was flawless and the words literally pulsed on the pages. We re-learnt our love for the characters and felt the connection once more. We shared the confusion, the doubt and the apprehension. We felt the passion, the reluctant vulnerability and the addiction. We felt the love, the need and the unbearable pain of separation.

‘With every move, I aimed for her heart, to go deep enough to touch it, own it, crawl into it and expand it. My life was written there. I wanted to enter her and explode, covering the world in all-consuming fire. Inside. Deep. So deep we became linked at the soul.’