TAINTED BY LOVE by GILLIAN JONES

Standalone emotional ugly cry love story

Reviewed by Jenny & Gitte 

“She’s my home, you know…my happy….”

We have so many mixed emotions about this book. Even now, a day after finishing Tainted by Love, talking about, and getting our thoughts and feelings in check, we have no idea how we felt about this book. Was it compelling? Absolutely. Was it emotional? Yes, some parts brutally so. We sobbed hiccupy, headache sobs at one point. Did we enjoy it? We’re not sure enjoy is the right word, but one one thing we DO know, is that we couldn’t put this book down and we can’t remember discussing a book so deeply whilst we read.

The opening pages of Tainted by Love led us to believe it was going to something quite different to how the story played out, and that’s perfectly okay, because as readers, we love to be tested, have our boundaries pushed and revel in having the element of surprise bestowed upon us. And Gillian Jones most certainly managed all three.

The story starts with Trinity, then 20, in love with her college boyfriend and losing her virginity. The gut punching relevance of these steamy opening moments soon came into play as we turned to the next chapter;  thrown for a loop. Nothing could have prepared us for how the cruel and heartbreaking consequences that relationship would deliver. It hit us like a sledgehammer.

‘It turns out it’s easier to judge me than it is to love me.’

We’ll hold our hands up and admit we found it confronting, and unbeknownst to each other, we both had put the book aside at one point. A few text message later saw us discussing our feelings at length…and Trinity’s story had only just begun at that point. One thing’s for sure though, even as we questioned how we felt, there is no doubt we were compelled we were to continue this story. Without question we would forever wonder ‘what if’  about Trinity and Hendrix’s story if we didn’t finish it. And so we braced ourselves for what we thought was to come.

27 year old Trinity Adam’s received crushing news that would forever change her life. In every sense of the word. It would only be through the understanding and love from Hendrix Hills that her life would take on some semblance of balance and true happiness, however they would forever live with a dark cloud hanging over them and so we read this book with a mixture of determination and dread.

‘Hendrix sees me. He sees all of me: the person I am today, the girl I’ve always been, and the woman I might become. I just hope he also sees the Trinity that is looking right back at him, the one who already loves him so much.’

When reading a story we always put ourselves in the heroines shoes, however in Tainted by Love, we found ourselves in both Trinity and Hendrix’s shoes, asking ourselves; ‘what would we do, how would we react?‘ if we were in both their situations. Would fear and ignorance rule our hearts, or would we open pummel through the boundaries and open our hearts to the possibility of love and happiness? We found Gillian Jones schooled us in so many ways, as she made us confront our feelings, question our reasoning’s and ensured we talked into the wee hours about this book…..between gut wrenching sobs that is! We just couldn’t stop thinking about it!

‘Knowing my biggest truth, Hendrix Hills still wants me.’

We absolutely applaud this author for taking on such a difficult subject, it couldn’t have been easy to write because it certainly wasn’t easy to read. Whilst the subject matter was extremely honest, this author dealt with Trinity and Hendrix’s story in an inspirational, loving and sensitive manner.

We found our issues with Tainted by Love came by way of the book having an overabundance of sex scenes which, for us, had a adverse impact on the emotion of the story at times. When reading a story so brutal and emotionally poignant, our thoughts were that the sex scenes would have benefited by being more fade to black as to not almost undervalue this important storyline. We found the constant descriptive sex distracted us from the emotional element of the story and for that, we were a little gutted. However, in saying that, the latter part of this story hit us and hit us hard. There is no way we had expected, nor were prepared for the way in which Gillian Jones would move Hendrix and Trinity’s story. We ugly cried, closing the book and attempting to decipher our thoughts and feelings long after finishing this thought provoking story about acceptance, self preservation, survival and soul deep love. A love that refused to be restrained by boundaries.