ARC BOOK REVIEW ~ UNBOUND BY CARA MCKENNA

Title: Unbound
Author: Cara McKenna
Release Date: October 15, 2013

ARC provided by NetGalley

She set out to find herself, and discovered the darker side of desire.

Merry’s lost a lot recently—first her mother, then close to a hundred pounds. Feeling adrift, she strikes out in search of perspective. A three-week hike through the Scottish Highlands was supposed to challenge her new body and refocus her priorities, but when disaster strikes, she’s forced to seek refuge in the remote home of a brooding, handsome stranger…

Rob exiled himself to the Highlands years ago, desperate to escape his own self-destruction. Haunted by regrets, he avoids human contact at all costs…but when Merry turns up injured, he can’t very well run her off. And as he nurses her back to health, Rob can’t resist his guest’s sweet demeanor—or her flirtatious advances. The igniting passion between them rouses a secret appetite Rob has long struggled to keep hidden. But Merry craves nothing more than to help Rob surrender to his desires, and the journey draws the lovers into an entirely different kind of wilderness.

Book Review

I fell in love with McKenna's writing style with her book, After Hours. And I knew I had to seek more by this very talented woman. 

Unbound is dark, gritty, and highly erotic. Combustible. Smoking hot. And I enjoyed every freaking moment of it. 

Merry has recently lost her mother and takes off to the Highlands to take a journey that over a year ago she could have never attempted, much less, succeed. After losing over one hundred pounds, this trek is deemed to be cathartic--a purging of Merry's old self as she tries to discover her new self. 

Along the way, Merry starts to feel sick, nauseated, and stumbles back to a cabin where she runs into a mysterious man--Rob. This stranger's demeanor comes across as standoffish, but he is attentive to her injuries and agrees to let Merry rest at his cabin--for one night. 

Rob is not much a conversationalist, living alone in the Highlands for the last two years. But there is a reason for his voluntary solitude. Despite his efforts to avoid Merry while she is at his cabin, Merry is just as determined to make the man talk. Merry makes Rob nervous and he starts to feel things that he thought were long buried...dark desires that he is determined to never see the light of day. 

What started out to be only one night turns into several as these two strangers struggle with several emotions--awkwardness, attraction, shame, acceptance, and a slow building trust that leads to a revelation of deeper feelings. 

Cara exposes both Merry's and Rob's fears and secrets over time and with a rawness that left me breathless. And I couldn't help but root for them as they learned some pretty tough lessons of life in order to find the happiness they rightfully deserved.