This review may contain spoilers, so fair warning, upon reading the review.
About The Book
Three things in my life were fact.
I needed Sarah to survive.
I needed sex to remain sane.
And I could never mix sex with Sarah.
I just knew—deep in my marrow—that if I did, I’d somehow lose her. All my deepest darkest secrets would crack open, bleed out, and ruin everything between us. I wouldn’t unleash the shit inside me on my worst enemy, let alone her. So she stayed strictly in the friend zone.
People probably thought I never went there with her because of her cerebral palsy, but f*ck them. She knew she was the most important person in my world, and I wasn’t about to risk hurting our relationship just to make my c*ck happy.
Until the moment she begged me to take her virginity.
Now it’s all about to hit the fan, because how the hell do you resist the one person forbidden to you when she says please?
My Review
Priceless is the 8th installment in the “Forbidden Men” series. Linda Kage is one of those authors that write some of the best New Adult romances. When I read Priceless this was also an pick from my TBR for the Romanceopoly Reading Challenge. I will be honest in that I absolutely adored this book and is one of my favorites of the series so far.
Priceless was such a unique take on a romance. I really loved seeing that the heroine was dealing with Cerebal Palsy and was mostly in a wheelchair. Then we have our hero, who also suffered in his own way as he was dealing with some PTSD and being sexually assaulted as a young teenager. But then Brandt and Sarah meet through the most unlikely means and they become the best of friends. I loved the way that we see their friendship grown in their early years, it was so endearing. But then we skip to when they are adults, both in college, and then a mix of unrequited love and a pining heroine happens here. I really enjoyed the way that the heroine goes after what she wants. But she does have a battle ahead of her in convincing Brandt to take a chance on them being more than just friends.
Brandt is suffering from affects of the assault that he suffered as a child, so he tends to push his girl away at times, because he doesn’t want sex to ruin what they have. So you can see why he has his reservations, but also, he looks at sex in a certain way and feels like it would spoil his feelings for Sarah, much of his reservations is seeing him deal with him being abused as a child. My heart just felt for Brandt though, even when he was pushing Sarah away. But when the truth is revealed about what he suffered, I just really loved the way that their family and friends just really come together for Brandt. It just had my heart.
The romance that builds between Brandt and Sarah was so heartwarming in so many ways. Even though they have some hurdles to overcome with. I was so charmed with the way that they support each other, and just click on so many levels. It was so interesting see the heroine being the one pining for the hero and the way that she goes after wanting more in their relationship. I was so endeared by her character and seeing the way she is battling to have what she wants with Brandt even if they hurt each other a bit along the way.
Overall I found Priceless to be a true treasure of a read! Its a story to delivers on friendship, trust and healing!
Title: Priceless
Author: Linda Kage
Genre: New Adult Romance
Format: eBook
Source: Self Purchased
Length: 342 Pages
Book Links
Amazon| Goodreads| LibraryThing| StoryGraph| Literal Club
Book Evaluation
Storytelling Quality: 5
Story Itself: 5
Character Development: 5
Writing Style: 5
World Building: 5
Feels + The Romantic Heart: 5
Pacing: 5
Plot: 5
Cover Art: 5
Ending: 5
Book Ratings
Overall Rating of the Book
Steam Level
Simmering—soft warm touches and light intimacy
Warm- a medium level of sexual tension, a balance of sexual and emotional intimacy, lighter on the details in the sexual moments.
Steamin’ up the room -the sexual content is more explicit in the language and tone, heavier amount of sexual scenes.
Blazing fire to the building-The prime focus is the sex scenes, scorching hot, and could burn one. Less focus on the emotional intimacy to the relationship.
Trigger Warning
Sexual Assault of a minor
About The Author
Linda writes romance fiction from YA to adult, contemporary to fantasy.
Published since 2010, she first went through a 2-year writing correspondence class in children’s literature from The Institute of Children’s Literature, then graduated with a Bachelor’s in Arts-English with an emphasis in creative fiction writing from Pittsburg State University.
She currently lives with her husband, two daughters, a cat named Holly, and nine cuckoo clocks in southeast Kansas.
She started out reading with the Baby-Sitters Club, then moved to Sandra Brown, Linda Howard, Julie Garwood, and LaVyrle Spencer in high school. Now, she’s all over the place with her romance reading tastes.
It seems like you really liked this one. Nice review.
It sounds like an emotional and moving romance! I’ve read and enjoyed this author in the past but never started this series. Looks like I should give it a try! Wonderful review, Renee!
This sounds like a unique way to tell a love story and I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Excellent review 💙
I’ve enjoyed your Linda Kage reviews before and wanted to read the books too. This one sounds so poignant.
I haven’t heard about this author before. I definitely love the sound of this book for sure.. Especially since I love that the characters aren’t ‘perfect’.
Great review!
I like the sound of this one. The hero sounds a little broken and I kinda like that in a hero.
I recall truly loving that book many years ago Renee!