Review by Norach -- Heartaches 3 by H.M. Irwing

[NRoach]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Heartaches 3" by H.M. Irwing.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Heartaches 3: Bad Boy Vibes is a capital R Romance novel, with splashes of crime and thriller to boot. Our heroine, Anna Simmons, is a rape survivor who has taken it into her hands to take down the criminal empire responsible, along with her knight in shining armour Rafe. Here, in the conclusion to the trilogy, the stakes are as high as they've ever been, and author H M Irwing sends us careering through a lurid, intra-familial game of cat and mouse.

Bad Boy Vibes leaves no space to breathe. All the pieces set up over the previous two instalments are in motion, and it's do or die time. The cast is a spider's web of relationships past and present, something which I struggled to keep on top of throughout, though it's to Irwing's credit that every character knows who they are and what they want. For the most part, the battle lines between the clans are clear; there's little place for ambiguity here, but when characters do veer away from our expectations it's always credible and never feels like Irwing is simply pulling at puppet strings.

The prose is sensual where it needs to be and concise everywhere else. The descriptions of pounding hearts and steeled eyes are boundless, as is to be expected from a character drama so heavily invested in our heroine's emotions, from outright lust to abject horror at the lengths the drug lords responsible for her suffering will go to. Though I personally often found the writing itself lacking, and frequently hamstrung by an over reliance on clichéd shorthands such as 'forested gaze' and, at one point 'lapping at her heated petals'.

I found it refreshing that the focus throughout the novel was heavily on the plot and its impact on the characters embroiled in it. The steamier scenes never came off as gratuitous, and always served to forward Anna's plans, or bring us deeper into the minds of herself and Rafe. Bad Boy Vibes is a far cry from a chaste, or sweet romance, but easily steers clear of getting bogged down in the sex and losing focus along the way.

I give Heartaches 3: Bad Boy Vibes a 3 out of 4.

Irwing has garnered quite the audience with the Heartaches series, and it's not hard to see why. The characters are compelling, have clearly defined places in the world, and most importantly all have their own stake in this battle against the criminal underworld. When the book does take the plunge into the world of thrillers, it does so with gusto. From restaurants at the dock fronting for a thriving drug smuggling trade, and scarpering from nightclubs under the cover of smoke bombs whilst uploading an encrypted file from a tablet PC, parts of Bad Boy Vibes would be well at home in a Tom Cruise film. Readers coming on to this chapter from the previous two will love to find more of the same, and romance readers who want a punchier version of the 'mysterious past' novel will relish the edgier parts of the plot.

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Heartaches 3
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[Ginnamassa19]

You were definitely a lot nicer in your review of this book than I was in mine XD But yes, I do agree that it leaves no space to breathe, as you mentioned--the book seemed to jump from plot to plot with only a few lines linking events together, and I personally found the writing lacking too. Whoops.

Anyway, this was a really well-written review! I like your use of language