Review: Love Lies Beneath by Ellen Hopkins

Love Lies Beneath

by Ellen Hopkins

Publisher: Atria books

Pages: 303

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Tara is gorgeous, affluent, and forty. She lives in an impeccably restored Russian Hill mansion in San Francisco. Once a widow, twice divorced, she’s a woman with a past she prefers keeping to herself.

Enter Cavin Lattimore. He’s handsome, kind, charming, and the surgeon assigned to Tara following a ski accident in Lake Tahoe. In the weeks it takes her to recover, Cavin sweeps her off her feet and their relationship blossoms into something Tara had never imagined possible. But then she begins to notice some strange things: a van parked outside her home at odd times, a break-in, threatening text messages and emails. She also starts to notice cracks in Cavin’s seemingly perfect personality, like the suppressed rage his conniving teenage son brings out in him, and the discovery that Cavin hired a detective to investigate her immediately after they met.

Now on crutches and housebound, Tara finds herself dependent on the new man in her life—perhaps too much so. She’s handling rocky relationships with her sister and best friend, who are envious of her glamour and freedom; her prickly brother-in-law, who is intimidated by her wealth and power; and her estranged mother. However perfect Tara’s life appears, things are beginning to get messy.

Kritters Thoughts:  Before I dive into my review, I want to give a disclaimer.  When I go into Ellen Hopkins books, I am excited to read outside the box and read a book made of poetry that is art and content and just awesome.  I was sad when I opened this that there is minimal poetry sprinkled within the book.  So warning.

From the beginning of the book, the reader is swept into Tara's life.  It is a little rough from the start but finally gets into a swing and you go from her being crazy and single to starting to get tied down.  After an injury sidelines her and really brings her to her knees, she has to start relying on others and you really see her shift.  I liked watching that change in the character.  Cavin Lattimore the doctor that walks into her life after her injury was interesting, with the addition of his teenage son, the reader has to pick on each page who to trust and it bounces back and forth.  There were times where I was excited that I had to decide who to trust and then there were moments where it got exhausting.  

Be warned there is a lot of sexy times and sexy talk in this one.  If that puts you off I would maybe stay away.  There is enough content and plot that it was ok on the sidelines, but at times it could get distracting.  I always like to warn about this content because I know not all readers want this in their reading life.  

In all, I liked this book, didn't love it as much as others by her.  Tomorrow I am reviewing the second book in the series.  


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row