Brutal By: K.S. Adkins

If you picked up this book hoping for warm soft cuddles than you picked up the wrong fucking book. This is about rawness, revenge, love and also fighting for your own injustices. I started reading this book and was in awe that this was a debut novel. The writing is so real and intense, but yet so effortlessly described in detail that makes you feel like you are living in the story. This is not your everyday romance book it’s a book about tortured pasts, reasons to fight, learning to live and in the end straddling the line between right and wrong.

Venessa lost everything the night she watched her family die – hoping for death as well, but forced to live a life with memories of the brutal attack forced upon her. What would have made most people stop fighting – pushed her to fight harder. That night her dreams died and a vigilante was born. Straddling the line of fighting monsters, but not becoming a monster.  V only sees a future clawing for the atonement she so desperately needs. Venessa is such a kick ass lead female that she quickly steals your heart and in the end has you rooting that the hate does not suck her in. What I loved about Venessa was although she was so tough on the outside she came across caring and loyal as well.

 Rogan, I loved him instantly. He was a broody, growling, asshole who was all Alpha. He’s fighting on the right side of the law as it's all he knows and wants until he meets Venessa. The need to protect her is intense as is the need to make her his. Rogan was perfect in my eyes. The walls he built to keep people out crumbled once he set his eyes on  V and to me that made him endearing. He would do anything for V including teetering the line of the law that he lived by.

 One of things I loved most about this book was feeling like I was living in the pages. I felt the need to fight along with the characters. I lived their pain, love and also the need to have revenge. I watched Rogan and Venessa heal each other, help each other and fight for each other. I couldnt put the book down once I started. When you toss in suspense, great character, a fucking awesome story line and back characters that demand their own book, you know you have an author to watch out for.