Synopsis:
Stella
“I’ve been in and out of hospitals for the past ten months. I’ve had half my liver removed and even though this time the doctors are very optimistic that they’ve removed all of the tumours, they can’t be sure. In another three months they want me here again for a check up. Right now I feel better than I’ve ever felt. I know the damn thing is gone, at least for the moment. Despite that, I can’t make any plans for the future, not yet. I need to go somewhere where nobody knows me, where I can relax and maybe even forget about all this. Where I can meet people who don’t think of me as the girl who lost her father and her brother in a car accident, and who has cancer. I want to have fun, even if it’s for a couple of months.”
When Stella decides to visit her estranged cousin Lisa in Genoa, she has no idea Italy will give her a new reason to live.
Max
“Her gaze locked on a scene so beautiful, the picturesque beach paled in comparison. A lifeguard emerged from the water, his orange trunks stuck to his legs and water dripping all over him. He shook his head to get rid of some of the water in his hair and Stella felt as if everything started developing in slow motion – tiny drops of water slid from his neck down his broad chest and muscular arms, along a weaving tattoo on his right shoulder, and continued downwards towards his chest and washboard stomach, finally getting lost in the waistband of his trunks. A part of another tattoo peeked over his trunks on his left hip, the other part hidden under them. It was a total Baywatch moment.”
Their love is epic. But there are too many things keeping them apart.
“How could you keep this from me, Lisa? If you had told me the first day I met him, I would have avoided him like the plague. Nothing would have happened between us.”“I kept your secrets, too, Stella.”
Are Max and Stella strong enough to fight not only for their love, but for their lives?
Hi, my name is Teodora and I live in London with my husband Ted and my son Jason. I've been writing ever since I can remember, but it became my full time job in 2010 when I decided that everything else I've tried bores me to death and I have to do what I've always wanted to do, but never had to guts to fully embrace. I've been a journalist, an editor, a personal assistant and an interior designer among another things, but as soon as the novelty of the new, exciting job wears off, I always go back to writing. Being twitchy, impatient, loud and hasty are not qualities that help a writer, because I have to sit alone, preferably still, and write for most of the day, but I absolutely love it. It's the only time that I'm truly at peace and the only thing I can do for more than ten minutes at a time - my son has a bigger attention span than me.
When I'm procrastinating, I like to go to the gym, cook Italian meals (and eat them), read, listen to rock music, watch indie movies and True Blood re-runs. Or, in the worst case scenario, get beaten at every Wii game by a five year old.
This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I honestly don't know that I can give it high enough praise. To start off, it is definitely my favorite book of 2013. And I think it has a really good shot of being my favorite book of the year. I just know it.
The story is incredible. It's well written, addictive, and beautiful beyond words. Stella and Max have the most amazing chemistry. They have the love that every woman dreams of having one day. It's an earth-shattering, I'd-do-anything-for-you type of love. Teodora does it so well that your heart breaks from the incredible power of it. Their love blossoms into something so real that you can almost touch it. It's tangible. Max and Stella are the perfect pair, they were made for each other. This was a definite soul-mate pairing. I couldn't help but fall in love with them.
In A Heartbeat is a complex story. It revolves around not only a great cast of characters (each and everyone of them are a delight-you can't help but feel for all of them!), but also a wonderful setting that becomes as much of the story as the characters. It's also not for the faint of heart. There is a lot of tragedy in the story, but I think that's what makes the story, and especially the ending, so special. One of the things I took away from IAH was to always have hope and to love with everything you have.
This book will reel you in completely. I couldn't get enough of it. By the end, I felt so emotionally drained, but it was so worth it.
I hope that there is another book because I would love to visit some of the other characters and see what happened with them. Okay, I also want to see Max and Stella too, but who wouldn't?
It's honestly the first time a book has destroyed me. I sobbed, I laughed, I loved every second of it. It was sexy, tragic, beautiful, powerful. Now I just want to curl in a ball and reread it again. If that's not book love, I don't know what is.
I would give In a Heartbeat ten stars if I could. I think it is that deserving. It's a book that I can see myself coming back to again and again.
(and then I remembered that this is my blog...I CAN give it ten stars!)
10/5 :)
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