Nina Pennacchi

what a completely impossible task to try and speak my thoughts on this book!! all my feelings are all jumbled up but i'll try my best to be sort of concise lol. spoilers to follow!!!




Christopher is a completely vile and infantile and sad man. Traumatized at a very young age by the death of his mother, it is his life's mission to avenge her death. With the knowledge of who his sire is, and the help of his cousin, Christopher spends 13 some years fostering a plan to humiliate (and then kill) his father. As an adult, Christopher has had 20 years to harbor a deep resentment and coldness for everyone near him. (A con-man himself and he immediately judges and condemns Anna as a "social climber"!) Hypocrisy is second-nature to him, and it's not really within his capabilities to think twice before passing judgement, especially when Anna is involved. And so, within a single night poor Anna's fate is sealed. A spilled lemonade and her subsequent revenge is all it takes for Christopher to become obsessed. (spoiler: this is a terrible thing for Anna!) Like I said, Christopher is an incredibly immature man - who could have raised him to handle his feelings better? - and his revenge plans begin to unravel pretty quickly as he focuses too much attention on humiliating Anna. Upon cornering her in the library at a party, Chris forces her to bow to him and apologize for her rudeness towards him. This is the first time we really see the lengths Christopher will go to force submission from her. Her terror of him becomes complete, and after this night she tries and fails to avoid him.

Daniel is Christopher's half brother, who is (kind of surprisingly?) in love with Anna. In order to defy Leopold, their father, he proposes to her. She accepts, but after a few hours realizes that she isn't really in love with him. Saddened by the broken off engagement, Anna goes to a childhood hangout spot. And it's here that the story truly plummets for sweet Anna. Christopher, hearing the news of her engagement to his hated half brother, discovers her hiding spot. They immediately begin fighting; Anna overcome by her fear of him tries to escape the moment he appears, and Christopher, so overcome by his own confused anger pounces on her. He is so blinded by his rage and his desire for her, he wants her submission so badly - he is completely at the whim of his own emotions, unable to stop himself from his actions.

He used and hurt her body as if it were a shell with no feelings, enjoying the damage he inflicted inside, as though cutting her with a glass or a blade, cutting her into pieces of pulsating flesh, then cutting her some more- always more.

Christopher then insists on marrying her, and despite her bone deep fear of him, she has no other option - they marry.

She lowered her head, avoiding his eyes, even while she was marrying him.

Their marriage is an awful, frightful thing. Christopher is still pursuing his plans for patricide, and oblivious Anna is in a constant state of terror that he will force himself on her again. One of the few instances of Christopher's competing desires appears in how he interacts with her siblings. He insists that the moment Anna disobeys him he will have the children sent away (the threat always being or worse), but yet... would he? Anna's lives in near constant anxiety that he will punish her through them, but hopeful he won't given how kind he is capable of being towards them and her father.

Eventually they reach an accord of sorts, when Anna overcomes most of her fears (with Christopher's relentless insistence) and they begin to sleep together. Even though Christopher still threatens and demeans her, he really hates how he's driven her to despising him the way that she does.

"Husband! She lowered her voice, and her eyes flashed with hatred. "You know that I would have loved to kill you instead of marrying you, but I can always take care of that!" (It's nothing, Christopher. Your heart is breaking a bit, but it's nothing.)

The interesting thing is that once they consensually begin sleeping together, Anna's emotions and thoughts become deeply conflicted in much the same way his are. She hates him for what he's stolen from her, and she hates the way he continues to trample on her. But at night, his walls fall and he is honest in his desire and adoration of her. He is sweet and caring. Can she reconcile one man with the other? Ultimately- she can't.

The climax and quick finish is the real stinger here for me. Christopher's scheming finally culminates in the confrontation with his father. On one hand it doesn't go at all as you'd suspect, or want it to, and yet... perhaps that's okay. In a book so reliant on the act of revenge, this ending can feel like a surprise at first. But I think once you ask what Christopher needs as opposed to what he wants, it turns out that maybe this is really the letdown he had to have in order to be humbled. Maybe it's karma for the way he's treated and Anna, or maybe that's just the way the dice fell; but either way Christopher must now walk back to his life, and deal with the consequences of his actions.

Christopher closed his eyes, exhaled softly, and slowly moved his finger on the trigger. He touched it, feeling the cold metal under his finger. There it was, ready, and justice had waited for so many years - too many years. His mother had been thrown into the river to rot in a tomb without a name, massacred in life and in death. He could not kill her a second time: he had to shoot.

For the first time in years his eyes burned with invasive tears, which rolled down his face and caressed his skin. It took him back to the inevitable moment he dreaded the most. The moment when he had to face himself.

For a story as lush in detail as this, it's pretty disappointing how quickly it wraps up. There isn't a gratifying scene where Christopher becomes a better man, changes completely, and repents for his old ways. There is no groveling, no begging. Nonetheless, there's a way to read this as an HEA (though I don't really know if I could say for whom it ends happily.) Christopher doesn't avenge his mother and Anna doesn't get away from the man who has so unjustly abused her. And yet, and yet! - he comes back for her and she accepts him.

I'd like to believe Christopher does face himself, and does atone for his grave mistakes. But, there's no way to tell if he really does or not - we know who he is, and Anna knows as well; she loves him regardless.… (plus d'informations)