Sins & Needles (The Artists Trilogy, #1) by Karina Halle

Sins & Needles by Karina Halle

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


☆☆☆


No spoilers and colorful language abound!




I read this book ages ago and mostly had forgotten about it, but apparently I never finished it. I was browsing my Kindle last night in the dark, looking through the lost, forgotten and forsaken, only to notice this was marked as unfinished. I read a couple of pages and I remembered why I put it down in the first place, holy obviously plot Batman! but for whatever reason, this time around it was much more entertaining. Maybe it's the stress I've been under lately but I liked the distraction and I finished the last 20%.



I was surprised how quickly I remembered Ellie and her journey, I was also surprised on how much I enjoyed the way this story was told, considering my very strong feelings about EiT by Halle. This book has a remarkably different voice, while still being able to feel Halle's particular brand of story telling (ahem, and sex scenes).





Halle has a way of creating characters that are tremendously broken individuals, the kind that hurts those they love the most, yet they have such an endearing quality to them, you can't help but root for them, even as they dig their own grave. I think it's a wonderful aspect only certain authors have, to create a character that you simultaneously cannot stand yet are ever hopeful for.

What I loved most about this book is how superficial things appear on the surface, yet as I went through the story, more and more layers are revealed, shedding a new understanding on a previous scene. A lot of times authors very rarely do anything to reference what has previously been discussed in the plot, it's an understated way of story telling, that the reader is just slowly absorbing it all or there is foreshadowing so the reader understand that a particular exchange means more than what is in written word. In Sins and Needles we never fully grasp the history between the two main characters until the very end, you have to continually go back in your mind and rework the scenes you've read with your new understanding of their past. It's a very engaging way to unfold character background, you think you know them until you read on and realizing the motives behind who they are and how they got that way. I loved it.


Now, I must read the rest.