Sideswiped By Lia Riley

[amazon_link id=”B00N9AVCVY” target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’Sideswiped’ is the second book in the ‘Off The Map’ series by Lia Riley.

Talia Stolfi has seen more than her share of loss in her twenty-one years. But then fate brought her Bran Lockhart, and her dark world was suddenly and spectacularly illuminated. So if being with Bran means leaving her colorless NorCal life for rugged and wild Australia, then that’s what she’ll do. But as much as Talia longs to give herself over completely to a new beginning, the fears of her past are still lurking in the shadows.Bran Lockhart knows that living without the beautiful girl who stole his heart will be torment, so he’ll take whatever time with her he can. But even though she has packed up her life in California and is back in his arms for the time being, she can’t stay forever. And the remaining time they have together is ticking by way too fast. Though fate seems determined to tear them apart, they won’t give up without a fight-because while time may have limits, their love is infinite.

Even though the proof copy of the book that I received was over 600 pages long, I consumed the story in 24 hours.

Once again the narrative is written in the first person of Bran and Talia with alternating chapters being seen through their perspective as the two carry on where they left off in the first book. Talia has returned to Australia to finish her thesis and be back in Bran’s arms and Bran’s is concentrating on his own studies. Although the two of them are delighted to be back together, they are still battling their own demons. Talia is trying to control her OCD and Bran is trying to maintain his temper now that his family are back in contact.

As much as the couple love and adore each other, they have their futures to worry about and even though they both want separate things, they primarily want to be together and this causes conflict between the young couple.

To be honest, even though this is the second book of the series, it has been my favourite one so far. I thought this time, the story gave a more thorough insight into the characters, we got to know them better as themselves and as their relationship matured. Even though the couple are madly in love with each other, I felt that there was a slight pessimistic feeling to the story as they battled regularly about their futures and this did make for quite fiery and passionate reading.

With the first book, I felt it was mainly filled with rampant sex as they Bran and Talia got to know each other physically whereas ‘Sideswiped’ had a more concrete and interesting story and character development that did make for gripping reading and leave the reader lusting for more. Talia seemed a lot more confident and happier in life, now that she has Bran but she still occasionally has her stumbles.

I thought ‘Sideswiped’ was a thoroughly enjoyable story from the very beginning and look forward to the next instalment.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”B00N9AVCVY” target=”_blank” ]Sideswiped: Off the Map 2 from Amazon [/amazon_link]