Author:   Sylvia Day

Book:     Captivated By You

Series:    Crossfire, book 4

tl;dr recommendation:    Perfection. Utter perfection.

Longer Review/Reaction:

In case you’ve been living under an erotica rock, the incredibly anticipated fourth book in the Crossfire series was released last Tuesday. Now, I don’t get excited about much. Really. I’m trying to think of the last time I was this excited for something and I can’t. I mean, I guess I should probably say my wedding, but I was too nervous about dealing with all-of-the-people-who-should-probably-never-be-in-a-room-together to be super excited. I’m only sort of joking. (side note, my husband swears I lack a sense of humor – of course, I think I’m hilarious. Agree to disagree).

ANYWAY, last Monday I was vibrating with excitement. I took off work on Tuesday (which backfired since I ended up working this weekend, but it was WORTH IT). I stopped at Sheetz on the way home and stocked up on caffeine. I worked out.

I got my snacks out. I watched three episodes of Mike&Molly with my husband. I had my Kindle fucking charged. And then midnight happened. AND NOTHING. holy shit. Amazon is super lucky it doesn’t have brick and mortar stores. I was attempting to be calm but was frankly failing miserably. My husband asked if maybe they released it on West Coast time. I figured, I don’t know – l’ll ask:

@amazonkindle do you auto release books on west coast time?! The east coast gal is dying for #CaptivatedByYou

— Heather (@OWMyshelf) November 18, 2014

I got an answer:

@owmyshelf While there is no specific time a book is released, newly released books will be sent out on their release date. ^JY — Kindle Help (@KindleHelp) November 18, 2014

SERIOUSLY?! SERIOUSLY?! That’s blasphemy. Lesson learned. I will try to be less psychotic next time (this is doubtful). Regardless, I decided to try to sleep for a few hours and then see if it appeared. I managed 2 1/2 hours.

I know I spelled words wrong. Don’t judge me. IT WAS 3AM.

Sigh. Let me tell you how good this series is. Gideon is basically the most imperfect perfect human being in existence and I spent my time mentally yelling at Eva not to fuck it up. I’m certain that’s probably not how it’s supposed to be read, but I’m a little biased. Good God. I almost forget perhaps the best part: We get to read in Gideon’s point of view. Basically fucking amazing. I squealed. I swooned. I fangirled.

The book picks up after Eva and Gideon get back from their wedding and very brief honeymoon. They have to deal with Brett & Corinne & Anne & Magdalene. Cary has to deal with his impending baby (I am convinced that either 1) she’s not actually pregnant; or 2) the baby isn’t his – also, calm down. No spoilers, we don’t find this out) and Eva and Gideon are still trying to make this thing work. OH. We do find out what happened to Megumi!!! I mean, I probably shouldn’t put exclamation points after that….considering.

I spent the better part of three months prior to this release petrified that Eva was going to cheat on Gideon with Brett. Lovely Sylvia’s release of the first three chapters did absolutely nothing to quell my fear. I promised my best friend I wouldn’t give spoilers, but just know that I’m ok with how things went down. You can calm down too. It’ll be ok.

I read a comment by a reader who claimed that the book was terrible because “nothing happened.” I’m sorry. Did we read the same book? ALL THE STUFF HAPPENED. Of course, you don’t get closure and that’s incredibly frustrating, but that’s also expected because, hello: Book 5 (One With You). However, Sylvia writes beautifully. She captures the love of Gideon and Eva while they continue to stumble through their complex relationship. And I once again fell in love with these characters. Their heat and connection is undeniable and I feel a little silly for being so concerned about whether I was going to love this book as much as the other three.

My little sleep was totally worth it. Of course, I couldn’t fall asleep to save my life after I finished the book at 7am. But thank fuck I planned ahead and took the day off. Totally worth it. This series is like sitting next to a warm fire with a cup of coffee on a rainy day: ahhhh, utter perfection.