He’s not a rebel, no no no, to me
— The Crystals, “He’s a Rebel”, 1963
Romance author Sofia Grey spends her days managing projects in the corporate world and her nights hanging out with wolf shifters and alpha males. She devours pretty much anything in the fiction line, but she prefers her romances to be hot, and her heroes to have hidden depths. When writing, she enjoys peeling back the layers to expose her characters’ flaws and always makes them work hard for their happy endings.
Sofia says: “Music is interwoven so tightly into my writing that I can’t untangle the two. Either I’m listening to a playlist on my iPod, have music seeping from my laptop speakers, or there’s a song playing in my head – sometimes on auto-repeat.”
Check out Sofia’s image collections on Pinterest and her music playlists on Spotify.
You might have heard me mention a time or twenty that I enjoy tropes. [Hey! that’s a rhetorical question—don’t think I can’t see you rolling your eyes…] Used correctly, tropes are shorthand, codes we all recognize that let an author convey a wealth of information efficiently. Take, for example, that old favorite: the Good Girl & the Bad Boy. Even though he’s bad news in a leather jacket, he’s tough enough to protect her. She sees his inner vulnerability, and just knows that Love of a Good Girl will save him. Plus there’s the whole motorcycle/leather/tattoos thing going on.
Like all the best tropes, this one has been around for a long time. In Alfred Noye’s poem, The Highwayman, it’s Bess the landlord’s daughter who sacrifices everything to save her outlaw lover. Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility has Marianne in a love triangle that pits bad-boy Willoughby against the older, conventional suitor Colonel Brandon. In the original Star Wars, Leia’s attraction for the total (in a seventies-kind-of-way) bad boy Han was a perfect example of this.
In Addiction, the latest book in her Talisman series, author Sofia Grey proves once again why she’s a master of this trope. [Excerpt here]
Blurb
Krista Inglewood’s addiction runs deep; she can’t survive without a regular fix. Her Talisman bracelet, stolen when she was a child, was the only thing that ever kept the craving at bay. Until she meets Matty. He sneaks under her defenses and calms the incessant noise in her head. Matty knows Krista is bad news, but he can’t get enough of her. His first instinct is to help, but when he learns her addiction is linked to the sickness crippling his sister, he has to face the ugly truth. Finding her missing Talisman may be the only thing that can save Krista.
A dark compulsion. A secret addiction.
Review: Addiction, The Talisman Series, Book 3
In the latest book of her Talisman series, Sofia Grey proves again to be a master of the ‘Good Girl & the Bad Boy’ trope. It’s not just that she nails every little detail, from the motorcycle, drugs, tattoos, and obvious inner torment. Sure, she does all that, but she also did it in the previous book in the series, Craving. And it’s not just her fully developed and three-dimensional characters, the choreographed dance between the main characters’ point of view, or even her terrific pacing or settings. Sofia Grey has been developing those elements since her first Talisman book, Obsession.
Nope. It’s that Sofia Grey takes that trope and turns it inside out by making her Bad Boy into a Bad Girl. Only this isn’t some painfully double-standard Bad Girl With A Heart of Gold (read: hooker/slut). This time the one with the motorcycle, leathers, artistic soul, and addiction problems is Krista. The one who wants to save her? Suit-wearing, cute, loyal, and completely smitten Matthew.
He’s always been the conventional Good Boy. One look at Krista—with her leather biker jacket and motorcycle helmet, and he was in lust. “With Janine, and pretty much every other girl I’d dated, I’d followed a conventional pattern. Drinks, dinner, maybe a movie, but never in her pants on the first date. I’d had to work hard to bed them. This thing with Krista was liberating. Bad girls were so much more fun.”
This time it’s the Good Boy who has to work hard to save the beautiful soul he’s just sure is buried under the leathers and dangerous behavior. Equally dangerous Dante— the gifted medium from Craving—is working just as hard to stop Krista. Meanwhile, on the paranormal side there are a number of supernatural forces arrayed against them, plenty of dark secrets from the past, and a life and death struggle in their midst.
In a series that just keeps getting better with each new book, Sofia Grey has another five-star winner with Addiction. With its fully-realized story arc, you could probably read Addiction as a standalone, but you’d miss out on some terrific character development and world building. You’re in for a lot of fun if you start this series from the beginning and trace the clues that have been carefully planted. Of course, if you do, then you’ll be like me—completely impatient for the final book in the series. I hope we don’t have long to wait!
**I received this book for free from the publisher or author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**- Book Title: Addiction (Talisman Series #3)
- Author: Sofia Grey
- Genre: Paranormal romance
- Publisher: Acelette Press (December 11, 2015)
- Pages: 312
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Barb Taub 
I have to read this series! Great review, Barb.
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Reblogged this on Barrow Blogs: and commented:
Great review – sounds fascinating, Barb
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I like tropes too. There’s something comfortable in their familiarity. Great review, 🙂
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