Gabriel's Inferno by Sylvain Reynard : A Review

Hi everyone!

As promised here is the first of a few book reviews that I'm posting over the next few days/ weeks!

It is the first book in the Gabriel series by Sylvain Reynard, titled Gabriel's Inferno.

The cover, I don't like it. It's quite boring I hate the colours, used. I wish the necklace was just one string of pearls like Julia wears in the book as I'm assuming that that is who it's meant to be, but that's beside the point, I can forgive a book it's bad cover if I enjoyed the pages in between which I did.

Now with this book I'm going to have to be brutally honest, however this is not necessarily a bad thing. So I got this book from W H Smith as an afterthought, they were having a buy one get one half price sale, and I already knew one book that I wanted to buy, I just needed to find another, and I picked this one based on the blurb alone which is as follows:

"One man's Salvation,

One woman's sensual awakening . . .

Gabriel Emerson is a man tortured by his dark past. A highly respected university professor, Gabriel uses his notorious good looks and charm to lead a secret life of pleasure where nothing is out of bounds.

Sweet and innocent, Julia Mitchell enrols as Gabriel’s graduate student and his immediate attraction to her, and their powerful and strange connection, threatens to derail his career.

Wildly passionate and sinful, Gabriel's Inferno is the first book in a sensual trilogy - followed by Gabriel’s Rapture - that explores the intense power of forbidden love."

Now then if I am correct then after reading that blurb you’re probably thinking exactly the same as me. This sounds like another Fifty Shades of Grey - a series which I not ashamed to admit I actually enjoyed (the third book more than the others). However this blurb is so far off the mark with what the book is actually like that it's not even funny. This is absolutely NOTHING like Fifty Shades of Grey. Now acknowledging the fact that I bought this book under the impression that it would be similar I was surprised to find that I actually liked this book a lot more (actually it wasn't that surprising, Fifty Shades of Grey isn't the best book is it).

WARNING! The following is a fan girl moment if you wish to skip this part and get to the real part of the review please scroll down past the paragraph!

Seriously how goddamn CUTE are Gabriel and Julia, I can't even, I'm totally in love with these too. Gabriel’s so sweet and I honestly did not mind the descriptions of his body if you have read the book you know what I'm talking about! I didn't like Paul from the start I was practically growling 'go away Paul!' every time he appeared. Awwh he takes her to Italy!! I want to cry it's so darn cute!!

Okay! It is now safe again; I have got it out of my system, on with the review!

I think this book is overly long; there were definitely bits that could have been cut a lot shorter than they were. I thought the writing was good, decent enough. I felt that the relationship was believable and that there motivations were well explained, the characters I thought were well fleshed out. One of my favourite aspects of this book is that it is told in third person, therefore we get to see parts of the story the point of view of both the main characters, which is different, but I actually preferred this method, I liked having both sides of the story laid out for me.

So would I recommend this book? Yes I most definitely would. Can I just say that if you have been contemplating buying it but that blurb put you off because you aren't interested in another FSOG, just ignore it, whoever wrote the blurb did not accurately capture the book, that is unless I'm reading a different book... but I doubt it.

Now I haven't bought the sequel yet, and I don't plan to for a while. Mainly because at the minute I'm happy with where this book ended, and the fact that I'm pretty sure the last book in the series isn't due out until the tail end of the year, so I'm going to wait until at least June/ July to buy the sequel. I did the same with Sylvia Day's Crossfire Series. The sequel came out in October I think, I waited until this month to buy it because the third one isn't out until May.

However as much as I did love this book there were times when Julia really infuriated me I wanted to scream at her to stand up for herself! She lets Gabriel intimidate her, she acts like a frightened dog around him at some points early on which I really didn't like Professor Emerson was a total ass and she should've told him. However what kept reading was that little secret. The secret that Gabriel and Julia had met before only somehow Gabriel had completely forgotten her. How did that happen you might ask, well I'm not going to tell you (but it does get explained), does he figure it out? I'm not telling you that either. The ending was sweet and some people have commented that it was slightly anti-climactic. I disagree I liked the ending, I liked that SPOILER!!! there wasn't a cliff hanger, yeah maybe it means that I’m not salivating desperate with need to get my hands on the sequel, but I feel I would have been annoyed with a cliff hanger it would have felt unwarranted to me.

So with that said I am reiterating that I think you should read this book, seriously go and buy it. Now. And if you don't like it my apologies, (but what’s wrong with you!) that said this is a book that girls would definitely prefer, I'm just saying.

So I liked the story, Julia annoyed me a bit; it felt over long, I liked the ending. Now I'm torn I can't decide between 3.5 stars or 4 stars. I think I'll go with 4 because I honestly did love the story, and the things I didn't like are pretty minor.

Please subscribe to my blog so you don't miss a single post! You wont regret it I promise!

x