Review: Illicit by Ava Harrison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Standalone
Release - April 6, 2017
Genre - Contemporary Romance (student/teacher)
Dual POV - 1st person
Heat - 3 out of 5
Length - 261 pages

I was never supposed to see him again.
One night of passion with a complete stranger.
My last tryst before senior year.
But I was lost the moment his tempting lips were on my skin.
His intense touch on my body.

It should have ended there.

But he’s not a stranger.
He’s my history teacher.
And wanting him is against the rules.
Off limits.
Forbidden.

Illicit.

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MY REVIEW

3.5 "Kinda Hot For Teacher" stars!!

I've read several student-teacher romances but none quite like this one. In ILLICIT, Ava Harrison introduces us to Carson and Lynn, both of whom were broken and alone. On a beautiful night, these two strangers found each other and found a connection that transcended time and space. Or maybe I'm being influenced by all of their talk about stars and astronomy. They share a night of untold passion and go their separate ways. That is until Monday, which is the start of school and Carson is Lynn's history teacher.

But wait, it's okay! Carson's really not a perv because Lynn is actually almost 19 years old. Phew! I have no idea how old he was (I don't remember it being mentioned), but he just finished college so I'm going to say around 22. Anyhoo, this didn't turn into the sex-filled story I was expecting. The author instead focused on the characters' feelings and injected drama and unexpected revelations to shake things up. This plot centered around pain, abandonment, lies, deceit, betrayals, and was full of so much heart. That's not to say that sex wasn't a factor here, because it was, but it wasn't descriptive or as exciting or as essential as the rest of the plot.

Honestly, I did suffer a huge disconnect with this story. I really enjoyed the beginning, but somewhere in the middle I lost the plot. The end was sort of okay for me and I think that was in large part due to the loose ends that were left dangling. I'm not a big fan of wrapping things up in a neat bow just to end the story without getting any subtext. Although ILLICIT wasn't a clear winner for me, I did appreciate the author's writing and I'll definitely be giving her work another shot.