ARC Review: Unloved by Katy Regnery

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Standalone
Release - October 7, 2017
Genre - Contemporary Romance
Dual POV - 1st person
Heat - 3 out of 5
Length - 372 pages

My name is Cassidy Porter...

My father, Paul Isaac Porter, was executed twenty years ago for the brutal murder of twelve innocent girls.

Though I was only eight-years-old at the time, I am aware - every day of my life - that I am his child, his only son.

To protect the world from the poison in my veins, I live a quiet life, off the grid, away from humanity.

I promised myself, and my mother, not to infect innocent lives with the darkness that swirls within me, waiting to make itself known.

It's a promise I would have kept...if Brynn Cadogan hadn't stumbled into my life.

Now I exist between heaven and hell: falling for a woman who wants to love me, while all along reminding myself that I must remain...

Unloved.

Find your copy of Unloved here:
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MY REVIEW

Cassidy Porter had it rough. As the only son of Paul Isaac Porter, a man who was found guilty of the rape and murder of twelve girls, he was treated as the spawn of evil. Truly, the son of the devil must be just like the devil, right? That’s the thing about small towns - you can’t escape the gossip or the judgment. But here’s the thing… Cassidy was nothing like his father. Everyone knew, in their hearts, that he was a good boy. However, DNA is a funny thing and no one can predict when the rape/murder gene will surface. This way of thinking only served to punish the innocent, making Cassidy doubt his purity. It didn’t help that his family didn’t trust in his goodness either.

Brynn also had it rough. She lost her fiance, the man she planned to love forever, to a mass shooter. For two years she has grieved this loss and hasn’t been able to move on. Then one day a something reawakens her and she knows just how to say goodbye. Determined to fulfill what she believes is her man’s last wish, she sets out to hike to the summit of the mountain he had always dreamed of bringing her to. However, along the way, she’s brutally attacked and the man who comes to the rescue is none other than Cassidy.

I went into this book thinking it was a dark read. It was the bleeding heart on the cover that fooled me. I absolutely love the cover of this book and can’t wait to add it to my shelves! While it does have a dark tone to it (there is nothing fun about rape, assault or murder), it was more about profound pain, the deepest hurt, the darkest secrets, the glimpses of hope, and the inevitability about the outcome - love.

Because of her, I am loved.

Katy Regnery wove a hauntingly beautiful tale that touched my heart in the sweetest of ways and it was incredibly easy to fall for her characters. Both Cassidy and Brynn were survivors, but I loved Cassidy a bit more for a few reasons, such as his naivete and his simple charm. He was impossible to resist and I was falling all over him right along with Brynn. He was a true hero in every sense of the word and I was excitedly glued to the pages of this story in order to discover his happy ending. He absolutely, positively deserved all the blessings that were headed his way and he’s been added to my book boyfriend vault.