Tempted Away

Away Series #1

by Siena Sloane

I loved him. The boy with the skinned knees and the dirt-streaked face. I gave him my firsts. I gave him my everything.
Content to float, wrapped in the warm embrace of our vows to love, honor, and cherish.
Too focused on the occasional breeze rippling the surface of my tranquillity, I failed to see the storm clouds boiling on the horizon.
By the time I did, it was too late.
It took me by surprise, violently plunging me into the murky, muddy depths. Robbing me of breath. Robbing me of life.
In those layers of suffocating, cloying mud, I heard his voice calling. Calling me to be the Lotus Flower I had always been.

Author’s note: Please note that this book contains infidelity in a marriage.

Genres: Friends To Lovers, Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Second Chance, Marriage, Divorce

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2024

Reviews

[Capt. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains:

-3 POVs from the wife, husband and the best best OM.
-FMC and MMC were childhood best friends and eventually married.
-Their marriage is in crisis cuz the garbage MMC is cheating(we’ll find out later in the books the details) and FMC is feeling the distance.
-FMC met OM (the BEST CHARACTER IN THIS BOOK BTW) and they had an attraction with each other but both decided to not pursue this since FMC is married and OM is not a piece of shit.
-Intimate details of the trash MMC’s affair, how it started, how’s it going, his thoughts and feelings about the OW (it was revealed that it was mostly just sex on his part but of course the OW fell in love with him.)
-FMC found out and wants to separate with the MMC then later we found out that OW is pregnant 🤠 when garbage man tried to break up the affair now that everything is in the open and oh he tried telling the OW to abort the baby cuz he don’t want any baby from her, he only wants to start a family with his wife HAHAHAHA
-FMC and OM got closer cuz OM is there to be her crutch, when the FMC made her move to finally put into action their attraction, OM stopped her and said that he doesn’t want to be just a rebound, he wants the forever and is willing to wait until she is ready 🥹
-Eventual HEA of the FMC and OM with happy family (daughter and son) and been married for 20yrs.
-We found out later that MMC co-parented with the OW their daughter but was never together since the OW hated the MMC’s guts after he tried to break up with her and tried to convince her to abort their baby. MMC is now dying and for his last wish wants to see the FMC.
-MMC still loves the FMC until the end and was never married again after the divorce but FMC reaffirms that what she feels for the OM is far much greater than what she felt for the MMC and is forever grateful for the MMC for paving the way to her love of her life 💅🏽

I was satisfied with the outcome hehe 😌

[ANTC]

Hmm...I don't know how to classify this book. In my opinion, it's not a "cheating romance" or "marriage-in-trouble" book. Really, it reads more like a standard romance book: the heroine's current man (her husband) sucks badly so she starts a romance with a new man. We even get the POVs of both of the men in the very beginning, so it's not a secret that this is what's happening. However, instead of some quick goodbye to the heroine's terrible first man like in a typical romance novel, in this book the first man lingers...and we get to thoroughly read about his rage-inducing cheating, lying, and gross behavior.

Some people might like that...but I'm not a fan. Why? There's no payoff. It's heavily foreshadowed that the heroine will move on with man #2 in the beginning of the book, so why would I want to enrage myself reading so much about man #1? I'm talking like extensive on-page cheating, from the husband's first lust-at-first-sight meeting with the OW to the development of their whole relationship.

To be frank, the husband's romance with OW was described in the same way of a typical hero and heroine in a romance novel - electric shocks at first touch and all. For example, when the husband first sees the OW, we get this from his POV:

I want to ask why, but the question dies on my lips when she turns around. Crystal blue eyes, a shade darker than mine, widen slightly when our eyes connect. Her lips, a plump pink, part when she takes me in. Hair so black, I'd bet money on it shining blue in the sun, is twisted up into some kind of complicated twist.

Phillip drones on, but I'm not hearing anything he's saying, completely lost in the vision in front of me. I take another step forward and stick out my hand, giving hers a quick shake. A jolt of something - something I don't care to examine closely - shoots though me at the contact, and I take a deep breath. Her smell hits my tongue, coating my mouth. I don't know shit about flowers, but I'm guessing it's something like that - light and floral.

You could copy and paste the above to many other (non-cheating) romance books to describe when the hero and heroine first meet. And there was a lot more too - like the hero feeling jealous later that day when a guy in his office checks out the OW. Like clearly, there's no salvaging of the relationship between the heroine and her husband. And again, do I really want to frustrate myself reading about the husband falling in love with this OW when I know the real HEA will likely be between the heroine and man #2?

Furthermore, the way the author describes this first meeting with the OW makes the husband's cheating seem almost inevitable or unavoidable? It was portrayed as the kind of “world stopping” moment that only exists in romance novels. And I hate that! Like if the husband really felt all of those feelings about OW at first sight...I would recommend that he and the heroine consider getting therapy or separated regardless, cheating or not. So in that respect, the cheating isn't even critical to the story for me. It's just there to make me angry.

Anyways, I read cheating and marriage-in-trouble books usually for the drama of the reconciliation: the grovel, the relationship development, the growth from mistakes. Angst is necessary too, of course...but to me there is a difference between angsty and rage-inducing. In my opinion, this book is skewed heavily towards the latter. For me to feel angst, I have to feel attached to the relationship that is being tested and troubled. In this book, you are given no time to get attached to the heroine and her husband's relationship and pretty much know it's dead in the water from the start.

I think I would have liked this book better if the husband's cheating felt more avoidable and not like some once-in-a-lifetime connection he had with OW. For instance, maybe he let's his ambition/narcissism control him and he's not so much attracted to the OW physically as he is to the feelings of empowerment he gets from having sex with her. And if the author wants the heroine to have a HEA with OM (again, not my preference), we could see the husband grow to be a better person throughout the novel and beg for forgiveness, but the heroine decides too little, too late and he has to live with his regrets.

[Jen ♥]

Self note:


Oooh, a cheating book where the FMC leaves her cheating husband and eventually ends up with someone else who loves and truly deserves her?! Yeah, sign me up!

This is the type of book in which I could tolerate the cheating aspect. As long as one of the MCs didn't forgive and give another chance to the cheater, I'm absolutely reading it. I rarely believe in second chances, and I definitely don't when it comes to cheaters. Sorry, not sorry.

Anyway, so excited to read this. 🤭

[Raffaella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely this author works for me. She has all I like in her books. Angst, sensible themes but dealt very properly, good psychological insight, fair dealing and no double standards or pushover heroines. Her characters are complex and interesting and when the hero is unredeemable… there’s another hero! Here we have a young couple in crisis, they were each others first and basically a living legend for all their friends and acquaintances. He starts feeling restless because he wants to have a better job, more options, more money. He neglects his wife and starts an affair with his young assistant, his boss niece. His wife feels he’s changing and she feels neglected and hurt, but she can’t communicate with him because he shuts her out. She starts a cute friendship with a handsome and intense guy, and feels attracted but doesn’t act on this attraction. In the meantime her husband keeps lying and deceiving her until she finds him with ow. He still denies the affair and keeps screwing ow. The heroine has enough though, even before she finds out the ugly truth and has decided to leave him. She will find out the real extent of his deception, he got ow pregnant. He loses everything, his wife, his job, and even ow that he never loved but was only striking his lil ego. In the end the heroine finds her true love with om, and years later she had the perfect life, with the love of her life, children and friends while the hero lived with regrets, kept loving her and never had other relationships, he will die relatively young realizing he lost everything that mattered to him. I loved it, there’s karma and justice. The heroine didn’t struggle and didn’t like for him, she stopped loving him after his betrayal, which is something I really appreciate, and she never thought about taking him back even if he begged and apologized. And he had his just desert, losing everything. Ow was stupid and naive because she believed his lies, he told her he was divorcing his wife but she shouldn’t have had an affair with him until he was divorced anyway so I loved that she was betrayed by him too and was alone because he never loved her. Young bitch should have respected the fact he was still married anyway. I liked the book and I liked the second chance at happiness where the heroine admits he loves her second love more than she ever loved her first cheating husband. I loved this!

[ForeverreadinG · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fact that I hated Quinn from his first POV says enough about his character/personality. What a dumb, weak man he is. It’s truly pathetic

I still hate him and don’t forgive him😀

I did love the heroine though this is the first time I read about a headstrong FMC that knows her worth and isn’t a doormat and an idiot. That was refreshing to see in books

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book should have started at 50%

You really don't need to read the first half of the book. It is basically all s3x scenes between the husband and mistress. As well as multiple point of views.

A little after 50% he finally is caught with woman even though it's lie after lie from him. His reasoning he gives of why he did it all was very selfish. Because he didn't get the farm while everyone else got something, seriously?

Justine she was just used and got a baby to show for it. Kallan was a sweet man that Bailey actually deserved.

Now for Quinn he suffered for many years never loving another woman. But, I don't think we needed that ending. It was just depressing.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gave me a hangover. After sleeping on it, I think my rating would be closer to 4.5 stars, so I am rounding up. The writing is what really gets me here. Like Siena's prior book, it feels like an honest portrayal of cheating. It felt like I stepped into someone's life as everything crumbled around them. It wasn't over the top and the journey may have been heartbreaking, but it had such a satisfying conclusion.

My heart broke for Bailey, who I really liked. It wasn't like her husband was someone she had only been with since college or some short relationship, this was her best friend since she was a small child. Suffering through a betrayal like that is horrible to begin with but with someone who really was there for her entire life, it would be just so devastating. Quinn was a selfish a**hat who threw away everything for nothing. I am not going to lie, I did feel bad for him in the epilogue. Living with yourself after being such a complete numbskull would suck. He really imploded his entire life. He acted like a kid throwing a tantrum for not getting what he wanted. Unlike Lucas in Yesterday's Fingerprints, Quinn's reasons felt more selfish and ego driven, I think. Not that there is any excuse to cheat. You know what you are doing when you choose to go down that road. I did wish we would have seen Quinn work through his issues a bit more, but I do think he suffered from his actions. That heaven line in the epilogue. :(

The way the OW, Justine, was portrayed was a change. Not every OW is an evil person set out to ruin lives. She really didn't know and ended up having heartbreak of her own, not to mention she is now tied to Quinn forever. I can't imagine going through all of that at her age. Her life also got flipped upside down.

Which leads me to Kallan, who was such a wonderful man. I really wish we had a bit more of him in the story. He was the man that Bailey deserved and I am so glad she got him. He treated her right. I am glad the epilogue was further into the future so we could see their love still going strong. They both deserved the happy ending and life they got.

On a last note, another reason why I felt like this was such a satisfying read was because Bailey was strong and she did stand up for herself. I have read so many books where the heroine's family or friends try to convince her to let some jerk of an ex have a second chance, and usually that is what happens. The heroine accepts the guy who lied/cheated/left them back like nothing ever happened. It drives me nuts. I never understand why friends or family would want to encourage you do put aside your feelings for someone who hurt you, so the fact that her mom tried to pull that on her and she wasn't having it was so freaking great to read. Bailey was great.

I would definitely recommend this book if you can handle reading about cheating.

[Preeti ♥︎ Her Bookshelves · Rating 3 out of 5]

This made me so sad - because they were each other's everything since a very young age.
One of the most heartwarming childhood friends/sweetheart connections I've ever read about.
So his easy betrayal of that love is pretty devastating.

A long office affair with a PYT - and he was with the ow even on their anniversary.
Her leaving him is very justified.
Thankfully, she ends up with the one of the greatest 'om' ever written.
But I still felt bad for the mmc.
His own stupidity destroyed something very precious and beautiful.

The author has done well with the layering of the past and the present. The 'reason' for his cheating is so well hidden in his psyche that perhaps even he was not aware of it - resentment. Not of the h, but how life treated him.

This is not a story that you read and completely forget.

[Michelle Claypot_Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars for me

This one is absolutely brutal. The husband’s POV Chapters with on page cheating made me feel sick with his level of betrayal.

It’s a very honest and raw look at infidelity and how it destroys lives. I cried more than once in this book and know I will reread it again. The epilogue had me sobbing.

Definitely recommend if you read cheating stories

[Melluvsbooks]

Hero cheats and they MCs don’t end up together

[JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

So….This was sad but not too angsty of a read for me. First, the author crafted the cheater’s character perfectly. Selfish, weak, sly,disgusting, and again so selfish but at the same time she humanized him. We saw the inner struggle of the dickwad, and because of this human aspect, I was able to sympathize with him here and there.
With the details of the affair given to us, the ending was inevitable and I did not want a HEA with the husband. Frankly, the heroine didn’t need it. Let’s check off the list of why’s.
Unlike other wives in this trope, Bailey’s role wasn’t defined by being a wife or a mother. Even after years of marriage, they had separate accounts (convenient).
She had her own income and was financially independent.
Even though they’ve been together since teenagers, no kids.
And, the perfect hero fell in love with her at first sight.
So yeah, no great angst.
The story centered around all 3 layered characters and I really liked the realistic portrayal of a cheating husband.

[Sue Miz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Villains
The worst kind are not the Mafia bosses or serial killers or paid assassins or power hungry billionaires
The worst kind of villains are those who dwell among us as normal people but they have the power to inflict the most brutal hurt in a moment.

A true villain is someone you trusted all your life with your heart and body not knowing that deep down they are harboring resentment and jealousy.

These villains will victimize themselves to justify the hurt they caused and guilt you to stay with them.

I love books that gives me fruit for thought, that allows me to feel
I love gems like this book that made me rage so hard but still knowing I am going to give it 5 stars

Imagine growing up with someone, loving each other as friends, being in love as adults and promising to protect and be there for each other in the best and worst of times not knowing that the worst of times will be delivered by them.


I loved that we got three POVs in this book
One of which the cheating husband
we get to go inside his thoughts to see how he justified what he did
How he tried to guilt his wife to forgive him

Quinn is not a bad man per se. He is a weak man. He got so fixated on what wasn't that he lost sight of what is.

I loved the relationship between Kallan and Bailey. It showed how vulnerable us as humans are. How we are emotional creatures who crave connection, compassion and tenderness.

Love is not something everlasting or immortal
Love is a tree
If you take care of it, nourish it and give it the attention it needs, it will grow and flourish
but if you deprive it, the roots will spread to find what it needs somewhere else.

[Tab · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really, really liked this.

The beginning is brutal where we are introduced to a happy couple who have been together since childhood - Bailey and Quinn. Bailey is blissfully clueless that her life is about to implode when her husband Quinn falls instantly in lust with the new intern at work who is also the bosses niece. Reading about him screwing around with her was painful but made less so when the new man in Bailey's life - Kallan shows up with a new shop near her bookstore and becomes a good friend to her.

When she finally finds out about Quinn and Justine she falls apart in such a believe able way that it ticked all the boxes for an angst lover like me. It also helps that she basically wipes her hands of Quinn and slowly moves on with the hot guy who keeps showing up at her store. Quinn's equally heartless treatment of Justine means he ends up alone, fired and very very sad. As a former soap opera watcher this stuff is my figurative jam. He later moves away to be close to his daughter, heartbroken that Bailey has left their dreams of growing old together behind along with his cheating ass. His brother is also similarly disgusted with him. Bailey's piece of work mom gets similar treatment- the forever brush off. It such a pleasure to see a FMC grow a backbone, not that she was really a pushover before.

Big Spoiler


What truly makes this special for me is that Bailey emphatically states over and over how happy she is with how things turned out. Quinn not so much. He lives his life basically alone, forever pining away for Bailey and what he threw away and has always wanted back. He is sick and dying and wants to see her one last time. Kallan, who is now married to Bailey, and always puts her first, encourages her to go see him where she tells him she forgives him. I have to be honest - the scene of them together at the hospice/manor left me teary eyed. I actually felt for Quinn and his stupid, selfish ass. Bailey was less sympathetic and ends with saying she is happy she ended up with Kallan and their kids and only Quinn's fucking around allowed that to happen. I was immensely satisfied as a reader overall which honestly is rare in this genre. Why not five stars? I just was not feeling the Kallan love as strongly as Bailey was. But that is just me.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually really loved this book. It gave you the angst, gut punch and rage that I really love! The H was a piece of shit and the h was strong!!! Finally a woman who doesn’t put up with the hero’s bullshit excuses! The only part I really didn’t like was there was too much of the H and OW having a relationship and sex and only a very short time at the end where the h gets her HEA with a better H. Otherwise it was great ❤️

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review pending!

[Cheyenne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yikes. This was bad. Like bad bad. Potential was there but mission unsuccessful

[Lori Kays · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, I feel so conflicted as to how to rate this! As a romance, it fails. If you're looking for a feel good book, this isn't it! This should be labeled a romantic tragedy. It was exactly what I was in the mood for at the moment though and the writing was so emotionally compelling, I can't help but give it 4 stars. It's so weird to me that a book labeled as a romance spends most of the book focused on the affair, the husband's PoV and the h living through her relationship falling apart and not the H or the new romance that happens after the affair is discovered. Honestly, she gets a HEA, but the book doesn't feel happy at the end. Somehow the author kind of makes you feel for the husband. For one thing they have been best friends all their lives and were each other's first everything. He had some really heartbreaking things happen that changed the course of who he was and their relationship. I wonder how different things would have been if his grandfather had just given the farm to him directly instead of to the husband's father. He never stopped loving her or wanted to leave her even when he was cheating, he just made really bad, selfish choices without fully considering the consequences. It's weird because I almost....wanted her to forgive him? Which is so completely unlike me! I LOATHE cheating and he was a terrible cheater and lied endlessly, but they had so much history and so much legitimate love and ties...idk. It just feels bittersweet. I think that it's not that I wanted them to get back together, it's that I wish the cheating had never happened at all and that they got to have their HEA together. Unfortunately, IMO the husband and the h had a better love story and chemistry than the MMC did! Maybe that's not the case, but we get to see so very little of the H and the h in a romantic capacity and so much more of the husband 's PoV and their history, it's hard to feel differently. Even the epilogue 20 years in the future is primarily focused on the ex-husband and the h seeing him for the first time in 15 years as he's dying. I sobbed as he's recalling that she was his only love and that his idea of heaven is them together, swimming and living on the farm they grew up in. That he sent her a birthday card every year for the last 20 years to their old apartment because it was the last place they were happy. When she leaves, she knows it's the last time she'll ever see him😭😭😭 I haven't sobbed this much since the book "Sloth" If you want a good cry with lots of angst, I definitely suggest this book, but if you want romance and a real heel of an ex to hate, this really isn't it.

[T Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow burn romance

This is a slow burn romance with an emotional marriage breakup. More time was given to the affair than the budding romance.

[Shivani Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just want to add a few words more to my review.

I won’t lie. This book has made me cry and face up to many things. I can’t believe that this book is completely a figment of the author’s imagination. She has to have gone through it. The betrayal. The hurt. The awful heartbreak.

So just added this.

Also. I kind of wish that Bailey and Quinn could have had a second chance.

Or alternatively Bailey had felt as passionately for Kallan.

He was like a consolation prize. As a reader. It felt like that. Mild. Even tempered. Thinking through things clearly.

There was no mad passion. No jealousy. No angst.

The author did not know what to do with the two characters once heroine broke up with husband so they sent Kallan away to Las Vegas. Or was it Nevada. He went off page. He was there last 30 % of book or less. So that almost made Quinn the hero.

Also. Bailey sort of rebounded. She went from one guy to the other too quickly.

Agreed he was already in picture as friend and neighbour in business. But still. She never even grieved Quinn. One minute she was heartbroken. Next minute she was texting Kallan .. in the most boring way.

The book was a five star for me till the heroine and other man got together. Then it fizzled out when it should have instead ramped up/dialled up the happiness and attraction and euphoria.

Kallan was definitely a consolation prize.

*******

My original review 👇🏽

It’s not your standard romance. It’s about the break up of a marriage. Of a woman who loves desperately and a man who is shameless and deceitful and greedy and he cheats.

She leaves him.

Not your average love story.

It’s very real.
Anyone who has gone through this kind of betrayal will feel every word every phrase

Sadly there was no chemistry between Kallan and Bailey

Right. So I finished reading and here’s what I thought.

Heart breaking. I feel Kallan did not get enough attention as a character. The book was mainly about the break up of Bailey and Quinn.

My heart broke a little at the end.

Till 70% the book was a five star read.

Only after the breakup it seemed the author ran out of steam. The love between Kallan and Bailey was told to us rather than shown.

I broke when Quinn died.

***********

I want to add some more. This came to me today as I am reading the other book in this series.

Frankly Quinn is better than Ryan who is too stupid. But Ryan gets a good life. Quinn destroys his life spectacularly.

Anyway. Here is what I thought -

Quinn made awful mistakes. His father was addicted to gambling and he sold off the farm that Quinn grew up thinking was going to come to him eventually.
Quinn joined a business as an executive but he grudged it all the same even though he became successful.

He envied his brother and his wife who inherited ancestral businesses.

His cheating was a kind of revenge. It gave him joy and excitement that he was unable to get from his job.

[Harmeen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly, If this book would’ve focused on only 1 thing, I would’ve given it 3 or 4 stars easily. I would’ve read Bailey & Quinn’s story as well as Bailey & Kallan’s love story. Separately. In this book, it was mixed. Most of the time story focused on giving vivid details about Quinn’s affair. It confuses the reader because their affair was portrayed as something similar to normal love stories we all read in romance books. That is not okay. At all. His affair overshadowed Bailey & Kallan’s story.

I wish that a man like Quinn never enters my life, again. I’ve already had one similar experience and 2 years later, I’m still stuck in the same place. I really wonder how Bailey moved on so easily. I knew the guy for 6-7 years and she had known him for the entirety of her life. She moved on from him within months and good for her but it doesn’t look believable.

Bailey was a strong woman. She stood up for herself. She didn’t forgive Quinn as well as her mother. I hate her mother. Kallan was a nice guy. He did all the right things.

I really hope the next book is better because that book is the reason I started with this series.

[Drea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow! I usually love cheating romances and will usually root for the mmc and Mc to end up together. But not in this one. Quinn was a liar, one who couldn't admit or tell the truth even after being caught. This was honestly the first time in a book where I rooted for the other love interest. I'm glad that Bails grew a backbone and didn't forgive Quinn. Kallan was an absolute love! I loved his character and the way he did things the right way for Bailey. I honestly did cry at the end for Quinn. My heart broke a little reading that part and his apology to Bailey. 💔

[Duchess Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love when cheaters suffer

[Madison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will say I’m happy the FMC moves on and how well she handles the entire thing. She of course is devastated but she stands hard on her worth and I will give her that.

I give this more of a 3.5 read than a 3 star but didn’t like it enough to round to 4 simply because the pay off wasn’t there. She ends up with the true love of her life, or so we are told, but the romance there is underdeveloped. It makes it hard to feel happy for her when emotionally through the book we are constantly just living the marriage and there past but a very small amount of the book is given to the actual MMC of the book. We saw much more of the relationship and connection between her husband and the poor girl (she was tricked and mislead too) he had an affair with. Still glad she left her husband though. it would have been a 1 star if she stayed.

[JMC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I keep rating this author's books 5 stars even though I didn't like most of what happened here. It's definitely her writing and how she can make you feel so much. I read this in one sitting that my heart sped faster than I wanted to while my hands were cold and clammy. You know that feeling that you're just waiting for the pin to drop before something explodes? Definitely that and multiply it to the 3rd degree. The feeling of how I wanted to unalive the lying cheating bastard of a husband that is literally trash made me see red all throughout the book.

Now let me enumerate the things that made my brain hurt to the point of headache due to the stress of reading this:

First, I didn't like the side characters overload, too much of them that my mind was spinning on top of the rage that I felt for the cheaters.

Second, maybe if Quinn and Bailey's past romance were descriptive instead of portraying it like a trip down memory lane in Bailey's thoughts, this book would've wrecked me—shattered me even.

Lastly, it felt like I was reading multiple love stories in one book. Like they were interconnected—which they totally were—but my mind conjured them up to be 2 pairs of couples—one pair that "crossed the line" and the other that "toed the line."

Cheating for me is black and white; either you cheated or you didn't, either you crossed, toed it, or you didn't.

Quinn and Justine? Explicitly crossed the line.
Kallan and Bailey? Definitely toed it and in my book that's considered cheating. You don't feel lust towards your friends; it's only a matter of time before you both give in.

For Quinn, I don't have any words left for him because I called him every colorful and worst words there is because trash won't suffice.

For Justine, she said she wasn't that kind of a person but she knows he's married and in the middle of divorce—I mean, what the fvck? Darling, you don't get in the middle of it unless those papers are finalized. You chose to get in the middle of it then you're definitely THAT TYPE of person.

Ugh. My headache is back, I don't want to review this anymore. To Siena Sloane, please keep writing more because your book tropes are the best kind of headache.

[I’m a Paula too… Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, a good second marriage story…

SPOILER…

Cheating is usually a trope I’m not good with, and this might have been one of those times when I gave fewer stars because the MMC was the cheating jerk. But that’s not actually the case here. Quinn decided to play around with someone else, and he paid a very steep price. So he ended up disappearing and Kallan came on the scene! Oh I loved him. He’s a wonderful man and he made our h very, very happy.

The epilogue is just about the saddest thing I’ve ever read. Quinn never found love again but he did have the love of his daughter. And an illness that destroyed him.

Well written and I liked it a lot…

[amys.readsx · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was heartbreakingly brutal! I was in all my feels with this.

Cheating husband and a new MC that the FMC deserves. It was so emotional. I felt so bad for our leading lady. She was strong but copped so much.

Beautiful HEA that still punched me in the guts with that epilogue.

[zayns wife · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bro. I like this author. She actually likes women rather than making them pathetic. Bailey deserves the world. I’m so happy she got her Prince Charming. Glad the other dude dies. He deserves worse.

[Clau_158 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehhhhhhh, eing?
No se porque me lo empecé pq no entendí la sinopsis pero me alegro. Quinn ehhhhh sin palabras , me dio un montón d pena lo que pasó pero nunca he visto a un hombre tan mentiroso como él .

[Kiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tempted Away, Book 1 of the An Away Novel duet, was about 29-year-old Bailey Foster, the owner of Chantler and Cook (the family book cafe), her husband, 29-year-old Quinn Foster, and Kallan Reed (age unknown), the owner of The Wood Room shop near Bailey's bookstore.

Side Note: This story was told from the POV of three people: Bailey, Quinn, and Kallan (although his POV wasn't as frequent, it was still important). Justine's POV was never divulged, so the reader wasn't allowed a glimpse into her motives to determine whether or not she was an "evil ow" or an innocent party (really?!). The author DID give her the chance to have a final word, which not only gave Justine some semblance of closure but Bailey and the reader as well.

I have to be upfront about something before I continue this review. I had initially put this story in the "not interested in reading" category because it was a book about a trope I can't stand. Cheating. I normally steer clear of any books with this trope. However, the second book of the duet caught my eye, and I felt compelled to read this one first. While it was a rough story to consume, I can't say I'm sorry I read it. BUT...this was not me condoning cheating, because I DO NOT! With that said, I will continue with the review, which is way different than any I've written before.

This story wasn't your typical romance novel, in that it wasn't focused on a budding romance but rather the beginning of an affair between Quinn and Justine, a new intern at work, and the ending of everything between Quinn and Bailey, who had been married for 8-9 years of their 22-year relationship. (I didn't state which it was, mainly because they were about to come up on another anniversary within a few months, but the author didn't say whether it was year 8 or 9 they were about to celebrate.) Kallan's involvement played a more minor (albeit more stable) role, in which he helped Bailey navigate the difficulties she experienced as she watched her marriage disintegrate before her very eyes. Another thing different about this book was that it wasn't just about the dissolution of a marriage, but about how everyone in their lives was affected by Quinn's actions, and how the affair/marital breakup affected every extended relationship, whether it be friendships, familial, or professional.

Let me also clarify that the author stated in the beginning that Quinn had been drawing further away from Bailey the past year of their marriage. This wasn't to say that there were difficulties in their relationship, but that Quinn was struggling with things he wasn't sharing with Bailey. It needed to be noted as well that this fissure began long before 20-something-year-old Justine ever entered the picture, so she wasn't the cause of his aloofness but rather the wedge that finally made him crack wide open and enter into the affair that finally destroyed his marriage. Another fact to point out is that NOTHING happened between Kallan and Bailey until long after the marriage was over. They were friends throughout the story and NEVER crossed the line into anything deeper until things were finalized between Bailey and Quinn. The way the author brought the book to its conclusion gave the three main characters a satisfactory closure.

There was more than enough angst and drama in this book to satisfy the biggest critic, but 90% of the spicy scenes were between the couple having an affair. There were only two that were about Quinn and Bailey, but even those weren't honestly about them, but rather the effects of Quinn having gone to his wife to relieve his sexual tension created by his desire for Justine. There were perhaps one or two scenes at the end that focused on Bailey and Kallan.

Most cheating stories are written around an "evil other woman/man" who deliberately broke up a home. However, that wasn't the case here. It was Quinn's lies to both Bailey AND Justine from the beginning of the affair, right up to things falling apart surrounding the three of them, that created 99% of the problems. The more he lied to Bailey, the more he pushed her away. But every time he lied to Justine, the stronger the girl held onto hope that he would choose her. His lies to Justine put the marriage in a bad light when, if he'd been honest, there had been nothing wrong between Bailey and him, other than in his own head.

When the book finally ended, I had a clear choice of what rating to give it, which was a solid three stars. As previously stated, I don't like the cheating trope, but this author decently handled this story, without painting anyone as a villain/ness. I was grateful for that small nod to "sometimes things just happen" without pointing a finger at any one person or reason for the breakup.

Side Note: There was a point in this book where the author segued into the second story by introducing some of the characters from the duet. It gave a tiny hint to how some of the characters from this story felt about what was about to breach the horizon, and it pointed to a bit of an ominous forewarning of things to come.

[Judy Portelles · Rating 4 out of 5]

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