Re-read July 2022. Still my ultimate fave.
DEEP re-read December 2015
Since Deep published in December of 2014 I've often re-read highlights and specific chapters that are my favorite. This time I read it for the second time in it's entirety. I remember last year feeling an acute anticipation for the story of Nick Pagano. With already enthralled appetite for this man after reading Rooted I HAD to know his story. The second time around was no less enthralling, actually it was more so. Nick Pagano lives up to every expectation of how a dark man such as he would treat the woman who changes a very elemental part of him. The woman who becomes his Queen. With second time around I appreciated more fully how perfectly suited these characters are thanks to Fanetti's perfectly tailored development of their relationship and staying true to exactly how she makes them each to be. This development fulfills all my favorite romance boxes. By no means is Nick and Bev's story an easy journey. However, the violence and seemingly perpetual darkness that cloaks the pages makes the sweetness of their connection that much stronger. Deep one of my ALL-TIME FAVORITE love stories. There is no couple quite like Nick Pagano and Beverly Maddox.
Original review (December 2014):
5+++ MILLION "Tell Me" Stars
There’s nothing that could stop us from reading anything Susan Fanetti writes. I say us because Irene and I have become a Susan Fanetti reading team. In 2014 we’ve read each amazing book this incredible author penned. Through vivid, raw storytelling Susan Fanetti took us on our most favorite book journeys; meeting adored characters, characters whom stay in our minds long past reading. We’ve visited places so real in our heads, visiting in real life would be a dream come true. Likewise some places we abhor because of what went down there.
Each Fanetti book provides a new experience, a new lesson, a new love story. She captured our reading hearts with Isaac and the Horde. But through her beautiful prose she allows Nick Pagano to steal our reading souls in Deep.
This author, this book, this love, this woman, this man – Deep is Fanetti’s best love story yet - reigning supreme in the Fanetti Romance Kingdom. Awestruck. Again.
The story of Nick Pagano juxtaposes itself between good and bad, light and dark. But not in a traditional way, the lines of good and bad are blurred by this man so confident in his life, so content with the man he’s become. He doesn’t realize his ultimate end game until Beverly walks into his life.
Deep strikes us deep. Deeply affected by the story, deeply moved by the connection between Nick and Beverly. The seamless transition between these two moving from neighbors to needing each other means so much to the both of them, it’s instinctual just like the characters who portray it, as if no place exists without the other’s presence. It’s just as instinctual to the reader. A natural progression we believe in because of the thoughts, actions, and dialogue from these characters. No other woman ever belonged with this amazing man.
Diving back into the dark recesses of her muse, Fanetti wrote Nick Pagano as a complicated yet eerily simple man. Deep very much gives us Nick’s story. He’s a character you’ll fall in love with almost instantly. His looks, his personality, his nature. A favorite part about Nick: the man listens. Intently. Implicitly. As though he actually wants to hear what you’re saying. Beverly shines her light on him through acceptance. She’s as confident as he, challenges him, believes in him. Beverly shows Nick the beauty of sharing your life with your soul mate, your counterpoint. She’s the sun shining bright to the shadowed life he lives. Her rays make him shine. His darkness protects her always.
This story reflects the complexities of life, of living a life you believe in and never once selling yourself short of those beliefs. Fanetti perfectly entwines these complexities with the simplicity of being in love with your soul mate even when the relationship proves not simple at all. It’s another Fanetti example of when life creates this complicated web of hardships even in the darkest of hours the sun shines again.
Sadistically poignant and poetic, Deep sears the readers soul. Every word holds a symbol, a meaning, a deeper value. Every single sentence in this story is placed exactly where it should be with a title so accurately describing the entirety of this story. It’s tough, it’s hard, and it’s extremely emotional.
Opening your mind and your heart to the musings of this author will fulfill you. As an avid reader, I’m never more content than when I’m done with a Susan Fanetti story. Deep is real, it’s raw and so directly reflective of this authors staunch stance to write, publish, stand by the beautifully hard love stories she believes in. Love stories with so much feeling and meaning you’re touched every time. Love stories we believe in, too.
Nick Pagano is a hero you must meet. He’ll make your heart ache for the kind of man he portrays, for the kind of love he’s capable of giving. Deep stands in the spotlight as Susan Fanetti’s best work to date. Believe in her, in us, to do yourself a favor and meet THE man, Nick Pagano.
Favorite Quotes:
"He stood on his balcony on a morning like this, with his head dark and his thoughts snarled, and felt an elemental kinship with the ocean. Maybe that was arrogant, maybe it was delusional; maybe it was just absurd. But it was nonetheless true. The ocean was a place of darkness and mystery, full of predators and secrets, and infinitely deep. ... That was what the ocean was to Nick: a place that swallowed secrets and fed beasts."
"There are some clouds now, true. But you are the brightest part of my life. You found something light in me - I think maybe you made whatever's light in me."