After reading Inferno: Part 1 and dealing with that major cliffhanger, I couldn't wait to get my hands on book 2. I am the type of person who spends countless hours trying to guess what is going to happen in the next installment when we're left hanging like that. T.K. doesn't disappoint, taking the reader on a journey from the streets of Rome to the beautiful Italian countryside.
This installment focused on Dante and Eleanor together. T.K. just knows how to write and build a foundation between two people. The feelings they have for one another, the thoughts and emotions that run through them as they think about each other, the physical connections they create. She just does such an amazing job that I tend to forget these people are just characters in a book and are not real people who live and breathe.
Fate and Karma play a huge roll in Dante and Eleanor's story. Was it fate that brought them together? How big of a part will fate play in whether these two have a future together? We get a lot of background on Dante's life in this book. What he has been through, things that are going on behind the scenes of his life. We learn more about the kind of childhood Eleanor had, what she's been forced to endure with parents who seemingly only had her so they could portray the perfect family picture. And we find out that Dante and Eleanor's lives are intertwined in a way that no one would have ever expected. Did fate have a hand in that too?
Inferno: Part 2 is part of a series so you absolutely need to read book 1 prior to picking up this one up. And if you've already read part 1, you will remember that Eleanor only set out to stay in Italy for a few weeks, just to get away from all the crap and turmoil her life was in before she hopped on that plane. That little detail, the fact that she is heading back home soon, was something I dreaded happening, as did Dante and Eleanor. It was so obvious to me that these two were meant to be together!! It was so obvious the feelings they have for each other, even though it has only been a short time. And Dante was not shy about telling Eleanor how he felt about her. "I need you, too. Like lungs need oxygen. Like the desert needs the rain. Like a sparrow needs wings." Sigh... such beautiful words. But then, he IS Italian, and I could just hear him say those things to Eleanor in his sexy Italian accent.
Eleanor really tugged at my heartstrings in this book. Well, both of them did, actually, but she did because of things she finds out and decisions she needs to make because of it. I know what I want her to do, but it's easy for me to sit back and offer advice when it isn't my life. She has things she needs to do, accomplish, finish before she feels she can have a clear future with Dante. But does she really need to do the things she's determined to do? Everyone who weighs in on this topic has a different answer for her, particularly Dante.
Once again, we are left with a cliffhanger, and we'll need to wait until the third book is released. Will Fate play a hand in deciding what direction Eleanor's future leads her? And will Karma step in and right some of the wrongs that she and Dante have suffered through? We have to wait and see!