Gabriel's Inferno Paperback – September 4, 2012

After I stopped lavitating and gasping for air I decided to finally write my review :). It took a while though :).I don't even know where to begin.Usually, when I finish reading a book I start to compare it to the other similar books that I have read and think about what I liked and didn't liked. I compare stories and characters in them. It helps me to choose winners for my top 5. I'm a sucker for romance novels :).After I finished reading Gabriel's Inferno I had a really hard time trying to place the book in any category. Not because book was bad or confusing, but because romance bit in the book was so out of this world that I thought it deserved it's own category. There wasn't any books I could compare to. I felt like I should be comparing it to a beautiful painting, statue, a song or some other piece of art.You know when sometimes you read in a book, or hear in a movie, when girl says to a guy "You ruined me for any other man."? Well, this book did just that. It ruined me for any other romance novel:).English is not my first language, God, it's not even my second. So I only hope that my review will do the justice...Ok, first things first. Cover! The reason that I got the book in the first place was the cover. It got my attention right away. I really appreciate that the author put some thought in choosing the cover. I have read some good books which had a covers that didn't do them justice and was a huge turn off. But in this case cover lured me in. I felt like there was something mysterious about the man on it. His eyes were telling me a story, even though he was not looking at me. It felt like he was trying to fight some demons and I wanted to know more about them.WARNING SPOILERS!Gabriel. Hmmm... :). He has to be one of my favorite alpha males of all times. Highly educated, intelligent, professional (at the beginning), mysterious, a bit arrogant and at times very mean. There was something wrong with him, I just couldn't put my finger on it ( well I could, but it felt like there was something more than the words being said). The way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her and the way he acted when she was around, I didn't liked one bit. And that's why I kept reading :). I wanted to know what in a hell was his problem. I got the impression that there was something more that the written words. Like it was something in between the lines.The other thing that I like was that author softened him a bit after a while, but at the same time was able to keep his personality intact. Because I have read many stories where male characters have been turned in to a circus monkeys dressed in a pink dresses doing backflips to impress a girl. Don't get me wrong, Gabriel swept Julia of her feet alright (boy did he ever). But he did it while still being him self, confident and a bit dominant, just minus the bad attitude towards Julie.Julie. Oh Julia... Young, smart, beautiful, a bit naive and crushing on her professor. At the very beginning I really thought that she was loosing it. Even though I wanted to believe her story, there were som moments that I thought that the whole thing was just in her head and that she was imagining things that wasn't there. Or maybe she was mistaking him for someone else. But again, her side of the story was very convincing. I didn't knew what to think. I had a feeling that I will get my happy ending I just had no idea how author going to spin it and which direction he is going to take to give it to me.I was blown away after I read a scene when everything finally became clear about who was who. When Julie finally snapped after getting tired of dealing with Gabriel and walked out of his apartment, Gabriel finally realized who she really was and called her Beatrice. But it was too late. I really liked that author didn't rush to bring them back together, because I felt like Gabriel deserved to suffer for what he did to her :).I have heard many say that after you read a good book you always want to talk to the authors, ask them a bunch of questions how, why and what. Because even though you kind of get your happy ending there is always something that makes you wonder. I say screw that! What I would like to do is to travel back in time, get in to Sylvains head when he started writing the first book and say there until he finished the second one :-).The whole story (both books) sucked me in and kept me in it until the very last word on the last page. It felt like I was holding on to every single word for dear life.I understand that there are some readers who didn't get the story and gave bad reviews. It's not an easy read. And maybe it felt like it was just too much. But I'm glad that it wasn't an easy read. Even though I'm not familiar with the books author was referring to, it made want to read them. God, it made me want to learn Italian just to read them:). Analyses and quotations of Dante's books was beyond amazing.The story broke my heart, made me angry, saduced me, made me happy, made me sad and sometimes made me laugh.Overall, beautifully written, nicely edited. Well polished books. Bravo! And congratulations to the author..

This is my first Amazon review. I've never felt compelled enough to write one, but this book truly affected me.Let me start by saying that I read FSOG in a fit of guilty pleasure. I don't ever want to tell anyone, EVER, that I've read it- not because of the sex scenes, but because it was so terribly written. I relished the book, though. It made me happy to read about two people "in love". Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before, fifty is badly written. But I'd never read romance novels in general, and later was losing myself, again and again, into various erotic novels for the sheer guilty pleasure. This is how I came across Gabriel's Inferno.I didn't realize what I had been looking for until I read this novel. I didn't read the other books for the sex scenes. I read them because, deep down, I liked the idea of a slightly controlling man falling in love with an average woman.This was the first romance novel I've read that I found even remotely believable. I came to like the characters because of the qualities I saw in them, not because of what one character had to explain to me about another. At first, I found the POV switches to be confusing, but I think that the author did a great job making it clear who was speaking/thinking at each point that I was over the annoyance in a few pages. I enjoyed being able to see things from many POVs, without being stuck in each character's head for too long. It seems too easy to write a book in first person, but this author wrote in 3rd, enabling us to see a much clearer picture.I also REALLY liked that it wasn't full of fluff. That comes with the territory of 3rd person, but I enjoyed not having to read repetitive phrases exclaiming what a character was thinking. This author added some character thoughts, but left us to infer what they wanted to continue with, while not explicitly spelling it out. It was refreshing, after two weeks of reading crappy self-published or expensively-published-for-the-sole-purpose-of-a-profit material, to not be treated like a complete idiot by the author. The scenes were descriptive enough to allow the reader to start the image and finish it for themselves, while avoiding describing worthless things. I consistently checked on the percent progress while reading the book on my iPad, and was always frustrated when the number got higher. I never wanted it to end. It was long, yes, but every detail, every conversation had meaning that contributed to the quality of the book.For those of you who like FSOG or other dominating Alpha-male-turned-monogamous-wealthy-man types, you get a good amount of the Alpha male tendencies. What I like the most about this book, however, is how the man truly WANTS the change that he is undertaking. In all of the other erotic Alpha male novels I've read, he changes to be monogamous and stays wealthy, but continues to emotionally abuse his supposedly female counterpart by controlling her every move. Gabriel never tries to f**k Julia into submission; he actually wants Julia to trust him, and not because he has a giant penis. I like the emotional connection that he weaves before he has sex with her- he doesn't try to f**k her into liking her or making her tell him she loves him. She loves him for him, not because he can please her. I really appreciated that. It was true and real, and readers can see that he loves her for her heart, and is restraining himself until she gives that to him.Many have complained that the novel is pretentious, with all the references to Dante and different mythologies. When I read this book, I knew the bare minimum about the Dante story, and still appreciated the many themes that the author used. I didn't think it was pretentious at all. I thought it was beautiful- the way she weaved the story around the two main characters while using metaphors to explain their relationship. You don't need to be well versed in literature to appreciate the words, you just need to be open minded and not dense.Overall, I was truly struck by how beautiful the story was. I loved that I enjoyed the characters from their actions, rather than another character's declaration of sudden and true love. (Yes, I know I've said this before, but it's true.) I love that I saw their flaws and I love that there was a slight mystery tone throughout the book and the characters didn't reveal all of their secrets immediately. And most of all, I loved that their love was realistic. The circumstances may not have been (come on, it's pretty unlikely that you'd fall in love with a rich man. I mean, really....), but I saw why they accepted each others' flaws without having to be told why. I saw their attraction develop beyond just looks- I understood that their souls were drawn together. I felt them fall in love, and I knew why, without having to be told.That's why this is a beautiful story. Not because it's pretentious or fanfic or a romance. It's because I cared for the characters, and felt what they felt. They used sentiments to fall in love, not actions. The reader could feel their tension, but understand at the same time. Romance isn't about f*****g someone into doing what you want. It's about being shown and showing that you love, care, and feel for another person. That's what this novel does. Makes you feel.