Forget everything you know about fairytales. There comes a point in a woman's life when she realizes not everyone gets a happy ending.
And no one knows this better than Lillian Shaw.
The safety of a small southern upbringing and a happy normal family couldn't keep life from chipping away at her.
And nothing leaves its mark like the bite of a broken heart.
Blow after blow, Lillian tries to stay optimistic, but when faced with a choice that could destroy her future, she gives in to the temptation.
When your first true love comes crashing into your happily ever after, you're supposed to walk away. Not fall back in love.
But saying no to Leo was something Lillian could never do...
Once lines are crossed is there any going back?
Or is the risk that Lillian Shaw takes going to leave her broken again...
And this time be enough to make her A Woman Gone Mad?
***Warning: This is not a shy and tender fairytale love story. It's a raw, tragic, and gritty story inspired by true events. This book is not for the faint of heart, it contains graphic language, sex, violence, and drug use. MATURE Audiences Only. Not intended for young adult readers.***
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Review
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Take everything you think you know about this novel and throw it out the window. This isn't your typical happily ever after story. It's raw, it's real, and it will pull at the strings of your heart making you wonder what the heck just happened and keep you captivated until the very end.
The beginning of this story starts with Lillian Shaw awakening alone in her hotel room after another night of doing things she can't remember full of drugs, alcohol, and another nameless man that is gone before she wakes up the next morning. But to understand how Lil ended up where she is in life, looking in the mirror alone and hating herself, we must go back and start at the beginning of her story.
Lil has always been searching for the man of her dreams, ever since she was in elementary school and discovered the opposite sex. Unfortunately, they never felt the same way about her. That was until she started the eighth grade and caught the attention of Michael a guy who made fun of Lil for as long as she could remember. They quickly come together and Lil falls in love for the first time in her life. He showers her with love, gifts, and affection, but all good things must come to an end and out of nowhere on New Years Eve he decides she's no longer the girl for him. That's the first time Lil discovered heartbreak. But that wasn't enough to make her a woman gone mad. It broke her, but she came out the other end a teenager who survived her first heartbreak.
Perhaps then it was Leo who she met at the age of sixteen and fell madly in love with. Their relationship wasn't a perfect one. Leo always talked about having kids and living together forever, but Lil wasn't sure she wanted the same thing. Especially since their first time together, he brings her to the Airport Motel where to end their no so perfect night he makes it beautiful by taking her virginity. But there were things surrounding Leo's past that had her questioning what would happen when she went back to high school, and when he left never to return Lil fell off the deep end and started to do things that left her in a deep and dark place.
The voice in her head can't even save her from the toilet she throws her life down when she starts drinking to dumb the pain of her life. There was Clark, who came out of nowhere and they had a good time together that was until she woke up one day and discovered that the man she thought he knew wasn't him at all and he turned out to be one of the most popular guys at her high school. She quickly dumps him and jumps into the arms of Wes another one of her guys that she just uses to get by. Lil has flown off the deep end but it's at a party one night that she meets Nick and her would starts to repair itself. He's unlike any man she's ever dated and treats her with respect and kindness. This is where she gets her happy ending right??? Unfortunately not for our girl Lil or as Nick like to call her Lillian. They begin their life together but things quickly spiral out of control years down the road and she's left in an even darker hole than the one she was in after Leo left her. Even the voice in her head died and became an even darker force that takes over her mind and helps to dumb her destroyed life.
But just when things start to go bad, Leo returns sending her life in another direction or does it? Will this be what finally drives Lil over the end into madness?
Loved this story. It was so real and raw it was unlike anything I've read recently. You get so used to the alpha male who storms into the woman's life, they fight, make up and live happily ever after. You think that's going to happen here right? For Lil it doesn't. She has so many things in her life that she needs to work through, one thing after the next slowly destroying her until the girl left at the end of it is so different than the girl who first fell in love with Michael all those years ago. She experiences death, heartbreak, love, drug and alcohol abuse, and so many more things in her life that quickly spiral everything out of control. I can't really describe it, it's just one of those things that you just have to read for yourself. There were so many times when I thought she would find her happily ever after, especially when Nick walked into the picture, but jut when things start to be perfect, they nose dive in the other direction destroying everything you thought you knew about Lil and her perfect happy little life. I highly recommend this book and I look forward to the next journey Kimber will lead us down. I give it five, heartbreaking stars.
***ARC provided by author in exchange for a honest review***
About the Author
Hey, I'm Kimber and I really freaking hope y'all enjoy AWGM! If you get a chance, throw me a review up on my FB page, www.facebook.com/AWGMbyKimberDawn or Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18799225-a-woman-gone-mad if you loved it! I am a whore for reviews.
Ahh... let's see, what can I tell you about my self... Well, first of all I'm a straight up whore for many, many things. I'm a wine whore, some would say I'm a functional alcoholic, and I'm totally cool with that title. Now the day my cheese completely falls off my cracker and I lose the functional in that title, well yeah never mind. Even then I'll deny that shit. I'm a whore for Victoria's Secret, no seriously, like my VS Angel's Credit Card stays maxed out, hey, they got cool shit. I have a whole lot of hats, meaning I can be called a billion different things, daughter, wife, mother, labor unit nurse, I sell pussy on the side *coughs* that would be persian kittens, thank you you dirty minded scoundrel, I'm also compulsive blackjack addict, book blogger, book pimp, book whore, Jack Daniels is my favorite boyfriend and my biggest dream, the day I'll acknowledge that I've succeeded in life and can a die a happy woman is the day I get to go two stark naked hour round sexual bouts with Jason Statham. *Sighs* I started writing poems and short stories very early in my life, you know for the Michael's and Leo's and Nick's in my life. I've been a book hoarder since I was eleven years old, but then a couple years ago something wonderful happened! The 50 shades of Grey craze brought to life my inner smut whore where I commenced to read anything and everything smut affiliated. When reading wasn't enough any anymore and I noticed that so many of the authors of my favorite books weren't getting the exposure their work deserved I turned it into a mission, starting my own blog, buying their books and reading them one by one, I then wrote my reviews for my blog and didn't hold back in writing them. I've never done a single thing in my life half way, I always go all in. After the success of my Blog, and the insistence of one of my bestest friends, my sister from another mister, Trina Taylor of Bad & DirtyBooks I was ready to finally take the plunge and write the story that's been restlessly clawing to get out of my head and onto paper for a VERY long time. I'm a southern girl to my core, a self proclaimed smut whore, and I guess now we can add aspiring author to my hat collection as well.
Tattooed across my ribs are the words I have always lived by 'Aut viam inveniam aut faciam tibi' Latin for: If I can not find a way, I will make my own.
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