Lies, Betrayal Love By Melissa Bender

Sounds like a terrible book full of dislikable characters.
And a hero beaten by his wife? Huh, that's new in a romance book!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Melissa Bender I can’t ever understand why a many readers like books with cheating. To each their own I guess.

Hero chose to cheat on his wife. They were having trouble conceiving at least that’s what his wife made him believed. She never wanted kids with him so she took her uterus out. She abused him, stabbed, slapped him and burned him. No one deserves to be abused, man or woman but no one deserves to be cheated on either. He loved her when he cheated with the heroine. Continued having an emotional relationship with the heroine. She (heroine) forgave him for not telling her at first that he was a married man. The wife threatened him and he was too weak he went back to her every time she threatened. He was a scared man.

She evens tries to kill his child with the heroine.
The wife was a horrible and hateful person honestly if this was me instead of wanting him back i would have divorced his ass and taken all of his money. That was the reason why she went after him in the first place. Why risk going to jail just to keep abusing him? I would be living off his money somewhere with another man.

Heroine was another pathetic person like hero, they really do deserved each other. What woman with morals would continue having some sort of relationship with a married man? Find someone who’s not taken.

I won’t be rating this since I knew before going in what was it about.
I don’t condone what she did to him and I don’t condone what he did to her. They both abused each other. But poetic justice would have been of both hero and wife would have died together but that’s just me I’m a cold hearted bitch with no compassion for anyone that do these things. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The way hero talks to her sister is disgusting. Threatening her to have her husband surrounded by women so he can cheat on her.

“Stop lying. What is wrong?” I couldn’t hide the snark in my voice at all. When she wouldn’t answer, I kept talking. “Okay, fine. You’re not going to speak, then you can listen. I don’t know what your problem is or why you think yelling at everyone and pouting is making us enjoy our trip. It isn’t. I will tell you this once and once only. Make her miserable today, and I will make your whole fucking year hell. I can have Tony out drinking every damn night and surrounded by women who will take his mind off a nagging wife. “Don’t look so surprised, Cassie. I fucked your sister when I was in a very unhappy marriage. You think Tony was a virgin when he met you? Hell, he’d fuck anything with legs before you came along. I know you’re not the prissy virgin you claimed to be. You think we didn’t know about you? How you were known as the town bike, everyone had a ride?” “You’re a pig.” She spat.

I mean, what can someone expect from an asshole cheater who brags about fucking someone while being married? He has the nerve to call a woman slut when he couldn’t keep it in his pants when he was married? Please!

heroine kills the wife, his father also cheated on his mother with his wife.

Death to abusers and cheaters! Melissa Bender 3 ⭐⭐⭐ - OK decent reads.
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beta hero + abused Melissa Bender POSSIBLE SPOILERS
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if anyone deserves to be cheated on, it's this ow
she's a psycho of the highest order
a vile torturer of babies and men

the H is one I rarely come across: a victim of spousal abuse
so while I do like him at times, I can't connect with him and the choices he makes

the h is...neither here nor there...poor silly sweet girlie

the story is odd in that it felt to me like it was written in fits and starts
like a serial or instalments written over time and the author kept adding more and more scenarios on as the work progressed
very fanficky-ott-drama like Melissa Bender I’m not done with this as I’m at the 37% mark, but I have to say olive is a terrible name. The author should have went with Olivia. It’s elegant, classic and a better feminine version of Oliver. Ugh. I will update when I’m done.

UPDATE
This author gets so corny at the end it’s sickening. Yeah I want an HEA but it’s not supposed to be corny. This author gets so sappy that’s it’s cringey. Smdh.

FINAL UPDATE

I’m going to spoil this book for everyone so be warned!!

The book opens on the MMC with a crappy wife who hits him several times supposedly in the name of hormones. They have been trying for a baby for a while and so far nothing. I have to say that considering the hitting that was happening here I would say no babies for her is a good thing. The MMC is then out with friends for a bachelors party and he drunkenly sleeps with the FMC very quickly and easily. There are thoughts about it being wrong and he was married but as the author wrote this scene it was like he was disconnected from his head and was simply following his needs physical and emotional to cheat. The MMC is sorry later but honestly I felt like he was really too depressed to really care. He was going through the motions of acting like it didn’t happen while still dealing with a crappy wife that I couldn’t tell if he really ever loved her or was sticking it out because of his vows and was convincing himself to.

The MMC and the FMC eventually run into each other and she’s pissed to find out he’s married and he’s thrilled that he knows who she is and is still drawn to her sober and wants to see her again. I have to say that I liked that he had restraint in these scenes as it showed a guy who is in an unhappy situation but is having feelings that he doesn’t want to ignore while acknowledging he is still married. It was at this point I was disliking him and I was really seeing more of a marriage that needed to be over and not one that should continue to be honored. I wanted to see the MMC with the FMC/OW.

As the book plays out the MMC is revealed to be ab#sed by his wife, physically, mentally and emotionally. It was kind of sad to see his break down of character. The author isn’t a strong enough writer though so we don’t feel as much as we could have. It was just sad. The wife reveals some harsh truths to the MMC on how she manipulated him from their very first meeting and throughout their relationship into marriage and that she could never have children as she had had a hysterectomy and never told him. Honestly this woman was nuts because she actually had the MMC going to doctors appointments having all these fertility tests done and pretending that she wasn’t the problem. I am mind boggled by this level of crazy lol.

The MMC finds out that the FMC/OW is pregnant at one of these fertility appointments that the crazy wife had the MMC going to! It’s at this point that I realize this is an absurd drama story and you have to suspend belief to enjoy it. Now the story progresses to the further deterioration of the MMC’s confidence and while he tries to be with the FMC/OW and his unborn baby he eventually goes back to his wife where he gets more physically ab#sed then he had previously had in his marriage. It gets real ugly. I do feel like the author could have once mentioned that he never retaliated because he would never hit a woman but that is never once expressed in this entire book. It was all about the MMC not really understanding that he was being abused and that he wasn’t ready to acknowledge that he was a victim yet. Seriously had he realized this sooner he could have left her probably even before he had cheated. But men really have a hard time owning this victimization so I can see how he stayed so long. I DON’T see how he went back to her after he left her though. TWICE!

The MMC actively made a choice to leave the FMC/OW and the baby he wanted for their safety but choose to go back to his wife to try again because she said she would get help. Those are two different scenarios that the author failed to make valid. Abandoning your child for safety concerns while trying to make it work with a psycho just doesn’t make sense. What makes sense is to leave the FMC/OW/baby mama and his child for their safety while continuing to extricate himself from the demon wife. That makes sense.

Anyway, the MMC has at least one decent friend who rescues him from his choices and encourages the MMC and the FMC back together. Now a lot of dragging the story out happens here. Their relationship to each other is revealed to both families, the MMC is dealing with his trauma, the baby is born, their relationship continues to grow and develop, which I like, tons of gratuitous s e x, and stalking and harassment by the evil ex wife.

What happens next is a trigger warning for readers that the author failed to put on this product. The baby gets poisoned. The discovery of her turning blue, the hospital’s accusations, the month of life support, was there and glossed over but is still a tough thing to read. While I teared up for the end of this I also saw the HUGE failure to research this author did on medical situations. The infant had failing organs, had died twice while they were giving her poison control detox, was on life support for a month with no signs of getting better or awareness of stimuli around her, basically no signs of life. BUT the day they turn off life support and remove the breathing tube MIRACULOUSLY the baby is fully functional and one hundred percent returned to normal. What?!….

Yeah, no. That’s not how that works. The author was definitely trying for a “love conquers all”, scenario but it fell flat to me. Luckily, I had already suspended my belief well before this so, alls good, lol.

The baby’s survival happened after the final showdown with the villainous ex wife though. During the month long vigil the criminal investigation happened and nothing was found. Everyone knows it’s the evil ex and yet the cops can’t figure it out. The ex reaches out to the MMC and threatens him, the baby and the FMC if he doesn’t come back to her. The MMC as he is typically unintelligent decides to go back to find evidence himself. Honestly all he had to do was record her in this one conversation and that would have been enough admission of her guilt(!) but no. The MMC proceeds to abandon his girlfriend and their comatose baby in the hospital and go back to his wife, seemingly indefinitely.

This was a terrible decision by the MMC but a good choice the author made to further along this OTT soap opera style drama. Of course this leads to the discovery of evidence, the self confessed level of stalking and the poisoning the ex had done, more assaulting of the MMC, the MMC finally fighting back and while I agree it was about time I still didn’t like it, the life and death confrontation between the MMC, the evil ex and the FMC. Surprise(!), the FMC is the one who finally gets to do the villain in! I liked it but it was also nonsense.

The rest of the book is more of the main couple moving on and them being relieved but on alert because someone had been helping the dead ex and they didn’t know who. It finally comes out that it was the MMC’s own father! I was shocked. I thought for sure it was Daniel the sleazy ex boyfriend of the FMC who conveniently was also best friends with the MMC. He was so scuzzy through the whole book that it had to be him. But no, the author threw a curve ball and made it the cheating father/grandfather. Eww. This man stated that he helped the dead ex lover/daughter in law because he couldn’t believe that he had raised weak sons. No one can explain this author’s reasoning for this plot twist rationale no matter how hard they try. Condoning the poisoning of your seven month old grandchild because you’re disappointed in your own children makes zero sense in any universe. O_o

Moving on. The MMC helps his mother get her divorce and deal with this nonsense and he eventually marries the FMC and has more children. The end. Now while I was hooked on this story as evidenced from my comments above there is a lot wrong with this story. One is grammar and continuity, there were a ton of times I had to interpret a sentence. The New Zealand Australian slang wasn’t a hindrance but it wasn’t helpful either. As for the continuity issue one of them was that the MMC was with his ex for five years then had been married for two but later states that he married her two years into his relationship with her. The failure to research her choice of subjects was glaringly obvious. The cops would have found the morphine if it was out in the open the way it was like that. No matter the container it was in. And the characters after documenting all the stalking and harassment with the ex they still never recorded her threatening them in person not once! The medical drama with the baby has not enough words to describe how inaccurate that was. Miracle or no miracle! It was astoundingly poorly written. The reveal of the fathers/grandfather’s part while a surprise and was definitely an “ooooohhh” moment, made no sense whatsoever. The author finding a way to condone cheating was an interesting takeaway.

This is the second book I’ve read by this author and yes she has great story ideas and for the most part they are entertaining craziness, this author still needs work. I also don’t like the bonus chapters that I can’t ever find. Just put them in the books I’m PAYING for. Geez.

Good luck. Melissa Bender

Two people meet for a reason, no matter what anyone says, it’s always for a reason.

Oliver and Sage, two people who’d never met before shared an instant connection. A spark formed and a night neither of them would forget happened… as much as they want to.

Sage remembered it from the bruises he left her.

Oliver remembered it as a betrayal to his wife.

Neither think they will see each other again, trying to move on with their lives and putting that night behind them.

Until they run into each other again, in a very awkward situation.

The night they spent together, is a night that formed something between them. Holding them close together for the future to come.

The lies start to come out, a horrible betrayal is revealed to all, hurting those closest to them while a love has already begun to form..

Secrets don't stay hidden forever. Lies, Betrayal Love

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Melissa Bender Emotional Rollercoaster

I know many won't like the book because he cheated. Yes he did cheat however there's so much more to this book than that.

Ollie he really is sweet and facing circumstances some wouldn't believe or they'd make fun of. Sage is a sweet girl that unfortunately has her own issues especially after her Birthday at a bar.

Amy is certifiable, other characters are flat out mean, some are sweet. Then you have the betrayal and Lies. Boy you have to feel bad for Ollie with the hospital, father, abuse scenes. It so raw.

Trigger Warnings****

Cheating
Abuse

There's A lot of side characters and drama. Sometimes you could get lost. The downfall to this book it was really long. I believe the Author could if still included everything in a shorter version around 300 pages instead of 470.

Melissa Bender Note to me. DNF. Don't pick up again. This book contains abuse. Melissa Bender 🎁 FREE on Amazon today (1/31/2022)! 🎁 Melissa Bender Raw and Gritty

I was blown away at how brutally raw and gritty the scenes with Amy and Oliver were, nothing was held back. This mad it hard to stop reading or put down. I was sucked in Melissa Benders words and couldn't stop til I finished.
It had everything plenty of angst, drama and twist and turns that I did not see coming !!! Whoa it was so good and on a taboo topic that still get a chuckle when mentioned. So glad I read this book looking forward to reading lots more. Melissa Bender

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