Rapture

This book should come with a warning label, I wish I knew that it would suck me in like a tornado and leave me breathless while I raced through the mind of a man obsessed with something he couldn't have. Thomas Tessier's smooth words glazed my brain like honey as I was unable to read anything else until I was finished with Rapture and hungry for more. Jeff Lisker, who reads like a fallen hero who is full of passion and hunger for a woman he cannot have whisks the reader away into his cold world of desire beyond reason. For the past twenty years he has been nurturing his computer business in Southern California, suffered through a fallen marriage and has resorted to sleeping with a teenage girl named Diane who barely filled a void in his heart. Upon learning form his aunt back in Connecticut where he grew up of his fathers passing, he packs for a long weekend and flies home. With the trip the ghosts of his past are freed and he recalls the high school days and his longing for Giogrianne, a girl he had a crush on but never dated. A plan forms in his head, a stem of a thorny rose that reaches to his goal, the blooming of his love for Giorgianne suppressed through the years that cannot hold back and makes him think crazy things. He does not care that she has been married to Sean, gave birth to now teenage Bonnie and her life is quiet and peaceful, a life that he is about to trample on until there is nothing left but him for her to turn to. Jeff wants us to like him, his charm, wit and personality that have a bit of an odd edge would make anyone friendly with him. Perhaps the deadliest enemy is the one who seems like a close friend. He invites himself back to Giorgianne's life, meets her family and decides for himself that they are not what she needs, he loves her and wants her by his side, and he wants to smell her golden hair, hold her closely and to make her his forever. His borderline psychotic thoughts weave through his fake façade and that warm smile and taint the air with uncertainty. I loved all the surprises and the incredibly daring escapades that he kept stacking up, as if he was trying to reach the counter in the kitchen for those warm cookies that were not for him. Jeff Lisker was a sly villain, someone you wanted to root for simply because he felt and cared so much, unfortunately his reasoning and his actions were incredibly evil and have made for a thrilling read. I felt like a fly on the wall, eavesdropping on his conversations and his flirting, as Thomas Tessier so skillfully brought Jeff to life, a simple man with terrifying ideals. Great and furiously fast read, I just wish the ending was longer, but with good books there is always that heartache and longing long after the last page is read. Kasia S.