Beautiful Addictions by Season Vining

In Beautiful Addictions by Season Vining, Josie Banks is a girl without a past.  After being found unconscious with no memory, she was shuffled in and out of foster homes where she suffered years of abuse. An experience that left her broken, damaged, and clinging to drugs and meaningless hook-ups to numb her pain.

When Josie disappeared years ago, she took a piece of Tristan with her.  She’s the girl he thought he lost forever—the one he’s never been able to forget.  Now a twist of fate has brought them back together, and he never wants to let her out of his inked arms again.  But Tristan is haunted by a dark past of his own.  On the run from ruthless criminals that shattered Josie’s world years ago, reentering her life puts them both in danger.

As Josie and Tristan’s lives become tangled once again, they find themselves unwilling and unable to escape the relentless pull that draws them together.  But will the past leave their love in ruins—or bind them together for a lifetime? 

I found this book to not only be complicated to follow, but very difficult to put down.  I it was packed with intense action from the first page.  After the first few chapters, we were finally able to identify all of the characters and their roles that is when the story sucked me in and never let go.

Josie Banks, orphaned as a teenager, spent time in a foster home till she aged out.  After witnessing her father’s murder, she lost all memory of her life as McKenzi Delaune.  She lived in a rat hole of an apartment and did her art work in the middle of the night on any public sign and building she could find.  She was attracted to the bar tender at a local pub after witnessing him having a meltdown in the alley a few weeks prior.  She would go in there to sit and watch him during his shift, sketching his face as well as others in the bar.  She just needed to be close to him but not understanding why.

Tristan lost the girl of his dreams when he was a teenager.  He was so intelligent he had an instant spot at Harvard, but his sadness took him on a different path.  Finding Fiona Moloney was his lucky break he thought.  Giving up the life he had planned for this woman was the only choice for him, until that relationship lead him into a life of crime and later heart break.  Just going through life one day at a time he meets Josie and his world come to a spinning stop.  He knew this woman, he knew she held a piece of his heart, but she didn’t remember him.

There are so many powerful characters in this story, the plot was so twisted it never let up.  I was spell bound by the secrets that were unraveling in front of me.  I soon became suspicious of everyone as they entered the story.  I give this author 5 stars alone for keeping me on the edge of my seat during the whole story.  We find out that Tristan and Josie’s lives were forever changed by one man, one person who was out for revenge.  Although the sights set on Josie’s family had nothing to do with Tristan, he was soon sucked into this drama for other reasons that he will never understand.  As the facts are revealed we find the evil deeds of one man weaved a web of death, destruction and lies for many.  I highly recommend this book if you love mystery, drama and a story of love and fate.