Review by Joelle -- Escape by Belle Ami
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Joelle
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Review by Joelle -- Escape by Belle Ami
[Following is a volunteer review of "Escape" by Belle Ami.]
3 out of 4 stars
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Escape is a romantic thriller which talks of dangers of a nuclearized Saudi Arabia and the extent it is willing to go to achieve that dream.
When Cyrus Hassani, an assistant to the deputy director of Oghab2 is ordered to seduce and have sex with an abducted American student for information, he knows things are about to get complicated and both his survival and that of the said lady depends on it.
Layla Rose Wallance a student from Harvard University accepts to meet her boyfriend’s parents while vacationing in Dubai where they are both kidnapped and taken to Saudi Arabia to be held for ransom. The boyfriends parents only negotiate for their sons release, it will be up to a Mossad agent who will be activated and given a mission, to get Layla out of Iran at all cost or kill her.
Cyrus could kill his enemy twenty-five different ways with his bare hands. To him it was like making an omelet, to him cooking, delivering a death blow and lovemaking were considered artistic accomplishments’. Family, country and God were meaningless until he laid his eyes on the fiery, auburn haired beauty with the stubbornness to match the color of her hair.
All the escape routes are sealed, both of them are running to survive, Will they be able to escape? Will Cyrus get to meet his sworn enemy one last time? Can the love between this two survive their different cultures? Will Cyrus accept that even the hardest souls deserves a chance at love?
I rate this book Escape by Belle Ami a 3 out of 4 stars. The book was well written but I found it a bit repetitive, for example the writer will use a word like ‘namazlik or namaz’ then go ahead to define what it was. It looked like reading a dictionary to me. The use of words like pussy to describe the vagina and cock to describe the penis kind of cheapened the book and made it a bit less romantic.
Character build was good but it could have been better, we were not allowed to bond with the characters as expected. For example the father who plays a major part in Layla's rescue came out as weak and vulnerable. He did not try to enlist the help of his government to get his daughter back, he was more than too willing to side with anyone to bring her back even though it would have put millions of people to harm. In the beginning we are told that Dr Wallance had promised to stop his research for the sake of humanity but later on we are told he was building it in secrect. If his research was as dangerous as made to believe what was the intention of doing it in secret, what would have happened to the final research without the kidnapping of his daughter ?
The chemistry between Layla and Cyrus was good but somehow rushed, we never understood what exactly made Layla fall in love with Cyrus other than the fact that he saved her life. Layla was a bit stuck up on being a virgin, the first thing she thinks when she learns about being abandoned in Saudi Arabia was that she did not sleep with her boyfriend which looked petty considering being in a foreign prison not knowing what will happen to her and having wasted two years in a relationship with someone who thought so little of her. I expected to feel her anger, pain and betrayal not the casual behavior we were given.
Layla came across as someone who was selfish and childish from the moment she met Zamir's parents. It is normal for a mother to try to intimidate her son's girlfriend but it is petty to try and compete for the son's attention with the mother and even take offence when things do not go as you planned, this appeared to be insecurity and not believing what she had with Zamir.
The character Zamir was not given the desired potential, he too was a victim of his culture and his parents but I think the writer should have done more to bring about the dislike. Maybe he could have been a player who has hurt Layla many times before because of her resolve to remain a virgin, maybe he could have been a terrorist working with the rebel group in Saudi Arabia to extort money from his parents or to use Layla but his greatest sin on this book was to be obedient to his parents and lacking financial means to ransom her from the rebels.
It was not clear how Layla ended up in a state prison, from the onset the government were not involved with their kidnapping the r
ebels were the ones involved unless the prison acted as a holding house for both rebels and government, but we are told she was taken to a state prison directly, were they working with the Saudi Arabia's government we will never know.
I would have loved to see what happened to the boyfriend and see at least a meeting where he tried to woe her back with lies and apologies trying to explain his reasons. The story about the FBI not following up on where the dad went, trying to get him back or offering another option to Layla's dad and creating some sort of diplomatic tensions would have made it more interesting.
******
Escape
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3 out of 4 stars
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Escape is a romantic thriller which talks of dangers of a nuclearized Saudi Arabia and the extent it is willing to go to achieve that dream.
When Cyrus Hassani, an assistant to the deputy director of Oghab2 is ordered to seduce and have sex with an abducted American student for information, he knows things are about to get complicated and both his survival and that of the said lady depends on it.
Layla Rose Wallance a student from Harvard University accepts to meet her boyfriend’s parents while vacationing in Dubai where they are both kidnapped and taken to Saudi Arabia to be held for ransom. The boyfriends parents only negotiate for their sons release, it will be up to a Mossad agent who will be activated and given a mission, to get Layla out of Iran at all cost or kill her.
Cyrus could kill his enemy twenty-five different ways with his bare hands. To him it was like making an omelet, to him cooking, delivering a death blow and lovemaking were considered artistic accomplishments’. Family, country and God were meaningless until he laid his eyes on the fiery, auburn haired beauty with the stubbornness to match the color of her hair.
All the escape routes are sealed, both of them are running to survive, Will they be able to escape? Will Cyrus get to meet his sworn enemy one last time? Can the love between this two survive their different cultures? Will Cyrus accept that even the hardest souls deserves a chance at love?
I rate this book Escape by Belle Ami a 3 out of 4 stars. The book was well written but I found it a bit repetitive, for example the writer will use a word like ‘namazlik or namaz’ then go ahead to define what it was. It looked like reading a dictionary to me. The use of words like pussy to describe the vagina and cock to describe the penis kind of cheapened the book and made it a bit less romantic.
Character build was good but it could have been better, we were not allowed to bond with the characters as expected. For example the father who plays a major part in Layla's rescue came out as weak and vulnerable. He did not try to enlist the help of his government to get his daughter back, he was more than too willing to side with anyone to bring her back even though it would have put millions of people to harm. In the beginning we are told that Dr Wallance had promised to stop his research for the sake of humanity but later on we are told he was building it in secrect. If his research was as dangerous as made to believe what was the intention of doing it in secret, what would have happened to the final research without the kidnapping of his daughter ?
The chemistry between Layla and Cyrus was good but somehow rushed, we never understood what exactly made Layla fall in love with Cyrus other than the fact that he saved her life. Layla was a bit stuck up on being a virgin, the first thing she thinks when she learns about being abandoned in Saudi Arabia was that she did not sleep with her boyfriend which looked petty considering being in a foreign prison not knowing what will happen to her and having wasted two years in a relationship with someone who thought so little of her. I expected to feel her anger, pain and betrayal not the casual behavior we were given.
Layla came across as someone who was selfish and childish from the moment she met Zamir's parents. It is normal for a mother to try to intimidate her son's girlfriend but it is petty to try and compete for the son's attention with the mother and even take offence when things do not go as you planned, this appeared to be insecurity and not believing what she had with Zamir.
The character Zamir was not given the desired potential, he too was a victim of his culture and his parents but I think the writer should have done more to bring about the dislike. Maybe he could have been a player who has hurt Layla many times before because of her resolve to remain a virgin, maybe he could have been a terrorist working with the rebel group in Saudi Arabia to extort money from his parents or to use Layla but his greatest sin on this book was to be obedient to his parents and lacking financial means to ransom her from the rebels.
It was not clear how Layla ended up in a state prison, from the onset the government were not involved with their kidnapping the r
ebels were the ones involved unless the prison acted as a holding house for both rebels and government, but we are told she was taken to a state prison directly, were they working with the Saudi Arabia's government we will never know.
I would have loved to see what happened to the boyfriend and see at least a meeting where he tried to woe her back with lies and apologies trying to explain his reasons. The story about the FBI not following up on where the dad went, trying to get him back or offering another option to Layla's dad and creating some sort of diplomatic tensions would have made it more interesting.
******
Escape
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on Smashwords
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Latest Review: Diary of a Snoopy Cat by R.F. Kristi
