About the Book
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Author:
- Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
First Impressions: Lazy
What’s Your Type? Marriage of Convenience, Best Friends Turned Lovers, He Fell First, Been in Love the Whole Time
Meet Cute: BFFs with Strings Attached
The Lean: You Owe Me One
Dirty Talk: Scratching an Itch
We Need to Talk: Powers
Was it Good For You? Just Fine
Content Warning: Lightning in Her Hands features descriptions of physical, mental, and sexual abuse at the hands of a partner and abandonment and emotional abuse by a parent.
First Impressions: Lazy
It feels like someone was illustrating this cover and then ran out of time. The foliage is pretty, but the silhouettes of people—people that don’t even match the physical descriptions of the main characters—are so flat and bland.
What’s Your Type?
- Marriage of Convenience
- Best Friends Turned Lovers
- He Fell First
- Been in Love the Whole Time
Dating Profile
Teal Flores is the middle sister of three headstrong, loving women. They haven’t had the easiest life—their mother left when Teal was 4, and then the youngest sister, Sky, disappeared for eight years—but they’re survivors. Teal, especially; she’s a domestic abuse survivor and was the only one of the sisters to see her mother leave. But Teal feels like something inside her is broken, and her inability to control her powers and her unluckiness in love make that belief seem like something she’ll never be able to overcome.
Carter Velasquez is—or was—Teal’s best friend since they were little. He’s always been there for her, through thick and thin, until the day they kissed … and Teal starting dating someone else two days later.
Meet Cute: BFFs with Strings Attached
As a New Year’s Resolution, Teal listed making things right with Carter. So when she needs a date to her ex’s wedding, she thinks it might be the perfect opportunity to start fresh. But then Carter requires a favor for being her plus-one: marrying him so that he can get his inheritance.
The Lean: You Owe Me One
Carter knows that Teal doesn’t feel about him the way he feels about her. Unfortunately for them both, Teal thinks the same thing. Carter obviously has ulterior motives in his asking her to be his “fake” wife, but Teal sees it as a way for them to get back to good. They’re both working in the same direction, but it takes a while for their paths to converge.
Dirty Talk: Scratching an Itch
When Teal agrees to marry Carter, they put a strict “no sex” rule in place. Their chemistry, however, leads them to do pretty much everything other than penetrative intercourse. (And, yes, they get there eventually, too.) Teal even suggests, thanks to a suggestion from her sisters, that they just sleep together to get it out of their systems. Neither of them want to do anything of the sort, of course, but they don’t know that.
He nods, and then he yanks my legs open, again, taking care with my left foot. I gasp when I feel his hot breath against the slick parts of me. When he gives me a long, hard lick, I moan so loud, it’s like nothing exists but my voice and my pleasure for that long moment. “I fucking love this,” he says, and all my insecurities about my past, about the criticism I’d heard when I asked for this, they all melt away. Along with me, under the wide, hot pressure of Carter’s tongue.
Ed. note: This quote was pulled from a pre-release edition of the book. The final text might be different.
Ms. Perky’s Prize for Purplest Prose
I don’t read that much romance, but I have heard that butt play is all the rage at the moment. I don’t really get it, but I’m not one to yuck anyone’s yum. That said, Teal does go all the way when going down on Carter to make it as good for him as possible (as repayment for him putting his generous skills to amazing use earlier).
I shove these thoughts away by returning my mouth to his cock while sliding my hands between and under his legs. It takes a little searching, but I find what I’m looking for, and I don’t give myself time to stress about it—I do exactly what I’ve read in all the magazines, putting pressure at what I hope is the exact right spot.
I think it is the exact right spot, because he gasps, “Teal,” and instantly comes. “Fuck,” he chants over and over, lifting his hips again, in the exact way I’d just scolded him about.
Ed. note: Same as above.
We Need to Talk: Powers
I haven’t read the first book in this series, Witch of Wild Things, but I didn’t need to in order to read Teal’s story. Looking back, I wish I would have, however, to better understand the magic in the book. All of the women in the Flores family has a magical gift, but everyone but Teal can control their powers. Teal’s emotions control the weather, and as a person with bipolar disorder, her emotions can vary wildly throughout the day. (The other sisters can control plants and talk to animals, and their grandmother can see and talk to ghosts.) I actually wanted to know more about this familial magic than the romantic relationship.
Was it Good For You? Just Fine
I had fun with Teal and Carter’s story, but was definitely distracted by the wish to know more about the magic. And I’m not really sure if jumping into this series in the middle was a good decision; Carter came off as really flat, and I might have felt different had I met him previously. (I don’t know if he’s in the first book, though.) That said, I love Gilliland’s writing, and she does have a gift for writing magical realism. So, overall, I enjoyed myself just fine.
