Heart Eyes by Effie Campbell
18+ Contains Adult Content
Heart Eyes is a dark stalker romance that follows Kat & Liam. Fourteen years ago, Kat saved Liam, who at the time was a little boy, hungry, dirty and needing a friend. Kat, just a little girl herself, became Liam’s friend. He never spoke a word, but he didn’t have to. Kat understood. Then, after a tragic event, they no longer saw each other. Liam thinks she will have forgotten him; he never forgot her, and when he, by chance, sees her again, he knows he is about to lose her again. He doesn’t want to scare her or ruin her life, so he is happy to watch her from the shadows, that is, until he sees someone else watching her. Someone from their past, who knows what she did and wants her to pay. Liam will go to the ends of the earth to protect Kat, the girl who holds his heart.
‘He’s hot. He’ll happily chow until you wet his face, what more do you want?’
To fill the boy-shaped hole in my soul. To know what happened to him. Stuffing my fork into my food, I lift my fingers to the heart-shaped rock I wear on a cord around my neck. A gift from him. The dark-haired, dark-eyed, dirty-kneed, bruised boy whom I’d taken under my wing.
•Dark romance •Trauma bonded •Scarred & tattooed •Masked stalker •Has loved her for fourteen years •Fights to death for work •Makes her moan down the phone to her ex •Unhinged obsession
•Historic child abuse •Expicit intimacy •Unhinged actions •Dubious consent •Forced intimacy •Violence •Kidnapping •Murder
And look at you. A masked man’s got you by the throat, and you’re still begging to be
fucked. I don’t deserve you.
This book…this book has a hold on me. When I first reviewed this… because yes, typically I am writing this review late *eye roll* I gave this 4 stars, but the fact that I still think about this book daily means I rated this wrong!
Kat and Liam met as children. Kat used to play in the woods, and Liam, who didn’t speak, used to just watch her, until he one day decided to approach her. She never bothered that he didn’t speak; she did enough talking for them both. She took care of him, she packed an extra lunch so he could eat, and she helped him get clean in the water. She was the only good thing in his life at that time. Liam was living in hell, and Kat unknowingly kept him going. I don’t want to spoil the story, so I will say that something happened and Kat & Liam didn’t see each other again.
Liam ends up in a few different foster families, until he ends up with the last one that actually cares and loves him. He thinks about Kat constantly, and likewise, Kat thinks about Liam all the time. When they were kids, Liam gave her a stone that looked like a heart that Kat turned into a necklace and always wears. Never did they think that after fourteen years they would find each other again.
Liam, being…well, obviously a little strange, decides to watch over Kat from a distance for a while…he doesn’t think she will want to know him, now that his face is all scarred from his underground fighting. So he wears a balaclava that he painted red hearts on the eyes of, and watches from the shadows. Liam can’t stay in the shadows for long, though, because Kat is being stalked by someone else, and Liam will do whatever he can to protect her.
I’ve loved you since the day we met, Kat. And I will love you to the day I die. If protecting you costs me that, it will be a life worthy of being lived.
I really loved this story. The reconnecting after so many years apart was cute. The fact that they never forgot one another is just so…words Letty…I don’t know how to word it, but I loved the yearning. I liked the pace of the book; we get flashbacks to when they were children, which I liked too. I liked Liam; he was protective, possessive, but also vulnerable and shy. Kat was strong, caring and also protective. I liked the plot, the mystery of who the stalker was, and also the mystery of what the incident was when they were younger.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. I was hooked from page one and didn’t want to put this down. I liked the characters, who were real, and we saw them grow into stronger versions of themselves. I am super happy that Effie announced there will be a second book, and I will 100% be reading that. I rated this 4 stars on my socials, in my book journal and on Amazon…but I would say that I was wrong and this is 5 stars.
Thank you, Effie, for the ARC.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🌶️🌶️/5
