On Every Street by Karina Halle Series: The Artist's Trilogy #0.5
Published by Metal Blonde Books on March 9, 2013
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Suspense
Pages: 263
Format: Kindle
Source: Kindle Purchase
When young con artist Ellie Watt decides to call herself Eden White and go after the drug lord who ruined her as a child, she never expects to fall for one of his henchmen. But Javier Bernal is no ordinary man. Subtly dangerous and overwhelmingly seductive, Eden finds herself passionately in love with Javier, the very person she's set-up to betray. With her body and heart in a heated battle against her deep need for revenge, no one will walk away from this con a winner.
Takes place six years before Sins & Needles. It can be read before or after Sins & Needles and may also be read as a standalone.
Linda and I read On Every Street for the Can You Read a Series in a Month? Challenge.
On Every Street was a bit hard for me to get into for some reason. Probably because Ellie/Eden was a character I couldn’t relate to immediately. She was a teenager who’d been raised by criminal parents. But once I engaged, I read quickly. What were your initial thoughts?
Oh, I agree! She was difficult to relate to, but I did get into the story, I was very intrigued about her plan once the story started to unfold.
You and I discussed this some already but I wanted to include this here as well. I found it difficult to believe Ellie/Eden would be so unskilled at being a con artist. She was raised in this lifestyle and yet when she was living it, she wasn’t always successful. This resulted in quite a few eye rolls for me. You?
Oh my gosh, yes, the eye rolls happened quite often. Especially because I found her to be so very naive. How she ‘forgot’ most everything she learned, because of a hot guy? And because she was so passionate about what she was going to do…
Ellie/Eden’s desire for revenge for what had been done to her was understandable. Her vehicle to and method for revenge seemed a little too far-fetched. Especially when Gus was involved. (His role really made me scratch my head.) This revenge scheme is the element that was the foundation for the story so that it didn’t work was…problematic. How did you feel about this element?
I agree, it was far-fetched, and I don’t see how it could have worked. I felt like the way she tried to set things up was doomed from the beginning, and again, her naivetè was just too much for me.
Gus and the way he helped her seemed weird. Their connection was odd, in my opinion. Do you agree?
Yeah, they hadn’t seen each other since she was a kid, but he was there for her, from the get-go, helping her with the weirdest things.
Ellie/Eden’s feelings for Javier – I didn’t agree with Gus’s assertion that she was in love with her revenge, not Javier. I think she did fall for him, especially since he made her feel special and loved. I don’t think she’d ever experienced that. What did you think?
I definitely think she fell for him, and I think she fell for him almost before they officially met. She didn’t seem to have a lot of experience with boys / men, so the could have been why.
Javier is an interesting character. Some of the details of his life made it seem as though he should be older. He’s definitely lived some things for his age. Again, we spoke about this offline but I do like your theory that he’s working for Travis for ulterior motives. That seems very plausible. Also, that thing he did towards the end – it felt out of character to me. He’s not a good guy but I didn’t think he’d do that. Your feelings about Javier?
Javier had been through a lot. And I’m glad you thought my theory worked 🙂 I thought he fell for Ellie / Eden just as hard as she fell for him. And I thought that when she drove away meaning to leave him, he understood that he should be careful with her. Apparently I was wrong.
It’ll be interesting to see if this book was necessary to read in order to enjoy the trilogy. You know me, I like to be thorough but I hope the trilogy doesn’t leave me feeling meh.
Again, I agree. I hope this will be as good as Halle books I’ve read in the past…
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
About Brandee @ (un)Conventional Bookworms
Brandee is a mom of 3 and a soon-to-be empty nester. She is also an avid reader, a genre omnivore, and a compulsive one-clicker - but she's in recovery. Besides being a reader, she's also a writer and hopes to divide the vast quantities of spare time she'll soon have between reading and finally publishing her first book.
Sometimes these prequel novellas really don’t have anything to do with the series. I hope the series is a bit better for you.
I hope the series is better than this prequel.