Review: A Forbidden Love by Kerry Postle

Title: A Forbidden Love
Author: Kerry Postle
Publication: April 2nd 2019 by HQ Digital
Genre: Historical Fiction
Purchase it on: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo
Rating: 4/5★

An extraordinary story against all the odds…
He vowed in his letter to one day meet her again, once the war was over. But it was a letter Maria couldn’t bring herself to read…

Growing up in the humble Spanish town of Fuentes, Maria dreamed of seeing the world and marrying one day. But before her life can truly start, civil war breaks out and Fuentes is torn apart by violence, secrecy and corruption.

Maria vows to take a stand, yet as an unspeakable tragedy rocks her trust in human decency, her heart hardens and the love she once believed in seems far out of reach. But when she falls for an occupying soldier, she questions whether she can truly love someone who is her enemy?

As I'm writing this review after finishing A Forbidden Love I'm still feeling overwhelmed and in awe by the book because it realy left a big impression on me. It took me a good while to read it but I wanted to take my sweet time with it because I knew I wanted to absorb each and every word. Obviously it was an amazing read but even more than that it was an important one as well. 

I'm finding it's kind of hard writing this review because I'm still reeling for everything that happened in it. I'm gonna start with saying that before reading this book I knew pretty much nothing about the Spanish Civil War. I was never taught anything about it in school, which now seems like a real shame because it was such an important and devastating event in human history. And we can't ever forget it. 

As horryfing some of the events in this book were I really did love the story. I'd even say it's one of my favorite historical fiction novels I've read so far this year. The story gripped me so hard that sometimes I was almost in tears because of it. I don't think we're necessarily supposed to like the main character, Maria. She's sixteen years old at the start of this book, when the Civil War started and she was rather self-indulgent but who wasn't like this at that age? But even so I actually did like her, which is kinda surprising because I usually tend to lean more towards disliking such characters. But Maria was also courageous, tough and independent. I came to admire her growth throughout the novel. I also totally loved her father. He was probably my favorite character if I have to name one. 

Even though I wasn't too familiar with the Spanish Civil War, I could definitely tell that Kerry Postle did a lot of research and poured her heart into this book. It really shows and that was a huge part of why this book stood out to me so much. Of course I had hoped to like it after I read the author's previous book, The Artist’s Muse (which was a favorite of mine in 2017) so I'm ectastic that I enjoyed it as much as I did. 

I also want to say that, since I know my blog readers like to know about if the romance was any good or if it took over the plot, and I'm happy to say that no, it didn't. Personally I felt like the romance wasn't like the main focus of it all. Yes, it played a part in the story obviously since the title is A Forbidden Romance but it didn't overshadow anything else. And I really liked that.

A Forbidden Love by Kerry Postle was a beautifully written story about a terrible time in history for Spain. It's not a happy book but I'm sure it will leave readers satisfied in the end and maybe even wiping a tear away like I did. The writing was absolutely amazing and the characters were all so close to my heart. Especially Maria and her father. I can't help but highly recommend this book whether or not you like history or romance. I think it would be a great read for everyone!

If you want to find out more about this book or the author you can find more info at:
Website | Twitter | HarperCollins UK | Amazon

And also don't forget to check out my review of The Artist's Muse here.