Where Love Lies

• Author: Raz Tal Schenirer
• Genre: Romance
• Publication Date: August 20, 2024
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press

Thank you to Raz Tal Schenirer for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies that it took me so long to read and review this one.

When Ella Davidson’s world is turned upside down, and she is forced to transition from her picture-perfect all-American life to two years of mandatory military service abroad, the last thing on her mind is finding love. Then she meets the officer in charge of her unit, Liam Levine. Mysterious, confident on the verge of cocky, and unbearably gorgeous, Liam is everything Ella never knew she needed. And the spark between them? Magnetic. Undeniable. Dangerous. But as she and Liam navigate their secret love affair, Ella finds out that Liam is hiding a secret of his own—one that could ruin them both.

Building to an unforgettably emotional climax, Where Love Lies delves into the longings and lies of falling in love, the slippery slope of controlling relationships, and the strength it takes to find your own voice, reminding us of how hard it is to let go when everything in you wants to keep holding on.

I’m finally starting to get somewhat caught up with ARCs, and have been able to get to some that have been on the back burner recently. This was a read that I was looking forward to, although it wasn’t anything like what I thought it would be. However, I’m glad I read it, and I’d like to ask you to take my reviews for what they are: simply my own personal opinion of a book. 

This was a tough one for me to read and review. I loved the way Schenirer writes, and how this story unfolded. Her writing is beautiful: realistic and descriptive without being too flowery (check out this post for an example). The storyline feels realistic, and unfolds at a steady pace, making this a quick yet powerful read.

One aspect of the story I struggled with was the main character, Ella. I knew that this would be a New Adult story, but having grown up as very privileged and spoiled, I didn’t realize how immature she would read. At some level I had to be aware—kids who have grown up with money and privilege in America are different from those abroad. Ella moves to a country where young people mature faster, and often deal with heavier situations on a regular basis. 

It isn’t a surprise that Ella is resentful of her parents’ decision to uproot all of their lives in America and move, because her father has accepted a promotion. This understandably upsets all of the plans that Ella has made for the near future: attending Columbia University with her friends, studying premed, and living in Manhattan instead of suburban Connecticut. Instead, she’s planning for a move to a distant country that includes a mandatory two years of military service. She understands the language because it’s where her parents came from and the country where she was born, and her parents speak the language at home, even if Ella is so embarrassed of how it sounds and what her friends will think that she refuses to speak it at all. 

Predictably, Ella throws a tantrum and proceeds to spend all of her time sulking. I get that, and probably would have done something similar at her age, but she spent so much time being negative and grieving what she is missing out on that she completely ignores all of the potential positives that can come from this move. Unfortunately, she went from being her father’s little princess to thinking that she needs someone to protect her, to get her through her military service. 

In the American military, they ship you somewhere across the country for boot camp where you have limited contact with anyone outside the military for several months, then they assign you anywhere in the world. But in the army Ella joined, she’s able to bring a comforter set for her bunk among other things, she can speak to family or friends on the phone or by text at least one hour a day, and she got to go home and visit every single weekend. Knowing how different it is from the American military, I really had a hard time feeling too bad for Ella. She struggles in the early part of the book, but looking back on this as an adult, she makes all of her own problems and waits for someone to swoop in like the hero her father has been for her entire life.

“As long as I knew deep down that a part of Liam wanted me, I had something to work with. All I wanted from Liam, at least as a start, was for him to give me a sign, some sort of signal, that I was special and different, that I wasn’t like the rest of the girls. I wouldn’t be able to survive here if I didn’t have him looking out for me.”

Naturally, this leads her to the least appropriate love interest—her commanding officer. In her efforts to get close to him so she could pursue him, she sets herself up for some issues. But just as focused as she is on Liam, he seems to be doing his best to stay away. Of course, he isn’t working too hard to fight her off, and she’s busy ignoring red flags to continue engaging with him. They develop such a toxic dynamic right from the start. With a power imbalance, the relationship wouldn’t be based on mutual respect and trust. And what starts out as an unhealthy obsession with each other soon becomes an unhealthy relationship that neither can let go of.

What really got under my skin about Ella was the way that she actually started making progress, and then she ignored the warning signs that the relationship isn’t a healthy one. Abusive relationships are never easy to escape from, and far too often, the victim blames themselves for their partner’s behavior. Schenirer does a fantastic job of getting inside the head of a woman in an abusive relationship, and the reader gets to see it from the very beginning, in all of its ugly glory. It was so hard watching Ella take a step forward and two steps back, and knowingly make the same mistakes over again. 

Overall, this was a pretty good read, even if I really had a hard time with the main character. I didn’t want to give up on her, and she did finally show some growth, although it took her a really long time. By then, it felt too late for me to genuinely like her, even though I was able to empathize with her. It wasn’t the fact that she stayed in an unhealthy relationship for so long, it was that she constantly sabotaged her own independence, for almost the entire book. But as far as the abusive relationship and the thoughts of the partner being abused felt accurate. All of the red flags were present, and something I’m not sure that Ella ever noticed is that in the beginning of the book, she talks about her friends and engages with them and her family regularly. As she gets deeper into the relationship, she not only socializes with them increasingly less, she also speaks and think of them increasingly sporadically, isolating herself further from anyone who cares about her in a healthy way, and furthering his need to control every aspect of her life. So while I can’t say that I enjoyed it, because who really enjoys reading books about abuse, but it was a powerful read written in a short, snappy way that made it easy to read.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase through my links.