Review of Veiled Innocence by Ella Frank

Synopsis: Tick, tick, tock.

Time.

That’s all I have now.

A small room, a photograph, and time.

They want me to trust them and confess my sins.

They told me they wouldn't judge me—they lied.

I thought we could convince the world that this wasn't a crime.

We were wrong.

Time doesn't stand still.

The clock keeps ticking, the world is unconvinced, and now…

Now he is gone.

4 Stars!

Review: Addison, or Addy, has had a difficult two years since she suffered a pretty traumatic event in her life. With one event, everything changes - her mom, her dad, everyone's attitude towards her, and even within herself, she changes. She has been acting out her pain for the past two years by appearing to be perfect, put together, popular, successful, etc, and she carries a lot of pressure because of this. The only way she seems to find any relief is to keep her eye on time, and to make sure that she tries to control that time in her life.

Her senior year of high school starts off differently, however, because their is someone new in town and at school - her history teacher. She is drawn to him, and she pursues him. He initially sees this popular, very sexual girl, chasing him, but the more that he sees of Addy, the more he sees how broken she really is inside. He lets her reach him at that point, and then the forbidden story truly begins.

I didn't know how I would feel about this story. Obviously, it is taboo, and there is truly that outraged emotion that it is difficult to suspend as you think about Grayson being the adult. If you step back and consider the story, however, it is actually two broken people that somehow find one another and seem to be that missing piece to at least hold the other together. In that way, there is a lot of beauty to the story. There is also a lot of imagery that goes along with this story that you don't get the full picture of until the end. It was difficult, at times, because of the past to present look, as well as seeing the different point of views between Addy and Grayson, but, when you stick with it until the end, it's really quite amazing how the author pulled so much together that seemed so scattered and separate throughout the book. I think that I appreciate that, even while I'm curious to see if Addy and Grayson could make it once the taboo is gone and once some of their pain and grief gets healed - which I hope that it does get healed.

Jessica