From Lukov with Love is my first time reading Mariana Zapata’s work. I picked this as part of the Kindle Hispanic Heritage month challenge based on the many positive reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Its nomination in best romance category in 2018 also played a role in influencing my decision. Zapata is dubbed the queen of slow burn romance and after reading From Lukov with Love I can see why.
Title: From Lukov with Love
If someone were to ask Jasmine Santos to describe the last few years of her life with a single word, it would definitely be a four-letter one. This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.
Author(s): Mariana Zapata
Narrator(s): Callie Dalton, Teddy Hamilton
Published by Self Published on May 1, 2018
Pages: 540
Length: 14 hours and 55 minutes
Genre(s): Contemporary Sports Romance
Source: Kindle Unlimited, Purchase
Format: Audiobook, eBook
Purchase: Amazon|Audible
Rating:
Heat Level:
After seventeen years—and countless broken bones and broken promises—she knows her window to compete in figure skating is coming to a close.
But when the offer of a lifetime comes in from an arrogant idiot she’s spent the last decade dreaming about pushing in the way of a moving bus, Jasmine might have to reconsider everything.
Including Ivan Lukov.
This was quite the slow burn. The romance, which came out of left field, came into play at around eighty percent into the story. For a book which is over 500 pages/ 14 hours of listening, one would expect the romance would have developed earlier. Of course, at that point, I didn’t buy into this change in their relationship. There was no real development in that area. They had no chemistry, and their interactions lacked the emotions one would expect from two people in love with each other. I never once got the feeling these two liked each other, much less to fall in love. Their constant bickering and name-calling, which was fun at first, became tiresome the deeper one goes into the story one goes.
Now, despite its failure in the romance, From Lukov with Love delivered a lovely story of self-discovery, acceptance and forgiveness. The story shows how the heroine grew throughout the story. She knows what she wants and works hard to achieve her dreams. However, self-doubt and fear of failure held her back. Eventually, she overcame those negatives. I loved the support her family gave her. They believed in her capabilities, even when she doubted herself.
It was interesting seeing the story develop through Jasmine’s eyes. However, it would have nice to get Ivan’s POV. Without Ivan’s POV, the reader couldn’t tell when he developed romantic feelings for Jasmine. As the story was told mainly from Jasmine’s POV, the reader spends a lot of time in her head. From there, one sees her insecurities. However, Jasmine’s character was quite abrasive. One may find it difficult to like her. It took me quite a while to warm up to her.
I am still on the fence where Ivan I concerned. He behaves like a jerk for most of the story. Then, when Jasmine fell ill, his tender side reared up. It felt forced, and personally, I thought he showed that side because he needed her to get better for their competition. The story provided some comic relief at the right moment. It helped to balance out the moments where Jasmine’s inner monologue became tiresome.
Although From Lukov with Love did not wow me, I will not hesitate to try another one of Zapa’s books.
The story’s narration was performed by Callie Dalton and Teddy Hamilton. Callie’s delivery of Jasmine’s wit, passion, sarcasm, and self-doubt was on point. This is my first time listening to Callie, and I thought she did a wonderful job. Teddy’s narration occurs whenever dialogue for Ivan’s character comes into play. He did an excellent job of bringing Ivan’s character to life.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
I have been wanting to try her books for a while, but other than adding a couple to my Kindle when they were on really good sale , I haven’t read one. I think I was intimidated by the length of them. 🙂 Wow, no obvious romance to 80% is definitely slow burn. LOL Glad the personal growth part was strong. I’ll get around to her books at some point.
I don’t mind slow burn romance, but this was too slow for my liking.
From your review I think your rating is generous
The story did have some good points, despite its failure in the area of romance.
I haven’t read this author but my impression she is highly rated.
Yes, it would seem a lot of readers enjoy her work.
Oh yes the way that this author writes slow burn romance is REALLY SLOW BURN haha its very different from most slow burn romances and they are long! lol I haven’t read this one though but I do recommend Under Lock! The romance is very well done in that one.
This one was so slow that the romance was practically non-existent. I do plan to try her work again. Thanks for the recommendation.
I recommend The Wall of Winnipeg and Me or Kulti over this one. I enjoyed it a bit more than you did, but it was not my favorite from Zapata.