Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: In This Iron Ground
SERIES: Natural Magic #1
AUTHOR: Marina Vivancos
PUBLISHER: self-published
RELEASE DATE: September 3, 2018
BLURB:
Damien is nine years old when his parents die. What should have been the worst moment of his life begins a journey shadowed by loneliness and pain. The night of a full moon, four years and seven foster homes later, Damien flees to the forest, desperate to escape everything.
Instead, he finds the Salgado pack, and the earth beneath his feet shifts. Damien has seen the Salgado children in his school: Koko, who is in his class, and Hakan, two years older and infinitely unreachable. Damien is suddenly introduced into a world that had only ever existed in his imagination, where there is magic in the forest and the moon. He meets creatures that look like monsters, but Damien knows that monsters have the same face as anybody else.
Over the years, Damien and Hakan grow closer. First, just as friends and foster brothers in the Salgado house, and then into something heated and breathless when Damien joins Hakan at college. Despite what he may yearn for in the darkest part of the night, Damien knows, deep down in that bruised and mealy part of his core, that he’s not good enough to be part of the Salgado family, their pack. He’s not worthy of calling Hakan his home.
Even though he knows in the end it’ll hurt him, he’ll hold onto this for as long as he can.
CONTENT WARNING: This book contains themes of emotional and (nonsexual) physical child abuse and the subsequent emotional, cognitive, and behavioural impacts.
This story contains sexually explicit scenes between consenting adults and is meant for an adult audience.
REVIEW:
How do I even begin to describe this book? I started crying from the minute I started reading and don’t think I stopped til the end. Some we’re tears of joy, but most were not. This is a tough book. I think it reminds me some of my own past. But this book is incredible. It’s a life lesson through abuse, to a real family, to hope, to love. To escaping one’s fears, overcoming the dark thoughts and the negativity. And to knowing through everything, you are worthy.
Damien has had the roughest few years ever. Losing his parents at 9, in a tragic car accident, to being passed around foster homes for the past four years. And this last home is a doozy. They can’t handle him being a kid so he’s tied down. Almost everyday. He has nightmares and is terrified. He goes from being numb and broken, to feeling unloved and unworthy. On an escape run from his foster home, he meets something in the forest. Quite a few somethings. But he’s not afraid. Just resigned that it’s finally his time to die. Or so he thinks. But they see something in Damien, and as the head of her pack, Mia, wants to know more about him. He learns about their pack and all the kids. A few in school with him. Even as they draw closer, he still doesn’t feel as he fits in. One tragic day becomes too much, and Damien decides his life is too much. When he awakens, he learns how much he really is loved, but he can’t accept it. Everything he loves, he ruins he thinks. But Koko and Hakan can bear to be without him now. When they realized he might have died, things changed. They became a tight knit group, friends, foster family, and more. But Damien has a lot of demons to exorcise. And maybe finally he can accept, he’s loved, he’s family, he’s pack.
This book tore through me from the first pages. To read what Damien went through…*shudder*. What he felt. What he thought. Sometimes I felt as if he were in my own head. But what got me the most was the mom in me. I was like Hakan. I wanted to kill his foster carers. To bully him, and put him down, and physically tie him to his chair and bed?!?!? Yeah. No. Uh uh. Death by dismemberment. When Damien finally got to the Salgados to be a part of their family, it was hard. He had gotten better around them, by not flinching or expecting a slap or hit. He got better at other things, but accepting love or being told he was worthy or such, was hard to swallow. And it is. When you are beaten down for so long, you eventually believe the bad. Maybe he was really just bad. Sadly, it wasn’t his fault at all. But he tried. He tried so hard to hold on to hope. Hold on to the fact they weren’t going to kick him out. That they meant what they said. And he blossomed in so many ways. The fears were still there. He begrudgingly got help with therapy. And began to learn what were his thoughts and someone else’s. And he bloomed even more. After all he had been through, it was so beautiful. Even more when he could pass along his friendship to another like him.
Abuse is hell. No matter the form. And there are many. It leaves psychological scars and nightmares as well as physical ones. We feel unloved, unworthy and utterly alone. We are scared to show our faces and scared of what people think. We are taught we are not worth it. And much more. But hopefully healing can begin at some point. If you know someone like that, be a friend. You may be the only one they have.
I recommend this book. But bring tissues and lots of them.
RATING: 
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