Forbidden Love Duty and Devastating Betrayal

I just finished the book and I am devastated. The last few chapters went by in a flash. Cristian’s world was falling apart as he finally got the info the CIA had asked for, but the regime was onto him. And now his family is in danger. The way Cristian finally escapes from Romania is brutal and desperate, not some neat Hollywood ending. And the last scene with his mother was so powerful – her quiet strength, her self-sacrifice to allow Cristian to go free. The ending does not give you a neat and tidy “and they all lived happily ever after” for Romania and its people. Instead, it gives you a sense of the brutal and devastating reality of the revolution and the tremendous cost that was paid by so many. And Cristian’s own personal trauma. It is a haunting and very powerful conclusion to the book, but not an easy one to read and then sit and process for days after.

I've given up trying to keep my bookmarks up to date for this series. The links all die pretty quickly and so I've stopped renaming them. Now I just call them 'Site A (dead)', 'Site B (pop-up hell)', 'Site C (good but only up to ch 30)'. It's a bit of a digital archaeological project really. Reading this series is a bit of a nomadic experience. I'll read a section on one site and then it'll be taken down before I can read the next. I'm hoping that the sections that are currently good will all get transferred to a new, legitimate, site within the next year or two, but until then, if you're not prepared to deal with the instability of a series that hasn't yet crossed over into official English yet, then this series isn't for you. Come back in a year or two.

The epilogue is set 10 years after the rest of the book. It’s a series of snapshots of the characters’ lives. We get to see a Christmas card, a text message on a phone screen, a photo of a garden. We piece together what each of the characters is up to and it’s so satisfying because it feels so real. We don’t get a lengthy explanation of each character’s life, we get glimpses, like scrolling through each of their social media accounts. It’s so ‘show, not tell’ and it’s done to perfection. Since this book, so many other books have attempted to do the same but none of them have quite managed it as successfully.

Reading it feels like watching a slow-motion train crash where you’re pulling for both sides to change direction before it’s too late, watching as each mistake plays out before you can even warn them to change course. It’s horrifically fascinating.

For me, the experience was not ‘enjoyable’ in any conventional sense – it was stressful, often frustrating, and, at times, even emotionally draining. But I did experience it. I found it to be utterly compelling and at times, I couldn’t look away. The wreckage of the characters’ lives at the end of the novel was left for me to attempt to piece together and that in itself is a skill – be it on an author to create such reactions, or on a reader to recognize them for what they are.

This full-cast audio drama adaptation handles the ending wonderfully. The sound design fades out the large orchestral score and we are left with ambient nature sounds of wind, birds, and the protagonist walking. The actor's portrayal of the protagonist conveys a sense of exhaustion, relief and hope in her voice. You can even hear her smile in her voice when she says the final line of the story. It's a feeling that is hard to put into written word, but this audio drama conveys it well. The silence after the final line of the story is held for a beat longer than expected, allowing the audience to fully feel the protagonist's hard-won peace. It's a wonderful emotional punctuation to the end of the story and a great way to meditate on the story and characters after the story has ended. It's a great example of how adaptation can enhance the original story.

Classic romance novels with forbidden love have long been my favorite, and I highly recommend many of the classics available for free on Project Gutenberg, such as Jane Eyre for instance. Modern versions of forbidden love can be found in Kindle’s free book samples, on Wattpad under the tag “forbidden love”, and I recently picked up The Siren by Tiffany Reisz for only $0.00 during one of her promotions. Be sure to sign up for an author’s newsletter as they tend to offer up free exclusive content to their subscribers from time to time, many of which are indie written.

At the end of the contract, we see how every single person who has touched it has been warped by their own obsession. The protagonist’s family appears in the epilogue to find him gone from his chair, his wife’s wedding ring left on the table. They are just collateral damage to his downfall, but we see them clearly as silent observers to his self destruction. The antagonist may have won, but we see him in the post-credits scene frantically rewriting terms on a new contract. It is all just a cycle of behavior that no one can escape.

Lia is the main female protagonist of the book and two guys come to her village - Prince Rafe and Assassin Kaden. The two anonymous POV chapters before you know who is speaking (The Prince or The Assassin) were so cool. Reading the two guys before I knew which was which really drew me into their characters to figure out their motives without being misled by the title of the book and preconceived notions. The Prince, Rafe, is so confident. But also very curious and intrigueing. And The Assassin, Kaden, is very cold and detached but also very observant. It's a really clever device that makes both The Prince and The Assassin very interesting to read from the very beginning. Lia's support system is very fun too. Lia has three female friends - Pauline, Berdi and Gwyneth - that really add warmth and even humor to the story at times of high tension.

'Never Loving and Forgetting’ is a lovingly crafted and very emotional drama examining the issues of love, loss and relationships in the human life. It is centered round two characters and basically an exploration of the intensity of love faced by memory and fate.

A fundamental connection between a male lead and female lead is exposed when one instant moment changes their lives forever. Their newly found love will face immense hardship in trying to hold on as they search for a way to be together. The story also focuses on how one of them loses his memory and struggles to regain recollections from his past, with every recovered memory openly contradicting the current reality he is faced with. He will struggle trying to find a balance between memories of the past and reality of the current, even as he searches for ways to reconnect with others including his current love interest.

The scenes are beautifully shot to capture tension as well as coziness. Because of how the story is structured, we get to see a lot of development of the two leads as well as other characters. In supporting roles, they bring a lot of depth to the story, and some even complicate things for the leads or aid them in ways that are unexpected. Together, the entire cast explores the significance of memories and shared experiences of the two leads and how those affect their lives.

The show is able to pull a lot of emotions out of the viewer and forces us to think about how love can still exist in people’s lives even when memories are being taken away and how stronger bonds of connection than what physical life can create exist in many cases. The scenes have definitely pulled tears out of me on numerous occasions, so much that it’s evident the creators truly cared about developing and telling this meaningful story.

In summary, ‘Loving Never Forgetting’ is a beautiful portrayal of the love that can exist between two people, even when the woman has lost her memory. This drama will touch your heart and get you thinking. It is a love story that people in all sorts of relationships can relate to, and can help you to consider the importance of past and present. I highly recommend this, and I guarantee that ‘Loving Never Forgetting’ is one of those few dramas that will stick with you long after the drama has ended.

This would make for an amazing ending to a story, as well as an amazing soundtrack. I imagine a super mellow, acoustic, sad song, kept bare with minimal production. A simple voice and guitar would suffice. The song would fade out to nothing, no big, sweeping notes or ending music. The song would just sort of….end. It’s so emotional, and I imagine it to be a totally specific tone: not sad/angry, just tired/sad. Exhausted.