Rina Kent: Black Knight

 Book 4 

I've been interested in reading this story since I began reading the first book in this series Xander and Kimberly were best friends once as children he was there for her on her worst day (when her grandmother passed away) and she was there for him on his when his mother left without even looking back... they made promises to each other but sometimes people don't keep their promises.

While Xander went on to be one of the most popular guys in school Kimberly struggled with being bullied and wanted to just be invisible... unfortunately she couldn't escape the bullying at home either since her mother is toxic mostly in her own world with her artistic talents she hides away while ignoring her children Kim's father works out of the country and is rarely home thankfully she finds purpose with taking care of her younger brother.

Unfortunately for Kim her younger brother looks up to Xander who lives across the street from them and has been her bully all this time... Why can't he forgive her for what happened years ago?  

Throughout this book you are seeing that maybe there is more to Xander and Kimberly's past than what Kim think's happened but since there is some miscommunication/no communication going on it takes a bit to get to the truth... but once the truth comes out will they ever be the same?  

*2026  *friends --> enemies --> more  *high school bully *dual pov  *Spice  *slow burn *family secrets

*family drama  *miscommunication/no communication *touch her and 💀 *young adult  *teenagers

*morally gray MMC  *flashbacks in book

*mental health trigger warnings (eating disorder, self harm, SI, alcohol addiction, abandonment) 

*part of a series but can be read on it's own (there were some spoilers for the series before it in the book so I would recommend not reading out of order like I did if you don't want the spoilers) 

Thoughts:

From the first book I read a few weeks ago I knew that Xander and Kimberly's story would be emotional since you could see how hard Kim was struggling with no longer having Xander as a friend and she was harboring guilt and grief of no longer having his friendship in her life and whatever happened between them must have been big.  From Xander's side you could tell that he was still struggling with it too since even when he was her bully his friends were getting to her by even being near her.

My heart went out to both of our leads and I wanted to give both of them a big hug Xander at a young age ran after his mom as she left without saying goodbye Kim was right there with him and didn't leave even when he told her to go... when you have that kind of friendship it's devastating to lose it especially at a young age and even more so when you don't know why he can't get over the past incident.

I did struggle with Xander for his treatment of Kimberly over the years she was a beautiful young lady who had a huge heart and for an unknown (to her) reason he allowed her to be bullied when he told her he would be her "Knight" and protector.  I was so mad at her mother for treating her so horrible.  

Kimberly being fat shamed and bullied at home and at school ends up leaning towards innappropriate coping mechanisms to cope with her internal struggles, feeling alone and not wanting to bother anyone she internalized a lot of her emotions bottling them up and hiding secrets of her own.  Xander is hot and cold with Kim which doesn't help with her spiraling emotions.

Both of our leads were battling their own demons but once they come together again it was like the missing piece of a puzzle fitting back together... only when family drama comes back to haunt them and big family secrets are exposed will their brittle renewed friendship be able to survive the truth?

As with the other books in this series that I did struggle with the characters acting like possessive adults when they were still teenagers in highschool.  This had a lot of twists and turns and I was here for it, I loved how they were both flawed but eventually owned it and worked on self improvements together.  

Mental health is important:  https://988lifeline.org/