The Addicted Series/Calloway Sisters series is a New Adult book series by Krista and Becca Ritchie that deals with issues such as addiction, the difficulty of being famous, abuse, and mental health issues. The six main characters are Lily Calloway (a sex addict), Loren Hale (an alcoholic), Rose Calloway (Lily's sister and a fashion designer), Connor Cobalt (Lily's tutor and Rose's boyfriend), Ryke Meadows (Lo's brother) and Daisy Calloway (Lily and Rose's much younger sister, who is also a model). The original series is the Addicted series, focusing on Lily and Lo. Calloway Sisters is a spinoff that fits into the narrative, and focuses on the other two couples: Connor and Rose, and Daisy and Ryke. There are ten books in the two combined series:
- Addicted To You (2013) (Addicted)
- Ricochet (2013) (Addicted companion novel)
- Addicted For Now (2013) (Addicted)
- Kiss The Sky (2014) (Calloway Sisters)
- Hothouse Flower (2014) (Calloway Sisters)
- Thrive (2014) (Addicted companion novel, bridging the gap for those who didn't read Kiss The Sky and Hothouse Flower)
- Addicted After All (2014) (Addicted)
- Fuel the Fire (2015) (Calloway Sisters)
- Long Way Down (2015) (Calloway Sisters)
- Some Kind Of Perfect (2016) (Epilogue novel that concludes both series)
The authors have a website [1]
, Tumblr [2], Twitter [3], Pinterest [4], Facebook [5] and YouTube [6]. The series extras (missing scenes, a web series, playlists and YouTube chats) are here [7].
This work provides examples of:
- Can't Have Sex, Ever: When Lily gets a new therapist, this is what he tells her is the solution to her sex addiction. It's not long before she and Lo decide to ignore this.
- Cast Full of Crazy: All the main characters have massive issues.Loren: [We] ride these extremes of life, rarely wading in the “okay” content state. Connor is too conceited. Rose is too high-strung. Daisy is too wild. Ryke is too aggressive. Lily is too awkward. I'm too hateful.
- Deadpan Snarker: Mostly Lo, Rose and Ryke (The Hot-Tempered Triad) but Connor has shades of this as well.
- Erotic Eating: After Lily's sex addiction is revealed to the media, there is a scene where she doesn't want to order a hot dog to eat in public, since she knows what it will look like.
- Flashback: There are several of these in the series, showing Lily and Lo or Connor and Rose's younger years. Ryke and Daisy don't have any, since they didn't know each other as children.
- Functional Addict: Lily and Lo seem like this at the beginning of the first book. This doesn't last long.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: One of the reasons Lily and Lo didn't date at first. Daisy and Ryke as well, to a lesser extent.
- Idle Rich: Averted. All of the main characters have jobs despite having massive trust funds.
- In-Series Nickname: Lily calls Rose and Connor the Nerd Stars.
- The Internet Is for Porn: In-Universe justification for Lily not using a smartphone and rarely using the internet on her own.
- The Jailbait Wait: What Julian was doing with Daisy until she broke up with him.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Rose and Lily, neither of whom were trying for a baby or even wanted one, got pregnant within two weeks of each other. In Long Way Down, Daisy desperately wants a child, and it takes months before she finally gets pregnant.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: In a stairwell, in a car, in the shower, in a public bathroom, in the forest...
- Maternity Crisis: Several of Rose's children's births.
- No Antagonist: The companion novels are character-focused and don't have a central conflict.
- No Bisexuals: An In-Universe example: when Connor is revealed to have a history of same-gender relationships, he is immediately considered gay, despite being in a heterosexual marriage. He considers himself to not fit under any label.
- Not in Front of the Kid: Averted. Ryke doesn't tone down his language in front of his own kids or any of his nieces and nephews.
- One Drink Will Kill the Baby: Connor's reaction when Rose almost downs a shot of tequila while pregnant. He knew about the pregnancy, despite her not telling him, and was trying to make her confess by offering her a drink. She almost took his offer.
- Parental Neglect: Lily's mother barely paid attention to her and instead focused on her sisters, to the point where she was practically living at Lo's house as a teenager and her mother never cared or even noticed.
- Jonathan Hale was neglectful and abusive of Lo, and Ryke never even met him until he was a teenager.
- Connor's mother sent him off to boarding school and rarely paid attention to him.
- Show Within a Show: Princesses of Philly, We Are Calloway, and the Fourth Degree comics universe.
- Slut-Shaming: Happens to Lily frequently after her sex addiction is revealed to the media.
- Successful Sibling Syndrome: While she was a teenager, Rose's ambitions and Daisy's modeling took up their mother's attention, and Lily was mostly ignored as her main asset, her relationship with Loren Hale, didn't need any prompting or guidance.
- Therapy Is for the Weak: Averted. Multiple characters, most notably Lily, Connor and Daisy, attend therapy regularly.
- True Companions: The core group is very close and stays close even as they grow older, even living in the same neighborhood for at least a decade after starting their own families.
- What If the Baby Is Like Me: Lo has a moment of this once Lily gets pregnant: he's worried that the child will inherit the gene for alcoholism, especially if it's a boy.
