Book Review – Cloud Walking (Find You In The Dark #1.5) by A. Meredith Walters

Please note that Cloud Walking is meant to be read AFTER  Find You In The Dark. It is not a stand alone and contains spoilers for that story.  My review, however, is spoiler-free 😉

What an absolute treat to be given a novella like this!

Its not often that you are able to get a part of the story that quite literally happens DURING a favorite book you’ve read – that takes the time to shine the spotlight on the secondary characters, to follow their lives and stories for a while, and to see the main characters you have come to love from a whole new perspective.

I thought it completed FYITD with details that wouldn’t have made sense to include in FY but that you still really wanted.

Maggie, Rachel and Danny have all been best friends since Kindergarten. Rachel has been in love with Danny since the day he saved her from bullies, but unfortunately, he has never seen her yet as anything but the very best of friends.

There was this pull between them that both of them felt, that Rachel desperately wanted to give in to and that Danny kept trying to ignore – unsure if the feelings were returned but really all they needed was a nudge in the right direction, which, thanks to their direct, no-BS, best friend, Maggie, they got 🙂

Having only seen Rachel and Danny from Maggie’s POV so far in Find You In The Dark, it was so wonderful to get inside their heads and see what they were thinking… and of course, to watch them get a beautifully happy ending.

 “I just want to be the only thing he sees. I want to feel like we’re walking on clouds when we’re together. That I’m the girl he wants.”

I loved it because I felt like I already knew them so well from the previous book that I was able to instantly connect with them both right from the start of the novella – it was kind of just like taking a side step.

I’ll say again how much I really love this author’s writing. Its just one of those styles that flows so smoothly and keeps you immersed in the story.

I’ll say that  normally avoid novellas because I find I don’t usually have the time to connect with the characters, but I felt that because I read this one directly after Find You In The Dark, it just felt to me more like I was reading extra scenes from it – like it was somehow just an extension of that book. And, as such, I feel like my rating is also an extension of Find You In The Dark. I can’t rate them separately because the stories belong together.

I repeat. This is NOT a standalone.

But the whole story (starting with Find You In The Dark and leading here to Cloud Walking), the characters, everything, to me is worth 5 stars.

Basically, if you loved FYITD, and all its characters, then you’ll definitely love this.

It was short, sweet and I loved that Danny and Rachel got their HEA in the midst of all the emotional turmoil going on with Maggie and Clay. As its own story though, it was a lot less emotional – no tears or anything. It’s just a cute, short, sweet story of two best friends falling in love.

“There is no Daniel Lowe without Rachel Bradfield.”

The story takes place parallel to FYITD so be warned again, there are major spoilers in this book if you haven’t yet read Clay and Maggie’s story!

I would highly recommend reading this whole story. They’ve made it onto my favorites pile 🙂