4.5 stars

“Say I’m yours,” he demands.
I don’t hesitate. “You’re mine.”
“Say you’re mine.”
“I’ve only ever been yours.”

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What a wonderfully ANGSTY and HEART-WARMING romance!!

While this could technically be considered a second chance romance, the story was actually a little more complicated than that. Grace and Trent had been in love with each other for over twenty years. They were everything to each other, but their relationship had been through some rough patches. For reasons he couldn’t share with her, Trent shied away from ever telling her he loved her, even though he felt it in his heart and showed her through his actions. He’d never looked at another woman and had always only loved Grace but was held back because of the things that haunted him. She wanted a love like her parents had — she wanted marriage, a family, and the kind of commitment that his demons wouldn’t allow him to reach for. When things got rough enough to push them to a breaking point, she left. For good. And tried to move on with someone else. He knew he’d made mistakes but losing her like that showed him that no matter what he had been worried about with regards to their future, nothing could possibly be worse than losing her and he also realized that this was his last chance to make things right. He knew that and acted on it by doing absolutely everything in his power to win back the heart of the only woman he had ever loved.

I’m going to really honest with you, for reasons that I’ll explain more in depth in a minute, I frankly really disliked the first half of the book. However, the reason this book is still a favorite of mine and even truly a whole-hearted top recommendation is that I absolutely LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED the second half. Like LOVE LOVE LOVED IT!!! It was filled with SWOOON, DEEP FEELS, and absolutely everything I crave reading in romance. Just GORGEOUS!! So overall, I’d easily call this book a new favorite. However, I will explain everything in more detail…

Basically, the reason I disliked the first half of the book was that it was exactly the kind of angsty drama I least enjoy. Like literally the moment that Grace broke up with Trent in hopes that he’d come to his senses, everyone in her life pushed her to start dating this other dude, Cooper, who among other things was one of Trent’s close friends. I found this wrong on so many levels. First, I don’t believe in walking away from a relationship to show to the other person what they’re missing. And second, I feel like the advice that everyone (especially her friend Angie) kept giving her to date Cooper was very gender hypocritical — Grace was being encouraged to leave Trent to show him what he was missing and make him fight for her and also being encouraged to sleep with another guy. If the gender roles had been reversed and the guy left the girl to show her what she was missing and then immediately went out and slept with another girl, that would just solidify his status as a complete asshole. So the whole thing was unfair. And even Trent pointed out that in all their years of good and bad, he’d never even looked at another girl so like… WTF?

“I thought that maybe you’d see it. See what is right in front of your face. But I guess I was wrong… You’ve known me a long time. Have I ever been with another woman?”
Shame creeps into my stomach and I drop my eyes to my hands. “No.”
“No.” Trent repeats. “Not one other woman has been in my heart or my bed. It’s only ever been you.”

Now, I’m not saying he was a saint because he certainly had his share of failures and mistakes but I was actually fully on Team Trent for the first half of the book. Perhaps if we had seen flashbacks to scenes in the past where he’d done her wrong, then I would have understood her position more but I generally I just felt that what she did was unfair and wrong and I didn’t agree with the way she handled her relationship. He actually had a genuine reason for why he’d held back from the type of commitment she wanted and I feel like she really should have dug harder to get that.

“I’ve missed you, Gracie.”
“You only miss me because you don’t have me,” I somehow manage to say.
He lets out a low chuckle before his mouth brushes against mine. “I miss you because I hate bein’ away from you.”

And finally, the main reason I hate love triangles is that I don’t like spending half the book building up a relationship with the wrong guy when you as the reader knowwww without a doubt who the real hero of the story is. It’s like… what’s the point? AND again with the hypocrisy where lets be honest, if he left her and immediately started dating someone else, there’s no way she’d take him back. So just UGH. I disliked the first half of the book. HOWEVER. At 55%, the tides turned AND I FREAKING LOOOOVED THE SECOND HALF OF THE BOOK!!!!!!! Totally LOVED IT!

“I’m going to fix this,” he promises. “I’m going to show you how much we belong together. I know I’ve messed up. I’ve given you every reason to walk away. But I can’t lose you.”
“Why?” I ask… “Why now?
Trent’s hand brushes me cheek. “Because you’re mine. You’re my girl.”

As I mentioned above, it was hard for me to know exactly what it was that Trent did wrong over the years (other than not commit in a marriage-y way) because we didn’t get to see their fights first hand but, despite his mistakes, from what I could see of him, I absolutely LOVED him!!! When he knew everything was on the line to win back her heart, he jumped in full throttle. He was SWEET, LOVING, CARING, SWOOOOOOOONY, and willing to fight like hell for the woman he loved and always had loved. He was a protector by nature and I genuinely adored his character.

“Do you love me?” I ask.
His hand stops moving, and his eyes lock with mine. “I love you.”
“I need to hear it. I need you to mean it. I’m going to be needy. I’m going to question you. I’ve had almost twenty years of doubting us, can you handle that?”
Trent’s hands move to my face. His eyes are sad and full of regret. “I did this to you. I hate that I did. I hate that I put any doubt in your head. You’ve going to have to forgive me and I’m going to have to earn that. I know this, and it isn’t anything less than I deserve. I won’t do that to you again, Gracie. I won’t hurt you like that. I plan to tell you that I love you every day, because I do.”

The second half of the book was completely my kind of story! Like all the freaking way!! It was everything I love to read most in romance. I loved watching Trent win back Grace’s trust, show her that the love she’d always felt for him was not only returned but cherished. I swooned over and over again over how sweet and wonderful he was, and especially appreciated how much it was reinforced that if one of them faltered, the other would always have their back.

But their new-found trust in each other was put to the test when a long-kept secret rocked Trent’s world and brought him to his knees. It was intense, it was shocking to him, and it changed everything he thought he knew about his world. But I absolutely loved seeing them work through this crisis together and really take their relationship to the next level with the way they supported each other through it.

If there’s one thing I can’t resist in my life, it’s him. He knows what he’s doing and always has. Trent is the one thing I can’t quit. My heart has always belonged to him.

Gah. The whole last half of the book was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!! Not only was it a beautiful romance, but it was a HEART-FELT story of deep family bonds that brought tears to my eyes. OH MY GOSH, THE FEEEEEELS!!! My heart never stopped racing and I couldn’t read the pages fast enough! It was gorgeous, romantic, a little heart-breaking, but so incredibly fulfilling. It was everything I could have hoped for from this love story!

Rating: 4.5 stars (specifically for the second half of the book).
Adult Contemporary Romance. Can standalone.

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• Buy SAY I’M YOURS (Paperback)

______________________________

Series of standalones. Heroes are all brothers.

“I will love you and take care of you for the rest of your life.”
“Don’t you mean your life?”
“I meant what I said.”

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WOW!! What a unique and heart-warming novel!

The Night Mark is a love story unlike any other I’ve read! It spanned the ages and time and opened my heart and mind to possibilities I couldn’t even imagine. Technically, you could call it a time-travel romance (similar in concept to Outlander) except in this book, the heroine is transported back to 1921 where her life is saved by a man who looks and acts shockingly identical to her present day, beloved late husband. And what unfolded next was a beautiful story that blended romance with mystery in a manner that filled my heart with hope, happiness, and even brought me to tears! I loved the hidden depth and symbolism of this story and really appreciated how real the story felt. If you’re looking for a genuinely DIFFERENT ROMANCE with FANTASTIC WRITING, this is definitely a book to try!

I’ve been a huge fan of Tiffany Reisz’s writing ever since I read the Original Sinners series (my reviews). To be honest, I’d say she’s one of the strongest authors I’ve ever read. She’s just one of those authors who I enjoy not only because I like her stories, but because I genuinely like to read her writing if that makes sense. So when I heard about this book and saw what a departure it was from the other kinds of books she’d written, I immediately knew I wanted to read it! I’m drawn to these different types of stories and after reading this blurb, I was completely sold.

Faye Barlow is drowning. After the death of her beloved husband, Will, she cannot escape her grief and most days can barely get out of bed. But when she’s offered a job photographing South Carolina’s storied coast, she accepts. Photography, after all, is the only passion she has left.

In the quaint beach town, Faye falls in love again when she sees the crumbling yet beautiful Bride Island lighthouse and becomes obsessed with the legend surrounding The Lady of the Light—the keeper’s daughter who died in a mysterious drowning in 1921. Like a moth to a flame, Faye is drawn to the lighthouse for reasons she can’t explain. While visiting it one night, she is struck by a rogue wave and a force impossible to resist drags Faye into the past — and into a love story that is not her own.

Fate is changeable. Broken hearts can mend.
But can she love two men separated by a lifetime?

To be honest with you, time travel is usually a topic I tend to shy away from. It’s not that I don’t like it — I do! It’s more that it can be a hard subject to write well but I knew that if anyone could do it justice, Tiffany Reisz could.

The story was both quiet in tone and intensely intriguing in content. However, by 10% in, I got shivers from the first hint of the hidden layers and depth that this story would deliver. By the end of chapter 3, I got FULL BODY CHILLS! Like holy wow! My heart raced, my eyes watered… I needed to know more!!

“Do you believe in miracles?”

And the more I read, the more deeply I sank into this story. The chills kept coming as the plot thickened. How was it possible that she looked so much like the woman in the painting? How could the light house keeper look so much like her late husband? Who was that man? What was the bird doing? I needed answers! And much to my delight, while this book certainly raised a plethora of questions, it also answered all of them and I was left at the end feeling incredibly satisfied with this story.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,’ he said. “If you trust me, stay with me, let me protect you, we’ll be all right. It’s better than the other choice, isn’t it? Better than before? You don’t want to go back, do you?”

I was very impressed with the way the symbolic and (I’m incredibly hesitant to even use this word but…) spiritual aspect of the story was presented. It didn’t expect you to believe anything at all, it only presented the story in a forthright manner and showed you different characters’ interpretations of what was happening and then allowed you to interpret everything however you chose. But like the use of the white bird… HOLY FREAKING FEELS!

While this is a much tamer and more mainstream book than her Original Sinners series, every once in a while as I read, I’d see a hint of that snark and spice that reminded me that this was indeed written by the author of possibly one of the hottest series ever written! This book has quite the romance and it made me swoon and even sometimes laugh out loud. Never have I ever before heard anyone speak of a light house so suggestively…

“So how tall exactly is this majestic monument?”
“Well, that depends,” he said. “Are we counting the height from the floor to the top of the lightning rod? Or are we counting from sea level up to the light?”
“From the base to the tip,” she said, and Carrick cocked an eyebrow at her.
“About eighty-seven feet. Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Impressive enough… Hunting Island’s light is bigger, though, isn’t it?”
“It’s taller, I suppose,” Carrick said dismissively. “Mine’s wider.”
“Width matters, does it?”
“So I’ve been told. Mine is also younger and will likely last a lot longer.”
“Are we still talking about the lighthouse?”

Heehee!!

I’m really hesitant to say much more about the story. I feel like it’s one you have to experience for yourself. It’s a story you have to take a leap of faith to believe, it’s one that can’t be rationalized or explained in a practical sense, but it’s one I fully accepted and embraced. I find it such a treat to read novels like this — unique stories with strong writing! Ohhhh and in the very last scene, the happiest of tears came to my eyes and I literally gasped aloud with the beauty of the symbolism.

This book would make an absolutely AMAZING movie! It’s one of those stories I could visualize in perfect clarity as I read it. All the locations and characters came to life as I read and I really believe that this story could deliver a riveting on-screen adaptation. I’ll cross my fingers and pray to the movie gods that it might happen one day!

I genuinely LOVED this book and everything about it — the writing, the story, the characters. I was completely captivated and entranced by everything that was happening and didn’t ever want to stop reading. The only reason that my rating isn’t higher is that, apart from those specific scenes that I mentioned gave me those CHILLS, the story was a little quieter than I’d have wanted. I wanted it to be a little more angsty, more intensely emotional. With the uniqueness of the story it presented, I kind of wanted it to make me ugly cry. I wanted it to destroy me a little more. But that being said, it was still an amazing story and definitely going on my favorites list because, while it wasn’t a constant feeling throughout the entire story, when this book made me feel, it really made me FEEEEEEEL!!

“One person can’t change the world.”
“We could change a tiny corner of it. Isn’t that enough reason to go back?
To save even one life?”

If you’re in the mood to read a beautifully written, refreshingly unique story with a spell-binding romance, this is a book you will not want to miss! I couldn’t put it down and loved it!

Rating: 4-4.5 stars! Standalone Contemporary Time-Travel Fiction Novel with Romance.

• Buy THE NIGHT MARK (Kindle)
• Buy THE NIGHT MARK (Paperback)
• Buy THE NIGHT MARK (Audiobook)
• Buy THE NIGHT MARK (iTunes)

Author’s dedication: To that wounded marine with no leg and only half a hand I met in the Orlando airport… your pain made an impression on me. Semper Fi.

• Buy THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT SUNSHINE (Kindle)
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HOLY WOW. I mean WOW!!!!!

I’m wiping away tears as I write here. This was one of the most heart-felt and poignant books I’ve experienced in a long time. It made me laugh, cry, and feel for these characters so incredibly much. It was deep and meaningful. For those of you who’ve read this author before, this is an entirely new side to her writing and I loved it! I knew from reading the blurb that this would be a very unique story and, while I didn’t know what to expect when I started it, from the very first page, I could not put it down. I was utterly captivated by this story that was simultaneously heart-breaking and heart warming. It was raw, honest, painful, beautiful, romantic, and unforgettable! A top favorite!

An angry, bitter amputee.
An optimist losing her eyesight.
A dying kid.
A suicidal thief.
Four people with nothing in common but their destination.

Despite having narrowly escaped death’s clutches, Christopher Barlow is grateful for nothing. His capacity to love has been crushed. He hates everyone and everything, completely unable to see past the gray stain of misery that coats his perception of the world. It’s only after he involuntarily joins a band of depressed misfits who are struggling to overcome their own problems, does Christopher start to re-evaluate his lot in life.

What could they possibly learn from one another? How could they possibly help each other to heal? And the question that Christopher asks himself over and over again… can he learn to love again?

He’s about to find out as he embarks upon a cross country trip with a beautiful woman who is going blind, a boy with terminal cancer, and an abuse victim who can’t decide whether she wants to live or die.

They will encounter adventure, thrills, loss and love.
And within their travels they will learn the greatest lesson of all.
The hard truth about sunshine…

Given the themes presented in the blurb, I began reading this book prepared for the intense heart ache and pain that I knew this story would be laden with, but what I didn’t expect was the wry wit and humor that was also laced through the narrator’s voice that brought an unexpected smile to my face instead of tears. Said narrator is the main hero of this story — a depressed, disillusioned war veteran and amputee. He’d joined the army to escape his life, not out of a heartfelt need to sacrifice for his country, and the mangled body he had limped away from the desert with had left him bitter and angry at the world.

After a run in with the law, he was forced to join a ‘peer-led support group for people suffering from traumatic stress and depression’ and despite how much he wished he could escape it, it wasn’t not a choice. Everything he cared for had been stripped from him — his body, his girlfriend, his honor, his faith in himself, people, and life. He felt hopeless with nothing to live for and nothing more to lose. Constantly angry at the everything, he lashed out at everyone around him, until one girl saw through his pain and decided she was going to bring the real him back to life.

“God… you’re fucking weird,” I tell her with a grimace. Or is that a grin? “No one can possibly be that fucking right with the world.”
She just laughs at me and turns back to her books. Even though she’s not looking at me, her words are pointed and direct. “Stick with me, and I’ll make you right with it too.”

Said girl — the eternal optimist in the face of her own tragedy — showed him something he never thought possible, something he was sure had been lost forever: hope. The smallest inkling of possibility that maybe there was a way to find happiness even in the darkest, most painful of times.

The reason I made a stupid decision and came on this trip is that I’m as equally intrigued by Jillian Martel as I am repelled by her. My intrigue won out, and I agreed to this ludicrous idea of a group journey so I could be near her.
I agreed because I need to know how she does it.
How can she have such a grim future and still smile as if all is right with her world.

The book begins with and is focused on a road trip that four members of their therapy group take together — the young amuputee war veteran, the sheltered girl losing her vision, the angry girl struggling to choose between life and death, and the terminally ill teen who didn’t have any choices left. As they set out on this trip and passed state after state checking items off each of their respective bucket lists, they all learned something invaluable from each other.

Now, I’m sure a bunch of you are also wondering whether there’s actually a romance in this book and YES! There absolutely is. And because the majority of my readers are romance readers, I’ll just come out and say that there is a romantic HEA so despite the heart-ache, loss, and heavier themes explored in this book, you can hold onto that.

“Maybe you’re right where you’re supposed to be,” he says softly as he gives a slight nod over his shoulder. “I saw you and your girl together. Wouldn’t have met her unless you went to group therapy, and you wouldn’t have gone to group therapy if you hadn’t got your leg blown off, right?”

Prior to starting this book, I had no idea what to expect from it and I just let the story take me on it’s adventure. I suppose you could call it a coming of age story, but it’s much deeper than that. It’s a coming of life story. It’s brutally real, unapologetically honest, romantic, painful, beautiful, tragic, and healing. I feel like this was the book Sawyer Bennett was meant to write. She’s written so many books to date, and I’ve read and enjoyed several of them. But this one is unlike anything else she’s ever written before. It’s different. Inspiring. There’s something special about it and whether you’re a long-time fan of her books or have never read her before, this is definitely a must-read!

The story really brings to light hard questions and realities of life and death. It brought me to tears, surprised me with its beauty and broke my heart with its pain. However, the overall tone of the book isn’t heavy. At least for me, it wasn’t a book I ugly cried through even though I was brought to tears twice near the end. I will caution that both suicide and sexual abuse (in past reference only, no graphic scenes) are mentioned but much of the story is filled with a lot of heart and is focused more on learning how to truly live after the world lets you down.

“Do you still want to die?” Jillian asks…
Barb actually gives a genuine smile in return as she nods. “Every damn day.”
None of us know what to say, so silence envelopes the table.
And then… in a voice that’s barely audible, Barb adds, “But I also want to live every damn day too. I’m just not sure which I want more.”

I could go on about the messages behind the story and what I came away from it with but I think that ultimately that is something every reader needs to experience for themselves and who knows, maybe each reader will get something different out of it. Even though it takes a lot out of you to read this kind of heavier story, I can honestly say that I love reading them. I love stories that go just a little deeper, feel just a little stronger, and stay with you just a little longer as this did. I highly recommend this to everyone looking for a powerful, meaningful story that’ll truly stay with you.

Rating: 4.5+ stars! Standalone Fiction Novel (with a Romance).

• Buy THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT SUNSHINE (Kindle)
• Buy THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT SUNSHINE (Paperback)

“I only hired him so I wouldn’t have to sit at the singles table again. It was just pretend. He wasn’t supposed to kiss me.
My heart wasn’t supposed to pound.
We weren’t supposed to spend the night together—the hottest night of my life…

• Buy IF YOU WERE MINE (Kindle)
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I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! It was FUN, SEXY, and LIGHT-HEARTED, but also had seriously DEEP FEELS that really balanced the story out beautifully. If you’re a fan of broken Alpha heroes, you’re going to fall in love with Theo! Everything from the romance to the healing kept me glued to the page. I highly recommend this as a new favorite!

On the surface, you could put this book under the ‘pretend relationship turns to real love’ category, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that even though the story seemed quite light-hearted at first, the emotions went very deep and I was so impressed with the way the author rounded out the characters and their relationship.

So the story started out with the heroine, Claire, who was tired of being banished to the singles table at weddings, feeling judged for being single, and being hounded by everyone and their mother about whether she was dating anyone, when she would be dating anyone, why she wasn’t dating anyone, and so on… and when her friend, the latest bride-to-be, asked her if she’d be bringing a plus one to her wedding, Claire lied point blank and said yes.

“I’d met some OK guys. But I’d never felt that thing — that pulse-quickening, breath-taking, Hallmark-channel thing. I knew it existed because I’d read about it in books and seen it in movies and even witnessed it in real life… and I didn’t want to settle for anything less. I believed in soul mates, and I wanted my own.
But where the fuck was he, already?”

To complicate things further, she even described her imaginary boyfriend in painfully clear detail making finding a real person to play said boyfriend infinitely harder now that he also had to fit a particular physical framework.

“I have to go. And now it’s even worse because I told her I was bringing my boyfriend.”
Jamie choked on her martini and set the glass down on the bar so roughly it sloshed over the rim. “Your what?”
“My boyfriend. You know, the one who looks like Ryan Gosling and fucks like a rock star.”

Luckily, thanks to the glory of the Internet, she found her self a pretend boyfriend for hire. Except the person she found was nothing like what she expected. He was gorgeous, charming, exasperating, and easily flustered her with his antics.

“What’s in the contract?”
“My rate, the details about when and where, the Platonic Promise.”
“Platonic Promise?”
“The part of the contract where we both acknowledge that there will be absolutely no sexual contact whatsoever.”
“Oh! Right,” I said, feeling my face warm even more. “Of course.”
“If you think you might have a problem with that, Claire, I can’t book the date.”
Flustered, I flapped my hands. “No, no! Of course, there won’t be a problem with that. I —“
He burst out laughing and grabbed my wrist. “Jesus, I’m kidding.”
“Oh.” I laughed at myself a little, shaking my head. “Sorry. I’m just really tense about this.”
“I can tell.” He squeezed my wrist before dropping it, and I noticed how big and strong his hand was.
“It’s gonna be fun,” he said, standing up. “I promise.”

Their arrangement was meant to be business only. No emotions, no attachments. Just one night of pretending to be in love. But what neither of them expected was their intense chemistry and how strongly they were drawn to each other.

“I never hooked up with clients [and I’d never been attracted to one before. And none of them had ever tempted me to break the Platonic Promise  — Claire was a different story…”

They both tried their best to keep things professional but that soon became nearly impossible…

“I promise you, Claire, what you almost did on the dance floor was nothing compared to what I want to do to you right now.”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
“But, Claire.” Whatever he said next was swallowed by the thunderous pounding of my heart.
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” I help up one hand. “What do you want to do to me right now?”
His jaw twitched. “It’s a long list.”

They let their guards down and gave into their feelings. But things weren’t that easy. Behind his charming, smooth-talking, sexy exterior, Theo was hiding years of pain and damage so deep that it had left emotional scars on his soul. Allowing himself to fall in love was hard and this is their story of finding a way to make their relationship work.

“Stay. For her, I’d stay.”

I really want to say how impressed I was with the way this author wrote Theo’s character. He was a genuinely damaged hero with a lot of baggage and a lot of guilt weighing him down. While he helped Claire in many ways, I feel like the biggest hurdle in this story was HIS healing and I really have to applaud the author for making his mistakes feel so understandable. Without proper explanation, many of the things he did would have frustrated me to no end, but in the chapters that were told from his POV, she really did a fantastic job of showing WHY he kept fucking up, how badly he was hurting, how deeply he really cared for Claire, and how, even though he might not be making the right choices, that he was trying to heal and trying to be better… for her. So instead of being annoyed, I became incredibly sympathetic to his character. His pain tugged all my heart-strings and I loved seeing him heal.

But this story isn’t all serious. There’s a lot of sexyyyyyy hotness and fun banter!!! Theo and Claire had fantastic chemistry and for those of you looking for a steamy romance, theirs certainly delivers!!

“Uh, are we still observing the no-touching rule tonight?” I asked as she kissed her way up my chest. “Asking for a friend.”
“It’s after midnight,” she whispered, her breath tickling my ear. “Tomorrow is here.”
“Oh, thank fuck.” I flipped her beneath me.

This is a standalone romance. It is ever-so-slightly interconnected with After We Fall (my review) but you absolutely do not have to read the other book before, or even after, this unless you want to. I mean, I loved them both but basically the connection is that the heroines know each other and that’s it. You can read either book as a completely separate standalone with no problem at all! Also, the story is told in first person perspective from alternating POVs.

And OMG!!!!! There is such a swoooooooooony epilogue!!! For what started out as such a light-heart story, it sure took some turns that delivered many strong feels! And it was all worth it for the beautiful ending!!

She looked up at me, and even though it was dark, I knew what her eyes said.
I trust you.
I trust you not to hurt me.
I trust you not to lie to me.
I trust you not to break my heart.

I absolutely adore Melanie Harlow’s writing! Her books are always fun, light-hearted, witty and they never fail to make me laugh! But at the same time, she often can bring a very serious depth to her stories that really rounds them out beautifully. Her characters feel real, they’re down-to-earth, relatable and compelling. And their romances are sexy, thrilling, heart-melting! I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it to everyone!!

Rating: 4.5 stars!! Contemporary Adult Romance Standalone.

• Buy IF YOU WERE MINE (Kindle)
• Buy IF YOU WERE MINE (Paperback)

“I lost all those years, only to end up in the same place, wanting you and wishing I hadn’t ever let you go.”

• Buy MACK DADDY (Kindle)

HOLY FEEEEEEEELS!!!

I absolutely loved this angsty second chance romance! I devoured it in one sitting and connected so strongly to the story which was about a sexy single dad reunited with the only woman who he’d ever truly loved when his son got enrolled in her elementary school class and he realized this was his only chance to show her how much he used to love her, how deeply he still loved her, and how strongly he was willing to fight to win back her heart. OH MY GOSH, there were SO MANY FEELS!!!! My heart honestly never stopped racing. I felt their PAIN, DESIRE, LONGING, and NEED for each other in a way that just made my chest ache. I cried, I laughed, I swooned, but more than anything, I genuinely FELT this story. It was perfectly paced and so well written! SEXY, ROMANTIC, ANGSTY PERFECTION!!

He was the perfect physical male specimen.

At the private school where I taught, Mack Morrison was the only man around in a sea of women.

Everyone wanted a piece of the hot single father of the sweet little boy.

I was riddled with jealousy, because they didn’t know that—to me—he was much more.

They didn’t know about our past.

He’d chosen my school for his son on purpose, because Mack and I, we had unfinished business.

As my friend, Lorelai, so eloquently put it: “Unfinished business between two people who are clearly attracted to each other is like an eternal case of blue balls.” And I was suffering in pain from my case.

I was still intensely attracted to Mack. I tried to resist him, immersing myself further into a relationship with another man just to protect my heart.

Not to mention, getting involved with a parent was strictly against school rules. But seeing Mack day in and day out was breaking me down.

And soon I might be breaking all the rules.

From the first time that Mack and Frankie met (again) in his son’s school, my heart was fluttering. It was painfully clear that they had a deep history between them and I couldn’t wait to find out what exactly it entailed.

His tone was demanding. “Look at me, Frankie.” When I didn’t listen, he repeated, “Look at me.”
I lifted my head. To look him in the face was truly painful, triggering an onslaught of memories I preferred to keep at bay. One thing was for certain: the grown man standing before me was far more confident than the guy whom I’d last seen with tears in his eyes.
“I don’t understand. How is this possible? What are you doing here at my school?”
He slowly approached me, causing my skin to heat. “We live here now — in Massachusetts.”
…
My eyes returned to meet his when I asked, “How did your son end up in my class?”
“If I told you it was a coincidence, would you believe me?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s not,” he was quick to admit.
“Why? Why are you doing this? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Would it have made it any easier?”
“No,” I whispered.
…
“You’re the only one I trust with him… I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, in general. I know it may seem like eons ago that we were close, and I know you’re confused right now. I know I fucked everything up between us, but I’ve never forgotten you. Not a single day.”

Told in first person alternating POVs, we find out more pieces of their past with each new development in the story. I felt so strongly for both of them. Even though Mack was the one who had left her in the past, he was so broken up over it that there was no doubt that some outside influence had forced his hand and even though it had shattered her heart, it had also left him deeply damaged. The only question was whether there was a chance in hell that she’d allow him to show her the changed man he’d become over the years and how much he still loved her.

Her being so formal with me was weird. It was irking me a little. She was acting like we didn’t know everything there was to know about each other at one time. I just wanted to virtually shake her and say, ‘Hey, remember that time we got drunk and you begged me to fuck you?’

I’ve said this in other reviews, but there’s just a certain ‘spark’ that separates my favorite books from all the others I read. I don’t know how else to explain it and I think that ultimately every reader experiences that spark differently and for different books, but for me this book had exactly the spark that I was searching for. Everything about the story just really worked for me.

And seriously, single dad’s who are devoted to their kids are just freaking HOT!!!

“He’ll be okay. We’ll take care of him. Even when he’s having a bad day, we’ll do our best to make him feel safe.”
“Thank you, Frankie. I knew you would. That’s why I’m here.”
For him.
And for me.
For you.
I’m here for you.
I want you in my life again.
Even if all you’ll give me is your friendship.
Fuck that. That will never be enough for me.
Not with you.
There was so much I wanted to tell her but couldn’t.

One of my favorite things about this book was that their relationship didn’t start with lust. Without spoiling anything, I can say that it’s like they fell in love without even knowing it. Or rather, they each fell in love with who the other person was before anything seriously physical grew between them. It’s like they were drawn to each other — simply as people — long before they each realized that they’d fallen in love with each other without even being in a romantic relationship. I loved the progression of their story! It made my heart twist and turn in the best ways!

“What exactly do you plan to try?”
… “I have to go wherever [my son] is. So, this is a window of opportunity that I can’t waste. You asked what I plan to try? Everything. Every goddamn thing, Frankie — until you tell me to stop. Until you look me in the eyes and tell me there’s no point in continuing.”

Over the last several years, I’ve read a lot of second romances. They’re one of my favorite types of love stories to read but admittedly, most of them have a similar formula. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the formula. When a second chance romance is well written, I don’t even care if I’ve read a similar story before, I fall in love with the heartbreak and healing all over again. However, it is really special when you find one — like this book — that does things a little bit differently and puts its own twist on the storytelling.

I absolutely loved the way Mack and Frankie kept being pulled back together. I felt that pull — their longing, desire, pain, and love. It was true love, not just lust. Even though there was undoubted attraction between them, what they had went much deeper than that and I think that’s why I felt so strongly for their story. Seriously, I just connected with them — I was right there with what they were going through. I was even brought to tears a few times and you all know I adore books that can make me cry.

“We all have that one person. It’s not necessarily someone we end up with. But it’s that person who, for whatever reason, gets under your skin and stays there. You can move on, but parts of them are always with you. Sometimes, if things never had a chance to develop, if feelings are still unresolved, that person becomes an even more powerful force in your life, even in absentia.”

This story is romantic, a little tragic, intensely angsty, and yet so beautifully healing. And I have to say I was incredibly proud of the way Mack and Frankie handled the twists life threw at them — especially the second time around when they had a chance to salvage everything they’d lost so many years ago.

“I never stopped thinking about you. All of these years, they feel like a blur. I look at you sitting in front of me right now, and I’m feeling all of the same things I did when we were together.”

Now, I’m going to be honest with you. This book was borderline ‘rule-breaking’ for me in a few ways. But Penelope Ward is one of the few authors who I’ve come to trust with this kind of angst. This has happened a few times with books of hers that I’ve read — she pushes right to the very line of what I’m comfortable with but doesn’t cross it. And, as a reader, that is just so special to find. She’s an author whose books I will blindly purchase whenever she releases new ones because I genuinely not only love the stories she tells, but I love the way she tells them. I love that she’ll push me as a reader to the edge of my comfort zone, but never take me outside it. She writes the kind of angst I love — it’s painful, intense, and it’ll twist you up inside, but you’ll love the characters, you’ll hurt for them because you care so much, you’ll feel their longing and desire, and ultimately you can trust the author to take their story to the right place. It’s a really wonderful trust to have in an author and I eager look forward to each of her new books for this very reason.

Also, random confession, I had just come back from watching Fifty Shades Darker when I read this and I literally listened to The Scientist by Corinne Bailey Rae on repeat while I was reading it. Something about the mood of that song perfectly captured the emotions I was feeling while I read. By the end of the book, I had listened to it 48 times!

Oh and actually a second confession… I actually disliked the title of this book when I first heard it. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely wanted to read this book no matter what — but that was because of who wrote it. However, by the end of the book, I totally loved the title and even cried over it, so kudos to the author in that regard!

A few people have asked me if there’s a love triangle in this book and so, without giving away too much, I’ll just say that it’s not in the way you’re probably thinking. I hate triangles but I loved this book. The author writes it in such a way where it’s crystal clear that the hero and heroine only ever love each other. And there is no cheating. There are pretty serious extenuating circumstances affecting their lives and relationship which I don’t want to spoil but bottom line, I’d say just trust this author and dive right in!

“Your happiness is all that matters. You’re holding all the cards, Frankie — every single, last one of them. But just be aware that I have no issue with showing you exactly how much I want you right now.” He moved in closer, to the point where I could feel the heat from his body.“ The next time you ask me to kiss you, I’m going to fucking kiss you… I’m not gonna lie to you about my feelings. I’m not going to hide the fact that I want to make love to you more than anything.”

This is my favorite Penelope Ward book to date! And that’s saying a lot considering that her last several books have all been on my top favorites lists. But this one just really hit home for me — I loved the emotions, the angst, the romance, and I couldn’t put it down. If you’re looking for a well-written, addictive second chance love story and you’re a fan of single dad heroes, then you absolutely have to read this book!!!

Rating: 4.5 + STARS!! Standalone Adult Romance.

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