Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | Barnes & Noble
Review
3 heartbroken, oh-so conflicted stars
OMG, this book! I am so conflicted after this SUPER emotional read which is part romance/part women’s fiction. It’s so engaging, a beautiful and sweet character-driven story, with well-written drama and a gorgeous love story, but it’s also devastatingly tragic and confronting which (IMHO) went a bit too far. I loved it so much… until I didn’t. And I’m still dealing with my broken heart and coming to terms with all that this book made me feel so please bear with me while I purge my feels.
Rebecca Yarros writes such wonderful military romance. In this case she introduces us to special forces solder, Beckett, who is serving overseas. Beckett is a loner, with no ties back in the US and no real home to speak of. He’s mostly detached, except for his bond with his service dog and his fellow solder and best friend, Ryan, and that’s why Ryan sets him up to write to his sister back home.
Ella is a 25-year-old single mother of twins who is running her family’s luxury cabin accommodation in the mountains of Colorado. She’s sacrificed a lot to enhance the business and keep it running, while also raising her six-year-old children, Colton and Maisie. She’s lost her parents, her children’s father left her as soon as he learned about the twins, and with her brother serving overseas she doesn’t really have anybody close that she can lean on, so when she starts to write to a soldier overseas, codename ‘Chaos’, she finds somebody that she can pour her heart out and be real with.
When Ryan is killed, Beckett receives his last letter which begs him to go home and look after his sister. Not only is she now truly all alone, but little Maisie is sick with an aggressive cancer, and she and the kids need all the support they can get. So Beckett travels to Colorado clutching Ryan’s letter and determined to be there for the woman that, through her letters, has come to mean so much to him.
I was here for as long as Ella would let me stay. Because somewhere between letter number one and letter number twenty-four, I’d fallen in love with her.
I don’t want to go into too much more detail than that, because you really need to experience this book as it unfolds. It’s unexpected, and uncovering the connection between Ella and Beckett as she slowly lets him into her life is just beautiful. It’s a slow burn, which is completely understandable given the circumstances, but seeing Beckett be there for Ella and her children is so, so beautiful, with moments of drama, sweetness, and so much freaking cuteness.
The love story develops slowly, though the chemistry and emotion is strong from the start, and I loved watching the build-up between Ella and Beckett. They are in an extremely difficult situation, and they have hurdles to overcome, but they find something amazing together and I loved watching it all unfold. The letters that they wrote to each other are woven into the story beautifully, and bring a lot of depth to their growing relationship, and I thought it was really cleverly done.
We share their journey with little Maisie, and Yarros doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to her illness. We see each devastating details of her treatment – both the setbacks and the triumphs – as well as the emotional toll that it takes on the little girl and her family, and it made my heart ache so many times.
But it allows us to see so much of Ella, and wow, I loved her! Her strength just floored me as she persevered through unimaginable situations. She did frustrate me at times with her reluctance to trust, but given all that she’d been through, I could understand where she was coming from – even though it hurt my heart. But it makes her gradual acceptance of Beckett all the more special as she lets him in.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered. Her hands were still between us, but she wasn’t pushing me away, they were simply resting on my pecs. If anything, she leaned in. “I’d forgotten what this felt like.”
“Being hugged?” My voice was sandpaper-rough.
“Being held together.”
And Beckett is pure tortured romantic hero gold! He is struggling with all he’s been through, and he has issues that he needs to deal with, but OMG, he’s pure perfection. Sweet, sensitive, loyal and committed, he’s wonderful with the kids, demonstrative and affectionate with his feelings, and he’s hotter than all hell. His patience with Ella and his understanding of her situation is amazing, and I loved his devotion to her and the kids.
“I would do anything for you.”
Little Colt and Maisie absolutely stole my heart. Their connection to each other is so beautiful to see, and the bond that they develop with Beckett is heartachingly gorgeous.
“Is this what it feel like?” he whispered so quietly that I leaned down.
“What it feels like?” I asked.
“Having a Dad?”
It’s a beautiful story! The writing is strong and gorgeously emotive, the story absolutely captured my heart, and I couldn’t read fast enough. I loved the romance, I loved that it was so much more than just the love story, and I loved watching Beckett and Ella and the kids on their journey.
This was totally a 5-star read until those last few chapters where the beauty of the story is overshadowed by the events at the end of the book… Not too spoilery, just ranty –
It left me feeling so depressed and ruined the feel of the whole book. I love my happy endings, and though this sort of was, it also wasn’t. I love a book that makes me feel, but I also don’t want to finish a book only to be in a massive funk and mope around my house in a fog of misery.Sometimes bad things happen. And there’s no blame to be placed. You can’t reason with the universe, no matter how sound your logic is … We are imperfect people made that way by an imperfect world, and we don’t always get a say in what shapes us.
So yeah, I’m very torn. I can’t fault the writing, I just wish the story hadn’t ended the way it did.
Loved the book, hated the ending, splitting the difference at 3 stars.
An Advanced Review Copy was generously provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Excerpt
“Ella.” It was a plea to speak, to not speak. Hell, I didn’t know anymore.
“You don’t see me like that. I totally get it.” She reached for the TV remote.
“How exactly do I see you? Please, enlighten me.” I leaned forward, stealing the remote. She’d opened this box and had better well dishit.
She huffed in annoyance. “You see me as a mom. As Colt and Maisie’s mom. And of course you do, because that’s what I am. A mom with two kids.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. Her motherhood—that selfless devotion she had to her kids—was one of her most attractive attributes.
She rolled her eyes with a little sigh, and the metaphorical light bulb went off in my head.
“You don’t think I want you.”
She shot me a look that confirmed my guess and blushed the same crimson of her couch. “You know, you’re right. It’s late.” She faked a yawn.“Suuuuuuper late.”
“I want you.” Damn, it felt so good to say the words.
“Yeah, okay.” She gave me a goofy look and a thumbs-up. “Please don’t make me feel any more idiotic than I do right now.”
Yeah, enough of this bullshit.
I pounced in one smooth motion, taking her back to the couch, sliding over her as I gathered her wrists in one hand above her head and settled between her open thighs.
Home.
“Holy shit, you move fast.” There was no fear or rejection in her eyes, just surprise.
“Not in every arena,” I promised.
Her lips parted.
“Ella. I want you.”
“Beckett…you don’t have to.”
Yeah, that soft little sigh she did was going to be my undoing.
I let go of her wrists, letting my fingers trail down her arm until I had one hand weaving my fingers into the hair at the base of her scalp and the other at the curve in her waist.
“Feel this?” Then I slid forward, letting my dick stroke along the seam in her pajama pants hard enough for her to gasp at the contact. I couldn’t remember ever wanting to shred a piece of fabric so much in my life. “I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I want you.”
I moved again, and her eyes slid shut as she let loose the sweetest moan.
My dick throbbed, knowing everything I’d fantasized about for the better part of the last eight months was one decision away.
“Beckett.” Her hands found my biceps, her nails digging in.
“Don’t ever think that I don’t want you, because if things were different, I would have already been inside you. I would know exactly how you feel, and what you sound like, look like, when you come. I’ve thought about it at least a hundred different ways, and believe me, I’ve got a great imagination.”
She rocked her hips against me, and I locked my jaw to keep from giving her exactly what her body was asking for. “Ella, you have to stop.”
“Why?” she asked, her lips dangerously close to mine. “What do you mean if things were different?” Her eyes flew wide. “Is this because I have kids?”
“What? No. Of course not. It’s because you’re Ryan’s little sister.” Before I could do any more damage, I got the hell off her and sat back on myside of the couch.
“Because…I’m Ryan’s little sister,” she repeated, scooting so she sat upright, facing me. “And you think he’d, what? Haunt you?”
Three things: The letter. The cancer. The lie.
I repeated those in my head until I was certain I could look at her and not drag her back under me.
“Beckett?”
“When I was growing up, if I wanted something, I took it. Immediately. I had sex at fourteen with a girl in my foster home of the moment. I opened Christmas presents early if I was lucky enough to get one, and it was usually from my social worker or some charity.”
“I don’t understand.” She wrapped her arms around her knees again.
“I took it immediately because I knew if I didn’t, chances were I wouldn’t get it. It was a now-or-never kind of thing—there weren’t second chances.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t touch you, can’t talk about it, because I’m afraid I’ll act on it.”
“And why does that matter if I want you to?”
“Because I won’t get a second chance. And I’m crap with people, with relationships. I’ve never had one that lasted more than a month. Never loved a woman I’ve slept with. And chances are I’d do something to screw this up, because it’s not just my dick that wants you, Ella.”
That O popped right back onto her face, and I closed my eyes to keep from lunging across the distance and kissing her. Knowing she’d let me—that she wanted it—sent my need from a bullet to a nuclear missile.
“And when I’d screw it up, because it would happen, trust me, it would hurt Colt and Maisie, too. You’d be on your own again, because there’s no chance you’d let me hang around and help you out like Ryan asked.”
“And there it is.”
“There it is. You’re Ryan’s little sister.”
“There were only five years between us. Not so little, you know.” She reached for the remote.
“I’m well aware.”
“So if Ryan were still alive…” She shot one last look at me.
I let everything slip for a millisecond, letting her see it all in my eyes, how badly I wanted her, and not just for her body. “Everything would be different.”
“Everything?”
“Everything but the way I feel about you, which he probably would have killed me for. Where does that leave us?”
“You mean besides me being a dried-up spinster and you being honor-bound to a ghost?”
“Something like that.”
She rolled her head along the back of the couch, muttering something that sounded like a curse word under her breath. Then she sat up straight and powered on the TV with a click of her thumb. “That leaves us choosing a movie on demand. Because I’m not letting you walk out that door right now.”
“You’re not?”
“Nope. You walk out now, you might get all weird about this and not come back. Honor is a fabulous thing, but sometimes pride can be a lot stronger, especially when you convince yourself it’s for the good of the other person.”
Damn, the woman knew me.
“So movie it is,” I agreed. “Just…stay on your side of the couch.”
“I wasn’t the one who crossed the center line,” she teased with a smile that got me hard all over again.
Movie chosen, we sat and watched, both of us stealing sideways glances. There was that saying…the horse out of the barn. Yeah, the horse was out of the barn, and it wasn’t going back in. Not no way. Not no how.
That horse was running amok and screwing with my carefully constructed control.
But I didn’t complain when she moved over. Or when she pressed against my side. Nope. I lifted my arm and savored the feel of her curves, her trust. Still didn’t complain when she lay down in my arms. Hell no, I held on and memorized every second.
About Rebecca Yarros
Rebecca Yarros is a hopeless romantic and a lover of all things coffee, chocolate, and Paleo. She is the author of the Flight & Glory series, including Full Measures, the award-winning Eyes Turned Skyward, Beyond What is Given, and Hallowed Ground. She loves military heroes, and has been blissfully married to hers for sixteen years.
When she’s not writing, she’s tying hockey skates for her four sons, sneaking in some guitar time, or watching brat-pack movies with her two daughters. She lives in Colorado with the hottest Apache pilot ever, their rambunctious gaggle of kids, an English bulldog who is more stubborn than sweet, and a bunny named General Fluffy Pants who torments the aforementioned bulldog. Having adopted their youngest daughter from the foster system, and Rebecca is passionate about helping others do the same.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Newsletter | Goodreads
Check out our Rebecca Yarros Author Spotlight for more amazing reads