{"id":58578,"date":"2021-04-10T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=58578"},"modified":"2021-04-10T09:46:41","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T13:46:41","slug":"review-one-last-wish-shooting-stars-3-by-aurora-rose-reynolds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=58578","title":{"rendered":"Review: One Last Wish (Shooting Stars, #3) by Aurora Rose Reynolds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Amazon<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/b><\/h4>\n
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\r\n <\/div><\/div><\/b><\/h4>\n
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Review<\/b><\/h4>\n

3 stars<\/b><\/p>\n

This is the third and final book in the Shooting Stars<\/i> series, a sweet and heartfelt friends-to-lovers romance that is emotional and swoony, with a gorgeous alpha hero.<\/p>\n

This book can absolutely be read as a standalone, but in a fun twist, Aubrey is the daughter of Zach, and step-daughter of Shelby from book #2 in the series, Wide Open Spaces<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aubrey and Denver were close friends as teenagers. She always hoped for more (and secretly, so did he), but on the night when everything was about to change, she had her heart broken, and ended up turning to another of her friends, Gabe, forming a relationship which went on to become a happy marriage. But then Gabe became sick and died shortly after, leaving Aubrey alone and devastated, and unexpectedly pregnant. Years later, she is the single mother to an adorable 4-year-old daughter, and Denver has been a part of both of their lives since the moment Lyra was born. He\u2019s been there for everything, just waiting for his chance to claim the woman he has always thought of as his. Now that time has come.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good set-up, but moves pretty quickly so we don\u2019t get the chance to get attached to Gabe or feel Aubrey\u2019s grief, which I actually didn\u2019t mind because I wasn\u2019t in the mood to have my heart ripped out. We don\u2019t get much backstory on Aubrey and Denver either, but the book is written in dual POV so it\u2019s easy to see how much they mean to each other, and how Denver has loved her his whole life. He has been patient with her, allowing her time to grieve and move on, and when he gets that first hint that she is ready, he\u2019s all up in her business declaring his intentions.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me go.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cNo.\u201d He growls with a shake of my hand, and I look into his eyes.<\/em>
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t want, or need me to let go. One of us needs to fight for this, Bree. And until you\u2019re ready to start fighting, that person is me.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aubrey is reluctant to go there with Denver. She\u2019s definitely feeling it, in fact, she\u2019s loved him for years, even during her marriage, but she\u2019s feeling torn \u2013 not wanting to disrespect her late husband (even though she already kinda did by loving Denver even while they were married, but let\u2019s just skip over that), and terrified of losing herself in what she knows will be an all-consuming love. There\u2019s some back and forth, which could have become really annoying, but Denver isn\u2019t the kind of guy to let things get angsty, so instead we get her pushing him away, and him refusing to let go, and that\u2019s always an entertaining dynamic.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re an asshole.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cAn asshole you\u2019re in love with. You need to come to terms with that, Bree, \u2018cause like I said before, you and I are going to find a way to work this out.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I did find Aubrey kind of annoying. Her reasons for pushing Denver away were weak, so thank God they were short-lived. And I did have to wonder, if Denver was so in love with Aubrey in the past, why didn\u2019t he fight for her back when they were teenagers? But the story moves along pretty quickly, and once they finally found their groove (thanks to Denver\u2019s persistence), Ienjoyed him and his swoony declarations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never felt what I feel for you with anyone else. And I know\u2026 I fucking know, down to my fucking gut, that this\u2026this is worth fighting for. This is worth everything.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Little Lyra is a cutie, and her relationship with Denver is adorable.\u00a0 We also get to see quite a bit of Zach and Shelby, now older and well settled into life together, which was lovely.<\/p>\n

There is some drama external to the relationship which seemed to come out of nowhere. Was it necessary? Probably not, but it adds a bit of intensity to the end of the book and shows the strength of Aubrey and Denver as a couple.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t connect to this one as much as I was hoping. I wanted to get swept up in the romance, and while I did enjoy it, I didn\u2019t feel it like I wanted to. I listened to this as an audiobook, which honestly wasn\u2019t great and probably didn\u2019t help my lack of connection to the story. Catherine F. Edwards reads Denver and Aubrey ok, if a bit robotic, but she does really bizarre voices for the side characters, which I found really distracting.<\/p>\n

Still a good read though, with a satisfying ending, and I\u2019m glad I completed the series.<\/p>\n

3 stars.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shooting Stars<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \"wide\u00a0 \"\"<\/p>\n

Fighting to Breathe (#1)
\n<\/strong>Review<\/a>
\nBuy: \u00a0Amazon \u00a0<\/a>| \u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n

Wide Open Spaces (#2)
\n<\/strong>Review<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Amazon \u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n

One Last Wish (#3)
\n<\/strong>Review<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Amazon<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Amazon\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback Review 3 stars This is the third and final book in the Shooting Stars series, a sweet and heartfelt friends-to-lovers romance that is emotional and swoony, with a gorgeous alpha hero. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":3,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,25,9,1036,29],"tags":[285,48,415],"class_list":["post-58578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","category-friends-to-lovers","category-romance","category-single-parent","category-steamy","tag-aurora-rose-reynolds","tag-review","tag-shooting-stars"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/One-Last-Wish.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-feO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}