{"id":78776,"date":"2025-04-28T08:48:36","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T12:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=78776"},"modified":"2025-05-18T10:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T14:30:09","slug":"release-the-last-time-the-last-ever-2-by-anna-bloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=78776","title":{"rendered":"Release & ARC Review: The Last Time (The Last Ever, #2) by Anna Bloom"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Last Time by Anna Bloom is live!<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Second Chance at Love, Forbidden Relationship, <\/strong>Grumpy\/Sunshine, Found Family, Medical Drama<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Amazon US<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Amazon UK<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Amazon CA<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Amazon AU<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Free in Kindle Unlimited<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Blurb<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u201cHe swore he wouldn\u2019t fall. She never expected to want him to.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

OLIVIA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Boxing Day was supposed to be spent with my children. Instead, I was alone in a hotel bar, drowning in heartbreak while my ex played happy families with his new girlfriend. And then he walked in.
\nDr. Ryan Simmonds\u2014arrogant, guarded, and too damn gorgeous for his own good.
\nHe was supposed to be a one-night escape, nothing more.<\/p>\n

Not my sister\u2019s heart surgeon.
\nNot the man making my children laugh.
\nAnd definitely not someone I could fall for when my world is already crumbling.<\/p>\n

RYAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t get involved. Not after my fianc\u00e9e left me for my brother.
\nBut Olivia Brown is a complication I never saw coming.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s fierce, exhausted, and willing to fight the world for her sister.
\nShe\u2019s the one woman I shouldn\u2019t want.
\nAnd she\u2019s breaking down every wall I\u2019ve built.<\/p>\n

Her sister\u2019s failing heart means I\u2019m her only hope. But Olivia deserves more than a man who can\u2019t afford to love her.
\nNow I have to make an impossible choice:
\nBe the surgeon who saves her sister\u2026 or the man who won\u2019t break her heart.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A heart-wrenching, slow-burn romance about love, fate, and impossible choices.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Add to Goodreads<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

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Review<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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

A dramatic single parent romance where two broken people come together unexpectedly and against all odds, finding love and healing when they never expected it.<\/p>\n

This is the second book in The Last Ever<\/i> series, and a follow on from the amazing The Last Kiss<\/a>. It\u2019s the story of Olivia, who is the sister of Jules, heroine from The Last Kiss<\/i>. This story takes place on the same timeline as the first book, and though you can read this book as a standalone, note that it contains spoilers for the first book, so if you\u2019re planning on reading The Last Kiss<\/i> (and you absolutely should!), read these in order.<\/p>\n

Separated single mother, Olivia\u2019s life is falling apart when she meets a stranger in a bar who invites her to dinner and steals her heart. She\u2019s not in a place where she can be starting a relationship, so they part ways at the end of the night thinking they\u2019ll never see each other again. And then Ryan turns out to be Olivia\u2019s sister\u2019s heart surgeon.<\/p>\n

Ryan is a broody surgeon who is married to his job since his fianc\u00e9e left him for his brother. He doesn\u2019t want a relationship, and he definitely doesn\u2019t want to get involved with a single mother, but there\u2019s something about Olivia that draws him in. He can\u2019t stop thinking about her, he can see that she\u2019s struggling, and he wants to help her, and despite his best intentions, he can\u2019t stay away.<\/p>\n

Ryan and Olivia are in a complicated situation. She\u2019s a hot mess, he\u2019s determined to be alone, and they both have family issues to deal with. Bizarrely, the fact that he is her sister\u2019s surgeon (and the person deciding whether she goes on the heart transplant list) really doesn\u2019t factor. I thought it would be a major ethical sticking point to them being together, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s more their personal issues that cause the drama.<\/p>\n

There is quite a bit of push and pull, mostly coming from Ryan as he battles his feelings, and I enjoyed seeing him wrestle with his emotions. When he finally gives in and embraces all that he\u2019s feeling, it\u2019s sexy and it\u2019s sweet, and I liked seeing him step into Olivia\u2019s life and be there for her and her kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been ready for you since the moment we met.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But unlike the first book in the series, in this one, for me, the feels weren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

Olivia had some great moments but I didn\u2019t warm to her as much as I wanted. She seemed so helpless. And for somebody who is so stressed and devastated over her sister\u2019s illness, she doesn\u2019t really do anything to help. Given how unwell Jules was, and how close the sisters are, I thought Jules would appear in the book more, but she sort of just exists on the periphery until those final chapters. And it\u2019s those chapters which finally brought the emotion. And though I loved seeing Ryan\u2019s walls come down, I thought there were some questionable choices when it came to how his character was written and how he reacted to falling for Olivia.<\/p>\n

The main issue with this book for me was that it all just felt a bit disjointed \u2013 like the book was written in pieces, bits were moved around, and things didn\u2019t make sense or contradicted other parts of the story. I found myself questioning and flicking back, and though I can usually overlook things like that, it happened a lot and I found it distracting. I did read an ARC of this book, and wondered if it was an early draft, so I bought the book on release to check the published version and those issues were still there. It just needs an edit for continuity.<\/p>\n

So yeah, it wasn\u2019t what I was expecting, but I did like the story. I liked seeing Ryan and Olivia come together, and their story finishes in a good place.<\/p>\n

2.5 stars.<\/p>\n

An Advanced Review Copy was generously provided by the author for an honest review.<\/i><\/p>\n

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The Last Ever series<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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The Last Kiss (#1)<\/strong> (Julia & Henri)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Amazon<\/p>\n

The Last Time (#2)<\/strong> (Olivia & Ryan)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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About the Author<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A book hoarder and coffee addict by heart Anna Bloom loves to write extraordinary stories about real love. Based south of London with her husband, three children and a dog with a beard, Anna likes to connect with readers, fan girl over her favourite authors and binge watch Supernatural and Superhero movies while drinking lots of wine.<\/div>\n
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Facebook\u00a0<\/a> |\u00a0 Facebook Group<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Instagram\u00a0<\/a> |\u00a0 BookBub<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    The Last Time by Anna Bloom is live! Second Chance at Love, Forbidden Relationship, Grumpy\/Sunshine, Found Family, Medical Drama   Amazon US\u00a0 |\u00a0 Amazon UK\u00a0 |\u00a0 Amazon CA\u00a0 |\u00a0 Amazon AU Free in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,9,1036],"tags":[1289,634,1612],"class_list":["post-78776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","category-romance","category-single-parent","tag-anna-bloom","tag-release","tag-the-last-ever"],"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\/2025\/03\/The-Last-Time.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-kuA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78776","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=78776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}