Reviewed by Desere
Everyone knows when you lose someone it hurts, but it is even worse if it's unexpected. In this debut release from Tanya Wright she tells the story of Micha O'Shea. Ten years ago she was planning spending the rest of her life with boyfriend Drew, dreaming of picket fences, children and the perfect happy ever after. Then suddenly it was all brought to a screeching halt when Drew was tragically killed in an accident.
It is a hard blow for all of Drew's friends but of course more of a blow for Micha. As their friends move on with life and once a year celebrate the life that was Drew, Micha falls deeper and deeper into a world of depression, binge ice-cream eating and hiding from the world. That is until one night she joins them in the annual celebration and ends up having one too many shots of tequila and kissing her best friend, sexy and delicious firefighter Josh Taylor.
Josh has been Micha's rock ever since Drew's death, he takes care of her on every friendship level possible, after all he did promise Drew he would. But the soul searing kiss Micha lays on him sends his senses into overdrive, and keeping his distance and not dreaming up erotic dreams of Micha is darn near impossible and not as easy as it has been for the last ten years. As for Micha, the kiss as her seeing Josh in a new light and as she floats between dreams of Drew and her having their happy ever after and X-rated dreams of Josh , she is soon forced into having to decide if she wants to continue to live in the past or say "What if I took a chance?"
This was such a stunning read and from the very first page had me in tears. I bawled my eyes out for the pain Micha goes through, I wanted to give her a big hug and tell her she will get over Drew somehow, someday. Of course when one is standing on the outside and Micha's loss is not something you have gone through it's very easy to say that they will get over it. So right at the moment I wanted to tell Micha it will work out somehow , I also came to a sudden halt and started thinking, what if this was me, would I want to get over it, would I too go into a state of depression, or would I tell everyone am fine and totally actually be fine? And with this realization it hit me, that until you have been through such events there is no way you can say how you will react, and you can listen to the advise of others around you but in the end it's up to you to find a way back to the land of the living.
The character of Josh was a treat to read, fun loving, sexy, a little bit crazy fun and a whole lot of always rock solid pillar strength. I fell head over heals with this hero long before Micha did! But any woman out there would agree that a guy who is always there for you, and goes to the extremes to try and make you smile is perfect and any woman would easily fall in love with him, so this little personality trait is not what truly attracted me to his character. It was the soul searching the poor guy has to go through, and finding the reasons to truly look deep inside the meaning behind is promise. Being in love with Micha for so long and never acting on his feelings because of a promise to his best friend showed him as loyal as they come. Loyalty is always a unique and sadly not found very often personality trait. Through this character the author showed that being loyal and keeping our promises are one of the most valuable and attractive traits any one person can show. Of course just as any romance reader would, I shouted out more than once for him to forget the darn promise and take hold of Micha already, but yes the nagging little voice of reason was with me all the way. Through these set of emotions the author reminded me that a promise is a promise and loyalty is a stunning quality but what if we can see our promise in a different light?
From this read am taking away a range of messages. Holding onto the past will only cause you to never really step into the future life has planned for you, never decide for someone when they are ready to let go they need to do so in their own time, and never take a promise at face value, yes you made the promise but what exactly did you promise?
I highly recommend this read for each and every single romance fan out there. The book had serious depth, a stunning life lesson and a beautiful forever to be remembered romance. A word to the wise, make sure you pull out the tissues for this one, trust me you'll be needing it!
5/5 star review
" One too many shots leads to the kiss of a lifetime, and suddenly the past seems so far away"
