Brady McConnell thrives on saving patients in his
busy emergency room, but a handful of failures send him tumbling over the edge
of sanity. There to catch him is real estate mogul, Garrett Stafford. Brady has
always been jealous of Garrett's carefree attitude toward life, love and sex,
but through the good and the bad, his sexy-as-hell best friend has always been
at Brady's side.
All the money in the world can't buy Garrett the
one thing he wants the most--Brady. But seeing Brady broken and exhausted on a
busy, snow-covered Chicago street just days before Christmas is the last straw.
Garrett finally gives in to the temptation that has haunted him for years and
shows Brady there's more to life than rescuing those in need.
Roused by their desperate passion for one another,
their desire reaches an explosive breaking point. Brady realizes one night
isn't enough, but the always secretive Garrett is bound by rules he can't
change. Now Brady's healing touch may save more than just a life...it may just
save Garrett's soul.
*This title was previous published by another
publisher in December 2011, and has been extensively revised from the original
edition.
Goodreads | Amazon
My
Review:
2.5 stars
I have very mixed feelings about this story. While
parts of it worked for me, others didn’t. To start with, the writing was good,
but there was one part of it that really threw me off, the switches between
thought and reality. Thoughts would be randomly thrown in, with nothing to
separate them from everything else going on. Sometimes it was easier to figure
out that it was a thought, but a few times I had to go back and re-read the
paragraph to decipher what was what, which really took me out of the story. On
the other hand, the characters were well developed and interesting, especially
Brady. I really felt for Brady and felt that I got to know and connect with him
and his struggle. It was also interesting to get to learn about Garrett, though
there were mysterious tidbits that were introduced (like what happened with his
family) but never explained, which made it hard for me to really connect with
him.
For the plot, the story started off well. We got
to see Brady’s breakdown and what led up to it, as well as getting background
information on Brady and Garrett. The story drew me in at this point because a
lot was going on, which kept the story moving quickly. As it went along though,
it slowed down for me and became an in-depth romance, which I normally like,
but didn’t work as well for me here. I just couldn’t get behind it, partially
because Garrett was still a mystery and partially because the story went from
being a getting to know you romance to an extended sex scene. While the sex was
hot, it went on long enough that I found myself skipping ahead to try and see
what would happen next in their relationship. I then ran into my biggest issue
with the book.
My biggest issue came in the end when I wasn’t
able to suspend disbelief. Brady’s entire world is crashing down around him yet
one night is enough to magically fix everything and give Brady an entire new
look on life? I find this extremely difficult to believe and unrealistic. I’ve
been in a similar position before and it took a long time for me to work things
out, yet it’s magically fixed in one day for Brady. I might have been able to
suspend disbelief and go along with this if there were a magical reasoning
behind this (fated mates, spell, etc.), yet the paranormal aspect is played
down and doesn’t really play a large role in the story. The story started out
so well and I thought it was going to become more of a hurt/comfort story,
where we saw their relationship develop while Brady healed. Yet it was rushed
at the end, which I felt was a disservice since the story started out so well.
However, I did like Brady’s reaction to Garrett’s big reveal as it was
different than what I was expecting and worked for the story.
While I think the book showed a lot of promise, it
just didn’t deliver for me. As I said above, a lot of the beginning deals with
their relationship as friends and then beginning a romantic relationship, and
then we practically skip to a HEA that’s more of a HFN because it left a giant
elephant in the room in regards to their future working out. I think the book
would have been much better if more time was spent in the middle/end of the
book developing Brady and Garrett’s relationship as a romantic couple after
they decided to give it a try instead of just in the beginning. I decided to
give this 2.5 stars because while I did enjoy certain parts of the story as
well as its potential, I was left underwhelmed and a bit disappointed by the end.
*Review copy provided via Reading Alley in
exchange for an honest review.*
