Abandoned by Booklikes

Main plot is that Grey has been in love with Ben Craft since they were both 13 years old. After finally receiving approval by their parents to marry while in college Grey is excitedly planning her wedding when she receives a phone call that Ben has died (don't worry you find out this reading the book synopsis so no spoilers here) from a rare heart condition.

Fast forward two years and Grey is still recovering from the loss of Ben and has become quite dependent on Ben's best friend Jagger (I can't stop laughing at this name by the way) and they both know that only each other totally gets what it was like to lose Ben.

I definitely liked the idea behind this book a lot more than actually reading it. Losing someone you love is very hard to get past. I have read other romance novels that have tackled this same subject. How do you get past missing someone that you loved who was taken away from you? They often have the same plot points that the widow (or in this case fiancee) starts moving on to either a mutual friend of the deceased and her or a wholly new person. That right there could have been a great plot in of itself. However, this book muddies things by trying to turn this into a romantic suspense novel at the same time. Additionally, we also have a revelation totally out of left field that was not necessary at all that I guessed at quite early on in the book.

Ultimately though the writing was serviceable it was not great. Ms. McAdams in my opinion, did not devote enough of this book to show us the character of Ben. I honestly think that lengthening the prologue by another 15 pages or so to just show us with the character of Ben or at least have some flashbacks to have readers get why Grey was still devastated two years later after his death. Just writing a story that says character X loved character Y and is devastated by character Y's death is not enough for me to really feel it when I am reading it. You have to draw the reader in and have them feel that emotionally sense of loss too.

Additionally, the character of Grey was not working for me at all. Spoiled, rude, and coddled within an inch of her life by everyone I was just over her entirely by the end of the book. Jagger was a non-entity entirely and I never felt like he was a fully formed character at all. The only thing that was important about him was that he loved Grey. Other than that I was quite bored by his character. It would have helped if I felt any kind of chemistry between these two people but it was not there one little bit.

The ending felt rushed and when we get to the end I just pretty much shrugged. This apparently will become a series of books starring characters living in the town of Thatch. This will be my first and last book that I plan on reading about this planned series.

Please note that I received this book for free via the Amazon Vine Program.