Luke Harper was finally starting to settle into his life - a life that had previously been full of more heartbreak and pain than most people ever experienced. He had a job he loved, and was blissfully content in his on-again, off-again relationship with the striking, and highly sexual, Holly. But, life throws Luke another curveball with the arrival of the alluring April, a woman stuck in a tumultuous, violent marriage to a famous athlete. Luke soon finds himself torn between what is safe, familiar, and right, and what is dangerous, unknown, and forbidden.
Review by Amber Presley Boyd
4 Soul Searching Stars
I must say this book gave me quite the book hangover. I
received an arc of this one and was intrigued when I found it was told from the
guy’s point of view, which is something that is always a positive for me. This
was no exception. The story is about Luke Harper, a high school English teacher
that lost his wife at a very young age to cancer. Since that time it seems he
has been floating thru life, not connecting to many people and surviving in a
friends with benefits relationship with Holly. It’s not until his dear friend
and teaching partner becomes ill and a substitute arrives that Luke begins to
wake up. However this awakening brings many other obstacles and questions of
belief to him. When Luke sees April for the first time he is mesmerized and
feels that she is “making me rethink
everything about fate, about life, and about love”. On the flip side of
this pull Luke seems to have to April, is Holly. Holly has been his “friend
with benefits” off and on for the past couple of years and the only girl he’s been
with since his wife died. I have to say that initially I wasn’t sure about
Holly any more than I was about April. Holly seemed a bit superficial at first
but then you begin to get the sense that she is into Luke more than maybe he’s
willing to see. April is an enigma of a character to me. In the beginning she just
seemed really guarded, so you knew there was more to her; and Luke finds pretty
early that she is married to this pro baseball player. He even admits that fact
that her being married scared him because the feelings he was having for her
scared him. He’s drawn to her like a moth to a light and it’s like he can’t
stop himself, especially as April begins to share the misery in her marriage
and what an ass her husband is really. Initially the relationship between Luke
and April is friendly, flirty maybe, but still just friends. Everything begins
to shift when Luke’s friend unexpectedly dies and April becomes the replacement
teacher, she gets into a fight with her husband that results in him hitting her
and makes Luke want to save her. What transpires next was easy to see coming as
April and Luke get more involved and Luke is torn a bit between her and Holly.
He feels bad for lying to Holly, who has been there for him and he really does
feel bad for not being honest with her. Luke begins struggling more when Holly
discovers his betrayal of her and its not until he sees how April treats Holly
that he really begins to wake up and see what’s in front of him. This is a
story about awakening, grief, sadness and figuring out what we want as well as
dealing with the consequences of our actions. I will reveal that there is a
cliffhanger, which left me with a bundle of emotions but I think I’m happy that
Luke’s story will continue and look forward to see what JJ has in store. This
book had its frustrations for me for sure but there were many more really good
things that kept me turning the page. Hope it will for you too! Happy reading!
Good Job JJ Rossum!!
A couple of my favorite lines:
“Happiness is always attainable, no matter how old or young
a person is. They just have to be willing to stand up and fight for it. To say
– “I’ve put up with this shit long enough, but not anymore. Now, I am living
for myself, and my own happiness.”
“I don’t think real love tries to change you. The movies
were part of me. When a person tries to strip you of the things that make you
you – only to make you more like them – it starts to make you bitter.”
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