Blog Tour and Giveaway: Forever Your Heart: Mary Whitney
Forever Your Heart
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I’m a journalist—Adam Kincaid, BBC reporter, to be exact, so I’m not going to bury the lead. I’m about to see the woman I never got over.
I know that because I’ve been back in America for years now, and I still don’t date American girls. My dad would say I’ve come to my senses, sticking to my own British patrician kind, but that’s crap. Mum, the psychologist, would more wisely say it’s my unresolved issues around Nicki. My teenage years are long behind me, yet my guilt over her remains. So I’ve avoided all things Nicki, though the irony is she’s the one avoiding me.
Maybe if we see each other, we can both move on. Could she ever forgive me? Can you forgive yourself when you hurt someone you love?
But please, don’t answer yet. I’ve jumped ahead of the story, and as a reporter, I should give you more background to get to the root of it all.
So let me tell you my story. Then you can be the judge.
NOTE: While this is the third in the series, it can be read as a standalone book.
From the author's website:
Book 2 is Nicki’s story of the second half, while book 3 is Adam’s. I promise book 3 isn’t just a regurgitation of book 2. : )
Throughout my travels the next day, I racked my brain
thinking of how I could get Nicki alone—really alone—to tell her how I felt. It
was time. I was tired of the game. Of course, I would wait as long as it took
for her to come around, but I wanted to speed it up.
I still hadn’t decided how to best approach her when I got a
phone call from David the following morning. “Hey, Cuz. You can thank me
again.”
“For what?”
“I booked a date with our two little birds for this
weekend.”
“David, I really don’t think they qualify as our birds yet.”
“Speak for yourself. I’ve got Lisa right where I want
her.”
“Are you sure? Knowing Lisa, I bet she wouldn’t even like
being called a bird.”
“Fine. Then, she’s my swan.”
Tired of his routine, I cut him off. “What did you plan? You
know Sylvia is coming down on Saturday.”
“That’s fine. She can join us. We’re going boating on the
Potomac.”
“Boating?” I was more of a rower than David, but that wasn’t
saying much.
“Yep. It was Lisa’s idea. I bet if I row her along, it will
melt my ice queen’s heart. Sylvia can be in your boat.”
Sylvia’s presence would make Nicki comfortable, but she was
also going to be really fucking annoying. I grumbled, “Great. Thanks. You’re
always thinking of me.”
“Not really, but I’m happy to be of help when I can.”
“Are you sure you can row a boat?”
“Not at all, but I’m already planning on capsizing.”
“Why on earth would you plan that? She’ll be irate.”
“Maybe, but she’ll definitely end up half-naked.”
I could envision a soggy Lisa ridding herself of a wet
T-shirt. “It might work.”
“And you know what comes after half-naked?”
“What?”
“Fully naked,” he said with supreme confidence.
“Fully naked,” he said with supreme confidence.
We met Adam and Nicki in Beside Your Heart as they navigated an intense high school relationship, devastating break up, and lost touch. In Disclosure of the Heart, we got Nicki's point of view and saw them reunite over fifteen years later. And now we get Adam's full perspective as they reunited and tried to rekindle the love they shared and deal with their guilt and loss from the past. A decade and a half later, we were now going to see each other again. Could she ever forgive me? Do you forgive yourself when you hurt someone you love?
Adam was just as insecure as Nicki. He did not know what she was really thinking about his reappearance in her life. But he knew that she was the one that got away, and that he needed to see her again. And he was willing to change his job and location in order to do it.
"I'll tell you, in the grand scheme of things, whatever it is, it's not important. You're what's most imporatant to me. And from what you've said, I'm important to you. So let's stop pissing around and get the f***on with our lives."
I have loved Adam in every book in this series from a teenager and mature man. His unwavering love for Nicki despite time and distance melted my heart. He was sexy, charismatic, sweet, smart, and caring. He knew what he was missing and did not want to continue to waste time. He was all male, possessive, and jealous. His Brit terminology just added more character especially in his internal monologues when he let go. His sense of humor had me laughing at times. But he also showed vulnerability, emotion, and deep feelings.
"I can't have you crying, Nicki. You're going to make me start, and blokes aren't supposed to."
He appreciated Nicki's sass, spunk, and intelligence, and accepted her flaws, imperfections and past demons. They both made some mistakes, but it was obvious, especially in Adam's mind that they were meant to be. And he was willing to do what he needed to in order to convince her. I loved seeing her fall for her all over again. He also had other issues going on his life that caused stress and pain and he needed support. And they had to figure out how to deal with their complicated, busy lives.
I loved his crazy cousin David and their brotherly type relationship. David was so cocky, unfiltered, and such a flirt. But I enjoyed his cat and mouse game with her friend Lisa. And Adam and his sister Sylvia also had a witty rapport and tight bond.
"Maybe we had to be apart all those years so we could be together now?"
This book brings you back into their beautiful love story that spans time and distance, but lets you see everything that Adam felt from his heart break, guilt, loss, longing, and happiness. They went through so much individually and together, but it all led them back to where they were supposed to be. It was a heartfelt and sweet second chance love story. This installment gave us more that we were not privy to in Nicki's point of view and also gave us a little further peek into the future that we did not see in Disclosure of the Heart.
Thanks to Mary Whitney for providing me with a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.
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Kim's 4.5 star review
"It's an emotional story that will take the reader back to those feelings that made the late teen years such a powerful time."
Late one night Nicki Johnson plays with emotional fire and Googles her high school love, only to find his name splashed across the British gossip columns. Back in his native England, Adam Kincaid is successful and dating a woman from an aristocratic family like his own. With a career in politics, Nicki’s no slouch, but she knows Adam is living a world away from her life.
Yet there was a time he was no farther than the next locker. Nicki will never forget their year together in high school—the year of her sister’s death, the year her mother checked out. Adam helped Nicki through suffocating grief, and she led him through a coming of age. Was it just high school, or was it something more?
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Disclosure of the Heart (book 2)
Sixteen years is a long time to wait for your true love to reappear, and, anyway, Nicki Johnson couldn’t wait for the impossible to happen. Hard life lessons have taught her that fairy tales are children’s stories, and fate is cruel. Burying her hopes, she’s spent the last sixteen years focused and driven toward her career, and it’s landed her with a job at the White House with a gem of a boyfriend. But when her high school love, Adam Kincaid, walks into the White House as a BBC reporter, Nicki’s world is thrown into turmoil as she relives their past. Adam has come back for her, but has he arrived too late?
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Mary Whitney blames Laura Ingalls Wilder and Margaret Mitchell for her obsession with romance novels. At an early age, Mary fell in love with the Little House series and its dreamy hero, Almanzo Wilder, who only wanted Laura to be Laura. Like many women, Mary later graduated to the ultimate, tall and dark bad boy, Rhett Butler, who loved Scarlett despite her flaws.
Mary has lived around the U.S., and after a first career in the non-profit world and politics, she's settled in Northern California with her husband and daughters. She spends her days writing characters she hopes somehow capture the romance of Rhett and Scarlett and Almanzo and Laura. She's a firm believer in what Rhett says to Scarlett: "You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how.
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