Add to Goodreads        Buy: Nook/Kindle

From the bestselling author of Pulled and Take This Regret comes a gripping new tale of loss and love.

William has spent six years running from his past and the last eight months trying to rid his mind of the dreams that increasingly haunt his nights. Trapped in a world of false ambitions and feigned affections, William knows he’s reached a breaking point and something’s going to give.

Maggie had lived her entire life without hope until one man showed her what it meant to be loved. He’d been her light in a lifetime of darkness. Six years ago, that darkness stole him away. Without him, she’s surrendered herself to an existence she doesn’t know how to escape.

When the family William left behind is struck by tragedy, he is called back to the one place he’s sworn to never return to again. 

In a moment that will change his life forever, William comes face to face with the girl who, with one look, captured his heart. He is unable to ignore the buried desires and the hope for the future they’d once believed they’d have. 

Now William is ready to fight to take back what had been stolen from him six years before.
But he never imagined what that fight might cost him. 

A.L. Jackson gives you an intimate look into the lives of a family bound by an unseen connection in this new contemporary romance.

I am not even sure where to begin. This book just gripped my heart in so many ways. 

In some books, they start with happiness and then there is pain. In this book, you are immediately hit with the horrible loneliness, emptiness, and heartache that both William and Maggie have felt for six years. Six years where they have tried to move on and forget...and failed... because they love they felt for each other was so all consuming and powerful that they cannot let it go despite distance. Maggie lived a hard life of abuse at the hands of her family and her boyfriend. When she met William, he turned on a light in her life. He was loving and protective and could really see who she was meant to be. Their friendship turned into an emotional connection that neither could imagine being without. And one night, it all changed. Choices were made and actions taken that led to them being apart. Until six years later, William is called home and has no choice but to face his past and his lost love. 

The story is told in present day and flashbacks in alternating points of view between William and Maggie. So the reader is constantly following along between their current pain and past mistakes and pain. It is emotional, heart wrenching, and intense. But as you follow this journey with William, you fall in love with him too. His intensity, his love, his devotion, and his protective spirit. It is hard to see him suffering with his guilt for not fighting harder and his anger for what has happened to them. And Maggie is strong despite her circumstances. She did what she had to do in order to protect those she loved at great personal cost to herself.

Knowing that did not mean it hadn't torn me apart. Even if she didn't choose me, I'd been desperate to save her from that path. But some things had been so deeply embedded in her that I doubted she'd really ever had a chance of breaking free of them. It was so ingrained she believed it was the only way to live. 

She'd touched me deeper than anyone ever had--deeper than I'd believe anyone could.

William had been the only one that ever cared enough to really see me. 

You get glimpses of happiness past and present during the story and you find yourself longing for their peace to be permanent. It is a tense and emotional journey. AL Jackson has a unique ability to make your feel so strongly for her characters and leaves them open and raw for you. You feel the hopelessness, the fear, the anger, the guilt, and the love that both of their characters feel in every page. 

We collided, body and soul, mouths and hands and whispered pleas. 

It was an unending trust, an overwhelming love, and an intense passion.

It is ultimately a story of love and healing. Not only between William and Maggie, but also between William and his family that he abandoned when he ran away. It was also important to see the strength that Maggie could find in herself. 

Maybe it was his sudden reappearance that made me brave. He's always made me feel that way, like a different person--a stronger person. Or maybe he just made me see who I really was.

It was not an easy journey, but it was a poignant one. And I loved that we were given a realistic epilogue to see how their lives had changed, but also showed that it takes work and dedication to make a happy life.