“I’ve avoided men for six and a half years, Coen...what is it about you that has me anxiously waiting for a chance to be near you again?”

Reagan has raised her six year old son on her own with as little help from her family as possible. When she found herself pregnant at 16 and the baby’s father refused to have anything to do with her, she decided she would raise the baby herself and not become a statistic. For 6 years, she hasn’t let any man into her and her son’s lives to protect them both. 

Coen is best friends with Reagan’s brother, Keegan. Having served in the Army together, Keegan knows Coen’s demons, at least as much as Coen has shared with anyone. Now that he is a civilian, Coen is sticking around Colorado to maintain the client base he’s built as a photographer. But Coen’s demons have followed him from Army life to civilian life, resulting in working all hours of the day and night to avoid sleeping, where the flashbacks plague him. 

From the very first chapter, Keegan and Reagan had my heart. Keegan as the best brother I’ve read in a while, and Reagan as an independent, strong-willed woman. But the stubborn side of Reagan’s independence almost wrecked everything for her, and for that I wanted to shake her. Six years is a long time to keep one’s self from letting anyone new in one’s life, and it took her some time to break old habits. 

The first meeting of Coen and Reagan had me laughing, knowing their next meeting was going to be epic, especially with Keegan’s involvement. The involvement of Reagan’s family in general made for some great moments. There isn’t much mention of Coen’s family, or where he was from before the Army, but it didn’t detract from the story at all, especially because of the large involvement of Reagan’s family and the addition of another Army buddy, Brody Saco. 

“I crave the peace you give me, yeah...but I crave your laugh, your love for your son, and this more.”

Both main characters have mental blocks they have to break through before their relationship can work. Reagan hasn’t allowed a man in her life since high school and doesn’t trust men outside her family, and Coen is haunted by his time in the Army. Both are convinced that they are wrong for each other, and Reagan is convinced that at some point Coen will change his mind and leave her and Parker worse off than they were without him. I kept going back to the idea that six years was a long time for her to hold a grudge against all men for the actions of one. 

Midway through reading, I had to stop and double check that this was in fact a novella. The characters were developed in such a way that they felt so much deeper than I am used to finding in a novella. There was so much attention to detail, in the plot events and the characters’ backstories. No aspect of this story was superfluous, and events that I thought would be irrelevant to the main action turned out to be very important to reactions later in the story. This was a great novella, full of healing, heart, and emotion. 

As a bonus, Molly has included a link to a gallery of images that played a key role in a couple scenes throughout the book but one in particular. It was one thing to imagine the portraits as described in the book, but to see them in reality added a whole other depth to that aspect of the story. Having the photography of one of the characters displayed was the perfect way to end the experience of reading Capturing Peace. 

Molly McAdams

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Molly grew up in California but now lives in the oh-so-amazing state of Texas with her husband and furry four-legged daughters. When she's not diving into the world of her characters, some of her hobbies include hiking, snowboarding, traveling, and long walks on the beach … which roughly translates to being a homebody with her hubby and dishing out movie quotes. She has a weakness for crude-humored movies, fried pickles and loves curling up in a fluffy comforter during a thunderstorm ... or under one in a bathtub if there are tornados. That way she can pretend they aren't really happening.