Aurora Jones is a social worker and family therapist navigating a stressful job. She's got a close core group of friends, but is still a bit lonely. She's always been in relationships and not all of them were healthy due to her tendency to get emotionally attached and be a "Fixer". So now she is taking a year sabbatical from men and sex. She's learning to be brave, true to herself, and live life on her own terms...with a little help from her friends.

Cameron Miller is a special ed teacher in an urban school dealing with troubled youth. He has had his own relationship issues. After a break up, he turned to women and alcohol to cope. But now he is on a break from women and trying to make better choices. He's sweet, charming, sexy, but kind of lost.

They meet due to their mutual friend group, but bond over their current sex ban. Soon they have their own private "Chastity Club" meet ups where they talk freely about their lives, their careers, and similar values. 

I loved the slow build with them developing their own friendship, bond, understanding, trust, and attraction. It happened naturally and felt very real and organic. But they are supposed to be off limits and only friends. They both have fears and insecurities. They both have issues to deal with in their own lives.  And they have to worry about damaging their new important friendship and also causing drama in their core group.

But they are a breath of fresh air for each other. They can understand and relate to the other. And they find their attraction becoming more obvious and intense. But there are some complications, confusion, and mixed feelings.

Can they take a leap towards something more and still keep everything in their lives intact?

I loved both of these characters and getting both of their points of view. They were likable, real, honest, and had interesting back stories. They had a smoldering chemistry underlying their newly built friendship and companionship. This is a journey of self actualization, and a gradual building of intimacy, trust, and feelings. I liked that is was not based on sex, but a true connection and understanding. Their individual breaks gave them time to explore what they really needed and who they wanted to be,  and the ability to recognize their new truths.

I liked the side characters or Nicole, Michael, Sydney, and Maddie. I am very intrigued by Maddie and Sydney and would love to see them get their own book. This tight knit group really was a support for each other to fall back on, but they also added humor and sometimes drama to the mix.

This was a sweet, emotional, romantic friends-to-lovers story that also dealt with some important socio-economic issues. I loved how these characters strived to make a difference with the kids they served. It just gave the whole story more meaning. I was engaged from the first page and read it in one sitting. There were a lot of things about it that tugged at my heart and kept me invested in the story.

I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review. 

Aurora Jones is on a self-imposed moratorium on dating. After a string of failed relationships with men who were all wrong for her, Aurora promised she would go a year without dating. She is finally discovering herself in her singleness -- she love her job as a social worker and she has a strong group of friends around her.

Cameron Miller is also under a moratorium of sorts, though his dating woes were more about too many women and a scare that changed his thought process. His world has sort of fallen apart in the last year, finding his girlfriend cheating on him, losing his job, and turning to women and booze to mask the pain.

Neither is in a place for a relationship, but that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy each other’s company. When they begin meeting up without their circle of friends around them, they discover that the attraction between them may be more than they expected.

The chemistry between these two simmers as they build a friendship based on their dating problems and related career fields. Watching their friendship form without the pressures of a physical relationship (though they each fought the physical attraction) was a fun way to get to know these two. It was like watching my own friends find the perfect person who has been in the background all along.

The group of friends around Cameron and Aurora is a fun group with a lot of depth. Her friend, Sydney, and his roommate, Maddie, have some drama going on in the background that I would love to see explored in more detail as their own book. This was an entertaining read that kept me focused and intrigued from start to finish.

I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review.  
 “Well,” I explained, after swallowing a bite, “depends how, um, sexually frustrated you’ve been and—”

“Extremely,” she said without hesitation, and I nearly choked on the cheese sliding down my throat. “I mean, Richard doesn’t even—”

She smashed her hand over her mouth, looking positively mortified. “Shit, never mind.”

“Who’s Richard?” I asked, thoroughly confused, wondering if I’d missed something in the conversation.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Can you forget I even said that?”

“Not a chance,” I replied, knowing it would bug the shit out of me all night if she didn’t fess up. “Don’t be embarrassed, we’ve talked about plenty of things already…”

As she took deep breaths, I tried to match up the name Richard to one of her old boyfriends she might’ve mentioned. Or was she more mortified that I’d brought up the idea of being sexually frustrated?

“Look, I wasn’t trying to embarrass you,” I said, attempting to dislodge her hand from her face. “Guys talk about jacking off all the time, I don’t know if girls do, but—”

“Of course we do,” she finally huffed out, her eyes bulging. “Richard is the name of my vibrator.”

Oh fucking Christ, what a visual. My dick immediately tented against my zipper. In that moment, I was so grateful the tablecloth was covering me. After I got over the initial shock and stimulation of her bringing up her vibrator, I focused in on the fact that she had named it in the first place. Richard.

I couldn’t hold back a snort and that caused a chain reaction in Aurora, who began giggling and then full-on laughing. Her face was so beet red that when we made eye contact and I said, “Richard. As in dick?” she howled even louder, causing the people in the booth behind her to turn around and stare.

Once upon a time, I lived in New York City and was a wardrobe stylist. I spent my days shopping for photo shoots, getting into cabs, eating amazing food, and drinking coffee at my favorite hangouts.

Now I live in the Midwest with my husband and son—my two favorite guys. I've been a clinical social worker and a special education teacher. But it wasn't until I wrote a weekly column for the local newspaper that I realized I could turn the fairytales inside my head into the reality of writing fiction.

I write Adult, New Adult, and M/M Contemporary Romance. I'm addicted to lip gloss and salted caramel everything. I believes in true love and kissing, so writing romance novels has become a dream job.