Oh my! My heart has been beaten and battered, but at the same time filled with hope. This is one of those books that sucks you in from the first page and does not let go. It is powerful and emotional, but also has humor, sweetness, and passion. It cycles through times of devastation and heartbreak, and others of happiness and hope. These characters are faced with challenges and unexpected trials.

Ava Lucas had love in the past, but lost it when he went on a mission never to be heard from again. She is reserved, sweet, funny, kind, and loyal. She was unprepared, broken, and lost. And after waiting five years for John to come home, she is finally making some changes. She is spending time with family and new friends, finding purpose in work, and trying to allow herself to move on. 

She unexpectedly meets Eric Tisdale at her sister's wedding. He is a man who should have everything going for him with money, success, good looks, and a popular family. But he is also a man who knows and understands loss. He is intuitive, caring, protective, even though he is also a bit cautious and cynical. But these two broken hearts attract and understand each other.

Ava has been living in limbo and is torn by her unresolved feelings from the past and her new inspiration. She is trying to truly start living again, but is also held back. And as the current news starts focusing more on new military developments, it opens up old wounds and she cannot help but wonder if someday answers about John will come...and what might happen if they finally do.

Can she let go of the past for good and be able to move on? Or will she continue to suffer setbacks and never be able to allow herself true happiness?

I was fascinated not only by the main characters, but all of the side characters. So many of them had their own tragedies and loss that made them bond even more. I loved the way that they supported each other through hard times and also had a positive effect on each other. I enjoyed getting multiple points of view to get more sides of the story.

My heart hurt so much for these characters. They had so much grief, anger, pain, fear, and insecurities. They were so well developed that they seemed real. Their lives were messy, complicated, unpredictable, and at times out of control. Their emotions were raw, intense, and overwhelming. There were parts of the past that were gradually revealed but kept you guessing and wondering as it went on. I was so tense and stressed reading it as it kept building. Even while reading sweet or happy parts, I would start worrying when something was going to throw it into a tailspin. And there were some parts that totally ripped my heart to shreds.

I honestly was not expecting to feel the way I did when I went into this book. But I figured out early on how I wanted the story to go and was actually worried about getting to the end. I could not put it down and feel like I have been put through a gamut of emotions. It was an amazing and well written story about love, hope, overcoming, and healing that kept me mesmerized and invested throughout.

I received this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Ava Lucas didn’t lose someone in the tragedy that rocked the country five years ago, but she loved a man who never came back after he left on deployment. That was 5 years ago, but until the fifth anniversary of the attack, Ava has lived in limbo. Five years is the limit she set for herself when it became clear he wasn’t coming back. Five years and it’s time to move on.

But even though Ava moves on, meets a new man, and tries to put her past behind her, she lives in constant fear that she’ll have to choose between the new life she is building for herself, and the life she once dreamed of, if John ever does come back.

Ava has always been private, quiet and reserved. When she moved to San Diego, she didn’t fill her family in on much of her daily life, preferring to keep her own little world on the other side of the country. When she moves home again, she chaffes at having everyone so involved in her life. She keeps secret the entirety of her life in San Diego, though her family knows something happened, they don’t know what.

When she meets Eric at her sister’s wedding, they hit it off immediately. Ava is still hesitant to start anything, especially with her decision to move on so fresh. Eric is the perfect gentleman, expressing his interest and desires, but allowing Ava to set the pace entirely. He is so devoted, even from those early interactions that it was easy to fall in love with him and to feel the depth of his feelings for Ava.

This book gutted me in the best possible ways. It was so full of emotional ups and downs from all the characters. I loved the way the side characters were intertwined not only with the main story, but with the events of the attack in the past. There are little reminders all over in Ava’s life to that fateful day. There were aspects that I predicted and was able to see coming, but they still caught me. I know, that sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. I was fully involved in Ava’s journey from start to finish, because that’s really what this was -- her journey to create a life that she could live to the fullest no matter where or with whom.
 
I received this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Prologue 

Ava 

We met in a bar, of all places, a dingy hole-in-the-wall favored by military members from the nearby Navy base in San Diego. I went with a friend from school who was interested in one of the military guys. Before that night, I’d never been there, and I’ve never been back. John was celebrating the promotion of one of his buddies. He crashed into me as I left the ladies’ room and kept me from falling by grabbing my arms to steady me. Just like in the movies, our eyes met, and my spine tingled with the kind of instantaneous awareness I’d only read about but never experienced personally. “I’m so sorry,” he said, gorgeous and fierce in his fatigues. I noticed gold on his collar, a hint of late-day scruff on his jaw and the name WEST in bold black letters on his chest. Intense electric-blue eyes made it impossible for me to look away, even when I was safely back on my feet. “Are you all right?” he asked. Realizing I’d been staring at him, I blinked and reluctantly broke the connection. “I… Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for the save.” And then he smiled, and the tingling began anew. “I’m John.” I shook his outstretched hand. “Ava.” Keeping his hold on my hand, he tipped his head. “You come here often?” “Never,” I said, laughing. “I’m a first-timer.” “What do you think so far?” “I wasn’t impressed until about thirty seconds ago.” As if he had all the time in the world to give me, he leaned against the wall. “Is that right? What happened thirty seconds ago?” I thought about taking back my hand but didn’t. “I was saved from certain disaster by a man in uniform.” “The guy in the uniform is the reason you needed saving in the first place, because he wasn’t watching where he was going. Least he can do is buy you a drink.” “I wouldn’t say no to that.” I was proud of my witty responses and got the feeling he could more than hold his own in the wittiness department. Across the crowded room, I noticed my friend talking to the guy she’d come to see, and her brows lifted in interest when she saw me with John. He guided me to the bar, placing a proprietary hand on my lower back, and told one of the guys to give me his stool. “Yes, sir.” The younger man bowed gallantly to me as he took his beer and moved along. “Do people always do what you say?” “If they know what’s good for them.” His teasing grin kept the comment from being overly cocky. “What can I get you?” Deciding to live dangerously for once, I asked for a cosmopolitan. “Go big or go home,” he said with admiration. “That’s my motto.” I was so full of shit. I wondered if he could tell I was all talk or what he’d think of me if he knew I usually err much closer to the side of caution than the wild side. I wondered if he could tell I was just barely old enough to drink. I’d turned twenty-one only six months earlier. When my cosmo and his Budweiser had been delivered, he offered a toast. “To new friends.” I touched my glass to his bottle. “To new friends.” “So, where’re you from, Ava?” “New York.” “I thought I heard New Yawk in your voice.” I batted my eyelashes at him. “So four years at the University of California San Diego didn’t scrub the New York out of me?” Laughing, he said, “Hardly. I know some guys from New York. One of them is from Staten Island, which is about as New York as it gets. I know New York when I hear it.” “I’m from Purchase, upstate from the city. What about you?” “I’m from all over. My old man is a retired general. You name it, I’ve lived there.” “Where’s home?” “Right here.” He turned that intense gaze on me, and I went stupid in the head. I couldn’t see anything but him. We might as well have been alone in the crowded bar for all I knew. Unlike my friend, who loved men in uniform, I was never turned on by the uniform. Until then. Until John. “You want to get out of here?” I swallowed hard. It wasn’t like me to leave a bar with a man I’d just met. “And go where?” “Somewhere we can talk.” “What do you want to talk about?” He leaned in so his lips were close to my ear. “Everything. I want to know every single thing there is to know about you.”   That’s how we started. We were intense from the first second we met until the last time I saw him five years ago today. I can’t believe it’s been five years since I looked into those incredible blue eyes or woke to him on the pillow next to me or heard his voice in my ear, whispering words that’re permanently carved into my heart as he made love to me. The worst part is I have no idea where he is. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, being held captive or if he’s living his life somewhere else with someone else. I don’t know, and the not knowing is the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. I love him as much today as I ever did. No amount of time could ever change that simple fact of my life. We had two beautiful, magnificent years together, caught up in our own little bubble. He never met my family. I never met his. We didn’t make couple friends. We didn’t talk about the future. We didn’t need to. Our future was decided that first night, and it would take care of itself in due time. I honestly and naïvely believed that. Now, with hindsight, I realize the bubble was strategic on his part. He gave me everything he had to give, including no promise of tomorrow. Five years ago today, we watched the horror unfold on live television. A US-based cruise ship blown up by suicide bombers. Four thousand lives extinguished in a heartbeat. Our world permanently changed once again, our country declaring yet another war on terrorists. After 9/11 we thought we’d seen everything. We were wrong. “I have to go,” he said, grabbing the duffel that stood ready in the front hall closet. He called it his “go bag.” I’d thought nothing of it. “Where’re you going?” “I don’t know.” “When will you be back?” “I don’t know that either.” He held my face in his hands and gazed at me, seemingly trying to memorize my every feature. “I love you. I’ll always love you.” Then he kissed me as passionately as he ever had and was gone, out the door in a flash of camouflage. I never saw him again. I’m not his wife or even his fiancée, so no one notified me of his whereabouts. And three months after he left, when I found a way onto the base in a desperate quest for information, no one there could tell me anything either. I tried to locate his parents and other people he mentioned, but it was like they didn’t exist. I could find no record of a retired general named West in the Marine Corps, Army or Air Force.  Furthermore, an exhaustive search for information on the John West I had known led nowhere. No high school, no college, no military service, no nothing. Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed the two years we spent together, doing mundane things like grocery shopping, cooking, watching TV and sleeping together after long days at work. But then I’d remember the blissful passion, the scorching pleasure, the desire that ruled us from the beginning, and I’d know I didn’t dream him. I didn’t dream us. We were real, and he was everything to me. Sitting on the floor in our apartment, surrounded by boxes, I take a few minutes before the movers arrive to memorize every detail of the place where we lived together. I’ve packed his things along with mine, and I’m moving home to New York. Today was my deadline. I gave it five years, and I simply can’t do it anymore. I can’t sit in our home among our things, waiting for something that’s never going to happen. It’s over. It’s time for me to move on. It’s probably long past time, if I’m being honest with myself. And though I know it’s the right move at the right time, that doesn’t mean my heart isn’t shattering all over again as I dismantle the place where we were us. My sister is getting married next month. I promised her I’d be home in time to hold her hand through the festivities. Other than occasional trips home for holidays and other occasions, I’ve been gone more than ten years. I bear no resemblance whatsoever to the girl who left home at eighteen seeking independence from her overbearing family at a faraway college out West. I accomplished all my goals, finishing college, landing a decent job and falling in love with the man of my dreams. I found out what happens when dreams come true and how painful it is when they blow up in your face. It’s time now to set new goals, to start over, to begin a life that doesn’t have John at the center of it the way it did here. It’ll be nice to be back with people who love me and care about me, even if they tend toward smothering at times. That’s looking rather good to me after years of loneliness and grief. The intercom sounds to let me know the movers are here. I pick myself up off the floor and steel my heart for the day ahead. I can do this. I’ve been through worse, and I’ll survive this the same way I’ve survived everything else. Despite my resolve, my eyes fill with tears as I press the button that opens the door downstairs to the movers. It doesn’t take them long to pack my belongings into their truck. I keep with me the things that can’t be replaced—precious photos, gifts he gave me, the clothing he left behind. After taking a final look around the apartment, I pack those boxes into my car, turn my apartment keys into the leasing office and head east, feeling as if I’m leaving behind everything that ever mattered to me. It’s like I’m losing him all over again. I cry all the way through the desert of Southern California and well into Arizona. I relive every minute I can remember, every conversation, every special moment. I think about what it was like to make love with him and wonder how I’ll ever to do that with anyone but him. Maybe I won’t. Maybe that part of my life ended with him, and even though I’m only twenty-eight now, I’m okay with that possibility. Once you’ve experienced perfection, it’s hard to imagine settling for anything less. The tears finally dry up somewhere in northern Arizona, but the ache inside… I take that with me all the way to New York, where I will try my very best to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and put them back together into some new version of myself. After all, what choice do I have?

Marie Force

Marie Force is the New York Times bestselling author of contemporary romance, including the indie-published Gansett Island Series and the Fatal Series from Harlequin Books. In addition, she is the author of the Butler, Vermont Series, the Green Mountain Series and the erotic romance Quantum Series. In 2019, her new historical Gilded series from Kensington Books will debut with Duchess By Deception. 

All together, her books have sold 6.5 million copies worldwide, have been translated into more than a dozen languages and have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list many times. She is also a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller, a Speigel bestseller in Germany, a frequent speaker and publishing workshop presenter as well as a publisher through her Jack’s House Publishing romance imprint. She is a two-time nominee for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® award for romance fiction. 

Her goals in life are simple—to finish raising two happy, healthy, productive young adults, to keep writing books for as long as she possibly can and to never be on a flight that makes the news. 

Join Marie's mailing list for news about new books and upcoming appearances in your area. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter @marieforce and on Instagram. Join one of Marie's many reader groups. Contact Marie at marie@marieforce.com.