I reviewed Caroline & West, book 1 (Deeper), here. You really shouldn’t read book 2 without a working knowledge of the events of book 1.
Harder
by Robin York
In Robin York’s provocative new novel, two young ex-lovers find themselves together again in the shadow of tragedy—and an intense, undeniable attraction.
Caroline still dreams about West. His warm skin, his taut muscles, his hand sliding down her stomach. Then she wakes up and she’s back to reality: West is gone. And before he left, he broke her heart.
Then, out of the blue, West calls in crisis. A tragedy has hit his family—a family that’s already a fractured mess. Caroline knows what she has to do. Without discussion, without stopping to think, she’s on a plane, flying to his side to support him in any way he needs.
They’re together again, but things are totally different. West looks edgy, angry at the world. Caroline doesn’t fit in. She should be back in Iowa, finalizing her civil suit against the ex-boyfriend who posted their explicit pictures on a revenge porn website. But here she is. Deeply into West, wrapped up in him, in love with him. Still.
They fought the odds once. Losing each other was hard. But finding their way back to each other couldn’t be harder.
Review:
It wasn’t what I expected, and it sure as heck wasn’t an easy read, but…wow. This was one emotional read. I honestly don’t know how many times this one had me tearing up–with sympathy, with frustration, in anger–I went the gamut here. Caro and West went through the wringer to get to their HEA, that’s for sure. West was really, really hard to like for a good chunk of the book–eventually we see inside his head and get a clue about what was going on in there, and whoa. It’s a good thing I didn’t have any else pressing this weekend to do, because I didn’t want to stop reading, even when I wasn’t a fan of what was going on!
A few favorite lines:
“The only person who’s allowed to define how you feel about anything is you.” (Caro)
“Don’t put yourself in between the life you’ve got and the one you want.” (West)
“I guess we expect the turning points in out lives to be plastered in flags and warning signs when, in fact, most of the times our lives change when we’re not paying attention. We blow past the markers without even seeing them, and then we come to the end of some path and find there’s no label for it at all.” (Caro)
“It doesn’t take anything special to fight back against the world and all the ways it wants to box you in, hold you down, limit you, and keep you from thriving. You just have to know what it is you want to accomplish. You have to know who you want to be with and what you’ll give up to get them.
You have to let yourself want what you want as hard as you can, as deep as that goes, even if it scares the f*ck out of you.” (Caro)
Robin York did an amazing job with this one–can’t wait to see what she does next!
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A-
I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.
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