RUTHLESS KING
Series: Kings of Rittenhouse #3
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Maya Hughes
Release Date: January 10, 2019
A STANDALONE second chance, enemies to lovers romance.
My dick never got me in half as much trouble as my heart…
We were high school sweethearts. I was head over heels for her and no one could tell me we weren’t going to last forever. College? Going pro? My family’s money? None of it mattered. She was all I needed.
Then she ripped my heart out. But I’m not going to let that happen again.
She’s back. Invading my life and acting like she was the wronged one. The pain is still there, but I can’t keep my eyes off her. I can’t stop thinking about her and how much was left unsaid between us. Being this close is making me question everything I thought I knew about her.
This time everything will be on my terms. Everything…
AMAZON
I never stopped loving you. Even when I hated you with all of my being, even when I hated myself for it and wished I could carve my heart out of my chest, I still loved you.”
The second I read the blurb to this book, I knew this would be my first Maya Hughes read. I’m a sucker for a good second-chance romance, and this one checked all of my boxes.
I dove into this book without having read the previous two in this series, and while I had absolutely no problem enjoying it as a standalone, I’ll definitely be reading the other books if only because I’m intrigued by the characters and loved the author’s writing style.
As for this book? It was a mildly angsty read with plenty of feels that I fell in love with from the very first pages.
Emmett and Avery were high school sweethearts. They were everything to each other, and even though they were young, their love was one that should have been a forever kind. The reader doesn’t know what happened to rip them apart, but you know it was enough to plant a seed of resentment into Emmett that even years later he can’t get over.
When fate and circumstance throws them together once more, they are forced to acknowledge everything that happened between them, though it’s certainly not a smooth road. I’m not typically a fan of the continuous misunderstanding plot device in my books, but it actually worked here. I understood why Avery was hesitant to shed light on everything that happened in high school. And while I wanted to smack Emmett for his reaction to the bumps on their path to a HEA, I also couldn’t help understanding him either. These characters are both flawed in their own way, but in a very endearing way. Avery is extremely loyal to her family and I loved her fierce protectiveness and care for her sister. I understood why she did what she did.
Emmett, while being a successful pro-hockey player and having his pick of any woman he wants, is like a lost boy when it comes to Avery. She was the only woman he ever loved and he never got over her breaking his heart. I loved this vulnerable side to him.
I really enjoyed the secondary characters and the pacing of this book. I wished there was a little more angst beyond the constant misunderstanding between Emmett and Avery, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Maya Hughes is a new to me author that is now going straight to my auto-buy list and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.
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