Forgetting August
Series: Lost & Found #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: J.L. Berg
Release Date: December 1, 2015
She can forgive, but can she forget?
Some days, Everly still thinks she sees him. In the food court at the mall, or in a car speeding past as the light changes. It only lasts a second, but when it happens, she slips back to a time when she was ruled-and nearly ruined-by August Kincaid. And it doesn’t matter that she’s moved on, that she’s about to marry another man. In those moments the only thing she can do to regain control is take a deep breath and remind herself that August can’t hurt her-because he’s in a coma. Except that he’s not anymore.
August is awake. With no memories, he sets out to solve the mystery of his lost life. He unearths a photograph of a beautiful redhead named Everly and knows instinctively that she’s the key. But when he finds her, the August she describes is more monster than man.
Tortured by the thought of having hurt her, August wants only to become the man Everly deserves. As the new August emerges, Everly glimpses the person she first fell in love with. But can she trust that this August is real? When the final secret of their shared past is revealed, one of them will make a choice that changes their future forever…
Because life really didn’t move on from a person such as August Kincaid.
No, you simply learned to adapt and above all, you survived.
When you read about a book a day, they all sort of begin to blend into each other. So when I stumble upon a book that’s as unique as Forgetting August, it’s a treat. This was unlike anything I’ve read in the past and I was immediately drawn into the story. It was just that good; the writing, the mystery, the angst, the romance, all of it wrapped together into one spellbinding unforgettable read.
Everly is happily engaged and planning a wedding to a wonderful man that loves her fiercely. But with one phone call and three little words, her carefully constructed world crumbles into chaos. He is awake.
August Kincaid awakes from a two year coma that no one expected him to wake up from with absolutely no recollection of who he is or who he was.
My former life was an endless tunnel of oblivion, where there was no beginning or end.
When a gorgeous redhead shows up at his hospital bed, he hopes that her clear knowledge of him may help him piece together the memories that he no longer has. But then only thing he sees in her eyes is pure unadulterated hate. Hate for the man that he once was, and hate for the man that clearly hurt this woman beyond repair.
August took everything from her once; her love and her heart, and then he shattered it. Everly wants nothing to do with the man, even if he doesn’t remember who he is. She’s happy in her life now, but his memory continues to haunt her and she just can’t bring herself to look the other way. August is clearly struggling to put the pieces of his life back together, and if she can give him the missing puzzle pieces, she’ll do that. But she will never give him a piece of her heart.
Maybe sometimes love isn’t pure. Maybe sometimes it’s toxic- so toxic it consumes a person until they would do anything to have it.
Like a drug.
The story is told entirely in the present with quick memory lapses into the past. It’s not a past/present type thing. It’s written in such a way that you feel like you’re experiencing those flashes of memory right along Everly.
But the heart is a fickle thing. You can’t help who you fall for and once upon a time August was her everything. Now in the midst of helping him regain his memory by taking him to places he loved and hoping to ignite at least a spark of something, the one thing is manages to do is re-ignite the flame in her heart for August that never quite burned out.
Could the heart remember what the mind couldn’t?
Forgetting August is full of angst and emotion. It’s wonderfully written that left me wondering how I haven’t read anything by this author before. The mystery of the past and what ultimately led to August going into a coma is something that stretches for the entire book.
While I’m not usually one for love triangles, the one here simply worked for me. I think that had a lot to do with Everly and clearly seeing her struggle of moving on from her past and attempting to face her future. She loves her fiancé, but August was something else for her entirely.
Loving me destroyed you…”
“Loving you brought me back to life.”
If I gave my heart over to a man who then turned into my worst nightmare…?
Who would be there to pick up the broken pieces?
No one, because there would be nothing left to find.
Forgetting August is sexy but without the need for super gratuitous sex scenes, if that makes sense. I absolutely loved this story and the characters. But most of all, I loved the mystery behind everything. I was just as desperate for those flashes of memory as August was. And when one of the biggest puzzle pieces get revealed, the author hits you with the mother of all cliffhangers that had me howling at the ceiling.
They say time heals all wounds. But can it forgive?
If you’re looking for something different, this duet needs to be on your TBR. I usually avoid cliffhangers like a religion, but in the case here I’m glad I read it. Even as I die a little each day in my wait for the conclusion in Spring.
Releasing April 5, 2016
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