HOLD ON TO HOPE
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: AL Jackson
Release Date: October 28, 2019
A best friends-to-lovers, stand-alone romance from New York Times Bestselling Author, A.L. Jackson . . .
Evan Bryant wasn’t your typical hero.
But he was mine.
Broken by the worlds’ standards, he was still the strongest boy I would ever know.
My best friend. The boy I’d given everything to. My heart, my body, and the promise of forever.
The day I’d needed him most, he walked away.
He left me shattered and questioning the love I’d thought we’d shared.
Three years later, I wasn’t prepared for him to return to Gingham Lakes.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he wasn’t the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
My fingers still would have ached to caress his skin.
My body still would have begged to get lost in his touch.
And my heart . . . it would have always sung his name.
But time changes things. With it, secrets that could ruin everything.
Can we find a way to love again, or have the fears of our past stolen the hope of our forever…
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I don’t know how to be in your space and not want you, Evan. I don’t remember how not to be yours.”
Poignant. Powerful. Gripping. And utterly heart wrenching. AL Jackson knows how to create words that get into her readers souls. I swear. There’s just something about stories that just stick with you. And there is no better example of it than with this book.
Evan first stole my heart a sweet little boy that was battling for his life in Follow Me Back. As a grown man, he was absolutely devastating. He and Frankie Leigh have been thick as thieves since they were just little kids. They were best friends whose love for each other soon evolved from children’s adoration to something so much deeper. But when Frankie thought they would be together forever, Evan broke her heart by leaving town with nothing more than a note.
Now three years later, Evan is back, and all those feelings that Frankie thought she’s finally moved on from come roaring back.
While emotional and angsty, this is very much a sweet friends-to-lovers/second chance romance. Admittedly, sweet isn’t really my thing when it comes down to preference, but there was something so charming about this book that it just worked for me. Maybe it’s the fact that Evan wasn’t your stereotypical hero. He was sweet and intense all at the same time. The love that he had for Frankie was devastating and heart warming all at the same time. I loved watching them find their way back to each other and seeing Evan fight for her. There’s something so incredibly endearing about Evan. His health struggles and all the pain that it brought along with it wasn’t easy to read about. He went through so much as a little boy, and so much of it follows him into adulthood.
There’s one particular plot device that was present here that I typically shy away from, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t diminish some of my enjoyment of this book. Unfortunately, I struggled with this piece of the story for a while. I equal parts understood it and hated it all at once.
But then somewhere around the second half everything just grew on me. And when the plot twist hit? I was all in! It came entirely out of left field and I didn’t see it coming at all. It brought everything in a full circle and just made the book for me.
This was another emotional and beautiful romance from one of my beloved authors that tugged at every heart string I had. I can’t wait for more!
A.L. Jackson is the New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance. She writes emotional, sexy, heart-filled stories about boys who usually like to be a little bit bad.
Her bestselling series include THE REGRET SERIES, CLOSER TO YOU, BLEEDING STARS, FIGHT FOR ME and CONFESSIONS OF THE HEART novels. Grab A.L. Jackson’s latest novel, HOLD ON TO HOPE, a best friends-to-lovers stand-alone romance.
If she’s not writing, you can find her hanging out by the pool with her family, sipping cocktails with her friends, or of course with her nose buried in a book.
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Don’t miss the awesome giveaway for the Hold on to Hope release!
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