Wow this was way more deep, emotional and loving (albeit, still sexy) than I expected!

This was such a beautiful story of family, self-love and acceptance, and finding the light amidst the darkness.

I loved the main characters; Padraig, a sexy, broody Irishman with a tortured soul but good heart, and Valerie, an all-around sweet, kind and loveable gem. I’d also like to point out that Valerie was also plus-sized, which I very much appreciated. It feels rare to find female characters who are plus-sized and even more rare to have them written “normally” for lack of a better word (i.e. her body wasn’t described as “fleshy” or “doughy” whenever the characters got naked).

Minor spoiler: one of the characters gets diagnosed with an illness and the author didn’t shy away from the character experiencing all of the symptoms associated with said disease. It felt realistic, yet the topic was still handled with care.

This was my first read by Karina Halle and I was pleasantly surprised! Definitely looking forward to her future works (and I just might go back and read some of her earlier works)!

4.5/5 stars!

Buddy read with my twitter girlies Amber and Yanni <3

EDIT: bumping this up to 5 stars - may need to consider some serious self-examination for giving it anything less than.

EDIT - Feb 13, 2020: I wanted to read this again for Valentine’s Day and decided to listen to the audiobook but only made it to chapter 8. Don’t do it. The male narrator is good but the female narrator was such a bad fit for this character. Not to mention her Irish accent is horrendous and when she’s voicing the H using this accent she makes him sound like an old so everything he says is creepy. Just stick the print form if you’re gonna go for this.