Unexpected - Faith Sullivan
One day forever changes the destiny of college overachiever, Michelle Rhodes.
Shattered, confused and alone, no one understands the trauma consuming her until she meets Connor Donnelly.
A native New Yorker, he believes he can aid in getting her life back on track. But what if he's even more broken inside?
Offering her a chance at a fresh start, Connor convinces Michelle to move in with him. Hiring her to waitress at his bar, their mutual attraction only complicates matters.
As more details surrounding Connor's past emerge, Michelle uncovers the full magnitude of the loss he's trying to hide. Refusing to let her feelings for him hinder his recovery, she makes a decision that winds up hurting them both.
By sacrificing her heart, Michelle thinks she is helping Connor come to terms with his grief. Little does she know, Connor is gambling everything for the sake of having a future with her.
What happens is truly unexpected.
I've read other books by Faith and I really like her. I just do. I've emailed her a few times and she's the kind of gal you just want to have coffee with and talk about the chunky girl wearing white leggings as pants in the coffee shop. So anytime I get to review a book of hers I get excited because I have high expectations.
And I haven't been disappointed.
What I love about her books is that they aren't super long, they aren't drawn out, and you don't have all of this extra fluff and all you have is the story. And she always has normal, flawed, human characters. These are people you have in your life right now. They face actual problems and the things they deal with are things that are legitimate issues.
Take Connor and Michelle. Connor is a business owner not far from the World Trade Center who lost his best friend on 9/11. He struggles to cope with the loss of someone he considered a brother. Michelle, alone in the city for the first time on her own, freaks out and can no longer handle any of it. She goes back home and in a weird coincidence of fate, Connor and Michelle connect in her hometown. He convinces her to give New York City a try again and offers to give her a job at his bar and let her live upstairs with him until she can get on her feet. Enter mutual attraction, and you've got a romance just bursting to happen but neither are emotionally in any kind of shape to go there.
I really liked this because Michelle is the type of person I hate. I should say strongly dislike. But she's the girl who never really strikes out on her own, isn't ever independent, is basically scared of what's out there. She's the girl who marries her high school sweetheart right out the gate, she's the girl who refuses the thought of going away for college, she's the girl who can't live on her own. These girls are annoying. They make me shake my fist in the name of feminism and want to shake them silly and say, DO THESE THINGS. Do all of these things because you won't understand what you are made of until you do.
And Connor. Swoon. We all want to be the girl who fixed the boy, don't we? Admit it. We read these books with flawed boys and think we could be the ones who guide them to the light and they fall head over heels for us. I won't judge, I'm right there with you.
But Michelle and Connor are perfect for each other. They really are. They both suffered a loss that day, and they kind of need each other to get through it and get to the next stage of life. Except they can't do it under the guise of "If I fix them, I'm fixing me." It never works that way, and that's Connor's lesson here.
I flew through this book in a couple of hours and you will too. It's good, it's light, and it's not smutty. I know some of you don't like the smutty (I'm a fan, don't judge), but this one is good. You'll like it. You can go HERE to the page on her blog with all of the links to purchase this one, as well as all of her books. Good stuff, I tell you.
1 comment:
Sounds good, I'll add it to my Goodreads.
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