The strongest part of the book for me was not the falling in love aspect of the characters but how they work to fit their lives together. But she does it with openness, without reserve. She displays such courage - I marveled how she could do it given her most recent past. But when she does decide to trust, she is all in, despite every insecurity rearing its ugly head. He is sweet and tender and thoughtful, while she is prickly and slow to trust. I am not a fan of insta-lust, and I need to see friendship and liking first before I can believe in the promise of their HEA. Since appearances were initially out of the picture, they “like” each other first before “lusting” after each other. This was the other aspect of the story I liked so much. I was sold on these two people right then and there for their maturity and thoughtfulness.Ī lot of their initial romance is through their phone conversations.

Initially, she’s like finders-keepers because she feels he’s a careless owner, but then they both realize how much they both love Tucker, so they decide to be kind and adult and share him. Sloan and Jason meet over the airwaves between California and Australia when she tries to find Tucker’s owner. The meet cute is not between Sloan and the hero, but between Sloan and his dog. From this nadir of her life, Sloan rises like a phoenix to lead a rich life filled with laughter and romance.

How you sleepwalk through your days, how caring about anything is an overwhelming effort, and how coming out of it seems insurmountable and doesn’t seem to be worth it. Jimenez does an absolutely wonderful job showing how grief upon the death of a beloved takes you. As an author, it takes guts to start a romance novel with a grieving main character.

Abby jimenez characters