Mimi
This book is a long one. Initially the pacing felt slow and it dragged.
When the romance progresses between Brett and Bowen about 5-10% in, I started to get into the book. Primarily I start wondering who is Brett’s baby’s father and who is present Brett’s boyfriend.
The time jumps were very confusing in this book after a while. The flashbacks were so long I had to constantly go back to check what time period we are currently in. It might have been manageable if the flashbacks stuck to chronological order 1 year in the past but we had random jumps to college, high school and all different POVs.
When Brett actually cheated on Bowen, I started disliking her. I already thought she was an idiot for approaching Colson at work despite her fearing him but it was also disrespectful to Bowen, who had expressed concerns about her spending time with him.
What made it worse is Brett didn’t even feel bad or feel bad any time she cheated. She’d go home where Bowen would drop hints he knew she was cheating, she’d admit to nothing, though apologizing to him tearfully, then next day cheat on him again with no remorse.
I understand the author justifies it later on by making Bowen a bad guy. But at this stage of the book, Colton is a guy who mistreated her after asking her out, slept with her and took her out a couple of times in college, shot her with an actual gun, ghosted her for years then suddenly reappeared in her life stalking her, breaking into her house and scaring her.
Meanwhile, Bowen was her loving partner who she lived with 24/7 for months, had great sex with, fixed all problems for her, spoiled her with gifts and loved her enough she committed to having 4 kids with him
Brett had virtually no chemistry with Colson and had barely been with him romantically in the past either. They hadn’t lived together and Brett barely knew anything about him. She didn’t even know Colson had a sister and a step sister, despite Colson still being close to his sister. I wish Bowen was the lead and not Colson. It would have made more sense and made a more interesting book.
The book completely lost me when Bowen suddenly deleted Brett’s book, claimed Barrett hit on him and locked Brett in her bedroom. All of these seemed like out of character moments to enable Colson to get back together with Brett.
Brett’s author job is work from home and would not have taken her away from him. In fact, if she got her book published, she’d quit her job and be away from Colson. It made absolutely no sense Bowen would sabotage her book.
Barrett was one of Bowen’s biggest supporters. She was gushing over Bowen’s constant willingness to help her soft her problems at home. It made no sense Bowen would want to isolate Brett from her.
Supposedly Bowen is a skilled manipulator and serial killer. However, the author tries to convince us he kept a corpse, an incriminating letter from one of his murder victims and locks of his other murder victim’s hair unlocked in his home that Brett has full access to, instead of destroying any of it. Or at the very least, locking these away? Why he’d pretend he doesn’t know an Emily made no sense either when he was open with Brett that he had an ex girlfriend who ghosted him. It seemed like another out of character moment so Brett starts to doubt Bowen.
Bowen is cunning but supposedly would lock Brett’s bedroom door, assuming it’d keep her captive. He just leaves the house without tying Brett up to ensure she can’t escape, board up with windows, take away her car, guard her himself or even have surveillance in the room to monitor his captive. It made no sense he’d make her escape so easy.
Despite knowing Brett was at her friend’s place due to GPS tracking and wanting to recapture her after her escape, he just walked away like he didn’t know she was there? He waited days later after Brett had found the GPS and left the house to send police to retrieve her. Again, made no sense because Bowen could have just sent police the day he tracked the GPS
I ended up skimming through everything after 70% and there were so many unnecessary Evie flashbacks and a weird nonsensical fantasy arc with Evie's spirit so that Colson could find Evie’s body.
This book is a long one. Initially the pacing felt slow and it dragged.
When the romance progresses between Brett and Bowen about 5-10% in, I started to get into the book. Primarily I start wondering who is Brett’s baby’s father and who is present Brett’s boyfriend.
The time jumps were very confusing in this book after a while. The flashbacks were so long I had to constantly go back to check what time period we are currently in. It might have been manageable if the flashbacks stuck to chronological order 1 year in the past but we had random jumps to college, high school and all different POVs.
When Brett actually cheated on Bowen, I started disliking her. I already thought she was an idiot for approaching Colson at work despite her fearing him but it was also disrespectful to Bowen, who had expressed concerns about her spending time with him.
What made it worse is Brett didn’t even feel bad or feel bad any time she cheated. She’d go home where Bowen would drop hints he knew she was cheating, she’d admit to nothing, though apologizing to him tearfully, then next day cheat on him again with no remorse.
I understand the author justifies it later on by making Bowen a bad guy. But at this stage of the book, Colton is a guy who mistreated her after asking her out, slept with her and took her out a couple of times in college, shot her with an actual gun, ghosted her for years then suddenly reappeared in her life stalking her, breaking into her house and scaring her.
Meanwhile, Bowen was her loving partner who she lived with 24/7 for months, had great sex with, fixed all problems for her, spoiled her with gifts and loved her enough she committed to having 4 kids with him
Brett had virtually no chemistry with Colson and had barely been with him romantically in the past either. They hadn’t lived together and Brett barely knew anything about him. She didn’t even know Colson had a sister and a step sister, despite Colson still being close to his sister. I wish Bowen was the lead and not Colson. It would have made more sense and made a more interesting book.
The book completely lost me when Bowen suddenly deleted Brett’s book, claimed Barrett hit on him and locked Brett in her bedroom. All of these seemed like out of character moments to enable Colson to get back together with Brett.
Brett’s author job is work from home and would not have taken her away from him. In fact, if she got her book published, she’d quit her job and be away from Colson. It made absolutely no sense Bowen would sabotage her book.
Barrett was one of Bowen’s biggest supporters. She was gushing over Bowen’s constant willingness to help her soft her problems at home. It made no sense Bowen would want to isolate Brett from her.
Supposedly Bowen is a skilled manipulator and serial killer. However, the author tries to convince us he kept a corpse, an incriminating letter from one of his murder victims and locks of his other murder victim’s hair unlocked in his home that Brett has full access to, instead of destroying any of it. Or at the very least, locking these away? Why he’d pretend he doesn’t know an Emily made no sense either when he was open with Brett that he had an ex girlfriend who ghosted him. It seemed like another out of character moment so Brett starts to doubt Bowen.
Bowen is cunning but supposedly would lock Brett’s bedroom door, assuming it’d keep her captive. He just leaves the house without tying Brett up to ensure she can’t escape, board up with windows, take away her car, guard her himself or even have surveillance in the room to monitor his captive. It made no sense he’d make her escape so easy.
Despite knowing Brett was at her friend’s place due to GPS tracking and wanting to recapture her after her escape, he just walked away like he didn’t know she was there? He waited days later after Brett had found the GPS and left the house to send police to retrieve her. Again, made no sense because Bowen could have just sent police the day he tracked the GPS
I ended up skimming through everything after 70% and there were so many unnecessary Evie flashbacks and a weird nonsensical fantasy arc with Evie's spirit so that Colson could find Evie’s body.