Crash and Burn This sets up the next book in the series. Dina Fowler who is in her second year at college loses both of her parents in car accident which sends her into a depression that has her feeling lost and missing the love that her parent always showered her with. Even though she lives with her best friend Maggie and Maggie’s parents try to fill her void she still has esteem issues. While not in her right mind she meets a man who she thinks will fill all those voids in her life. Trying so hard to please him and keep him happy she doesn’t realize his controlling nature until its too late and the violence has begun and even then she thinks that is her fault to. It takes a horrible act of violence to finally make her see her mistake and with the support of her friends she finally walks away.

Restore My Heart Dina Fowler and Ryder Davenport had meet briefly in Crash and Burn and knew there was some strange connection between them but Dina was in an abusive relationship and Ryder didn’t believe in them. To him all a woman got of him was one night – he didn’t even believe in given a second night. But all that started to change when he met Dina and beat the man who was abusing her. After that night he decided to change his ways so he could become the man Dina deserved. That was not a fast process as he also knew she needed time to heal from the emotional abuse she had suffered from her last relationship. Its now 3 years later and due to both of their best friends dating and living together over the past 4 years they see each other often and the spark is still between them. Where we get to watch Dina and Ryder take things slowly and fall in love we watch Brayden and Maggie’s relationship fall apart which is where this book ends and is the set up for the next book which is theirs.

Salvaged I thought the physical abuse in the first book was tough but Brayden’s story about drug addiction was a tough read. There isn’t a lot of happiness in this book and there shouldn’t be. Drug addiction is an ugly disease and it affects everyone around the person using. It was hard to watch Brayden and Maggie who had been together for 4 years and did truly love each other but had to go through what they did. Addicts are such sneaky liars and Maggie was blindsided when the truth to the extent of Brayden’s drug addiction came out and the amount that she lost. She didn’t just lose her man. I appreciate that the author made the time line during this book be more than 2 years, just because that person has went through a 90 treatment program they are not cured and in no way shape or form ready for a relationship. I also like how she showed that some issues that cause the demons can be confronted and faced while others cannot. We cannot change a parent or friend, all you can do is change the way you react to their hurtful and shaming words and no longer let it be the trigger that starts you back in the spiral to using again.

Full Throttle Jake and Kenna have been together for 9 years. Of all the books this was the least angsty of them and even had a very humorous girls night out scene. Jake’s mother and grandmother went through marriages like they were water. And if the current husband didn’t want Jake around neither thought twice about sending him away. This soured Jake on the idea of marriage to the point he never wants to get married and made that clear to Kenna upfront. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her and isn’t 100% committed to her. In all practicality they are married in everything but name. This used to be enough for Kenna but now that all of their friends are getting married she starts to feel like maybe she isn’t good enough and this causes problems with what used to be a rock solid relationship that now has Jake in a tail spin and fearful that his fear of commitment to marriage may lose him the only woman he has ever loved.

Beyond Repair If you’ve read this series from the beginning Harrison character has been around since the first. He was deployed for most of the other books but due to an injury is now back. In the previous book we got a glimpse of him with Tiffany who we weren’t given enough of a back story on to really like based on what we saw of her. We knew they had an ugly breakup and that Harrison had moved on with Sophie who herself had quite a few secrets and was always upfront that sex was the only part she wanted in a relationship. In this book we finally find out about all three of them and even though I really liked all the previous books in the series this was defiantly my favorite. Tiffany and her childhood friend Matt grew up together and were as close as brother and sister and Matt protected her from her mean father. Neither of them had the greatest fathers and came to depend on each other. Matt went on to join the Marines and became good friends with Harrison which is how he and Tiffany met. They started out as friends before having an on/off again relationship for 6 years before Tiffany got scared and broke things off in a very hurtful way to Harrison. They haven’t spoken in over 2 years when suddenly she shows back up in Harrison’s life with devastating news. We get to see that the stuck up snobbish persona that Tiffany showed everyone but Matt was not the real her. It was a defense mechanism to protect herself and now with her best friend dead she is struggling on how she will be able to make it without the friend that had been her rock for most of her life. Harrison who thought he knew the real Tiffany see’s that maybe he misjudged her and the two bond in friendship again over the death of their friend. Their road back to each other doesn’t happen for a while though. She needed to break free of her father and find herself as a person and decide on a new career path in something she wanted to do. Harrison is still involved with Sophia and wants to take their relationship to the next level when she finally comes clean about why that will never happen. Eventually fate brings them back together. The epilogue was great getting see everyone happy and with kids. This was a good series with heartbreaking circumstances and a great cast of characters you come to love.

Stalled This very short novella gives us closure to Sophia’s story which we finally learned about in the previous book. For almost 15 years she has been waiting to finally be reunited with the son that was taken away from her at his birth. She didn’t think this would happen until his 18th birthday but she get an unexpected surprise and as a reader I was surprised too and very happy with how it all turned out.
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