Fiona Abry has a wonderful life, but she never dreams of what could be. That is until her mother arrives for her “birthday”. She gifts Fiona with the missing pocket watch created by Adolphus Abry, founder of the watch company Fiona and her brother inherited. There is a legend associated with the ancient watch. Unable to ignore the lure of the beautiful timepiece, Fiona falls asleep holding it.

Ready's depiction of Fiona's dreams was so vivid and realistic. I felt drawn into life on the island just as Fiona was each night and felt sad each morning when she woke. I could feel the chemistry between Fiona and Aaron, even though I could feel how much she cared for Max. I did not want to stop reading this book! I love anything by Sarah Ready, but she’s outdone herself with this magical story. 4.5⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Swift & Lewis Publishing LLC, IBPA for this complimentary ARC. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. ( )

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this story, this is my honest and objective review. Fated is the 3rd in a series, I've read and enjoyed the first two and this was a good one although I think I liked Ghosted more. I don't know that you have to have read the other two in order to enjoy this one, it works fine as a standalone. Events take place prior to Ghosted (the first in the series, Daniel's story). What I've liked about the series is there's always an element of mystery in these fantastical scenarios that the stories have in them. What's real and what's not? It's not always easy to see where the story is going, for me anyway (which, frankly, it would be boring if you could). So the reader commits to following the author along on all the twists and turns to see where it finally ends up. And as with the other two in the series, you really need to suspend disbelief if you're going to enjoy the story, otherwise you'll be distracting yourself from the story with reasonable but needless and frustrating questions about reality. Trust me on this.
So we have Fiona, sister to Daniel, both heirs to family watch company. Fiona has a young daughter Mila, from a past relationship that ended in heartbreak for Fiona. Fiona's close friend is Max, who of course wants to be more. Fiona's mother abandoned her to her father when young. As mentioned, Daniel is the mmc from the first book, we met Fiona briefly in Ghosted. At the center of the story is the first timepiece made by the Abry family, which went missing decades ago. So of course Fiona's hippy-dippy absentee mother has it, stolen from Fiona's great-uncle Leopold. Fiona has closed herself off to love and legend is that the watch can help you to live your dreams, which Fiona decides to test because why not? She then dreams a very real-feeling world in which she takes over another woman's life (Becca), married to the lovely Aaron McCormick, living on an island somewhere. The dream life is definitely written more vividly than her Swiss life. So where does she really belong? Is she Fiona or is she Becca? Are the dreams even real? Will it be Max or McCormick? What if the dreams exist just to show you how you can make changes in your real life to get there what you have in your dreams? It was a great ride, and the story itself grabbed me until the end. Her books must take so much planning, holy cow.
My main issue here is that while I liked all of the characters (it's hard not to like Aaron and Max, and I'd already liked Daniel in Ghosted although he's kind of a watered-down version here), I had a little bit of a hard time with Fiona. She was a bit cold and hard for me to engage with in the beginning, I assume the distance was on purpose to show how much she'd shut herself away from love. She definitely came to life once the dreaming started. This was a great installment in the series, and I'm looking forward to the next one! ( )