It's character-driven romance at its finest. The reader gets time to sit with the characters and revel in the feelz. Even the epilogue feels unhurried and indulgent. This story doesn't rush the relationship, and the pacing is perfect as it is. When I say "slow burn" I really mean it!!!īut you know what? It feels right. Speaking of that slow burn: can I just applaud this book for setting an absolute RECORD for finding ways to make our hero and heroine "platonically" sleep together as "friends" (I counted four separate instances of these two "friends" sharing a bed-or the equivalent thereof, once while trapped in a museum overnight in a snowstorm)? And check it: somehow NO funny business occurs despite the hero's convenient shirtlessness and tensions running HIGH.
And as the friendship slowly deepens between Liyah and Daniel, and that slooooowwww burn inevitably gives way to more, the endorphins keep the story's mood warm and fuzzy. The survival club meetings serve as the comedic relief in a story that often touches on heart-wrenching topics, and the scenes (and sometimes shorthand meeting notes, each delivered by a different character) carry that responsibility with aplomb and had me laughing out loud.Īnd that past and current angst/trauma? It's handled gently and with maturity and realism. This part of the story serves as a vehicle to encourage closeness, and while the stakes are significant enough for us to care, they're never so high nor are the conflicts so dire that we can't relax into the parts that really shine: their blossoming romance and the developing friendships of their "found family"-style Survival Club (a casual Friday-night bar meet-up for a group of marginalized people who need a safe space to vent about career, life, and love frustrations, where we meet the secondary characters that come alive and feel as three-dimensional as our MCs). Liyah and Daniel are thrown together in a temporary career-related plotline, which justifiably takes a backseat to the development of the romance between them. and super hot bod covered in jellyfish tattoos. And Daniel, of course, is our loveable cinnamon roll hero, with his sensitive, caring, also-wounded soul. But like most quote-unquote "unlikeable" heroines, Liyah is this way because of her own past trauma and betrayals, and throughout the course of her developing relationship with Daniel, she learns to trust and let her formidably icy shell melt enough to let love in. A woman who, upon the reader's first meeting with her, acts sort of like a feral cat-all hisses and warning growls and pre-emptive attacks. Liyah is a prickly heroine after my own heart.
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