Goodreads Blurb

Ellie Carmichael had a crush on Adam Sutherland, her brother, Braden’s, best friend, for years, and although Adam treated her with proprietary concern he made it clear he thought of her only as a little sister. 

Over the years, as Ellie’s crush develops into love, her romantic idealism makes it difficult for her to move on. To make matters worse, as she’s gotten older, Adam’s attitude has changed toward her. His affection for her is now joined by attraction, but his loyalty to Braden, and his fear of losing the only family he has, stops him from claiming Ellie the way she wishes he would. 

But one night his attraction is put to the test, and as much as Adam would like things to remain the same everything changes between them in a simple brush of the lips. 

Soon lust, love, jealousy and heartbreak combine to force change upon their relationship… and Adam discovers the hard way that life is too damn short to spend it on regret.

My review

This is a short novella on Ellie and Adam which unlike Joss and Braden's I really loved. It offered the same emotionally charged writing that Ms Young won me over in On Dublin Street. It can be read at any order in the series, but you must On Dublin Street before it.

I am not a big fan of novella since due to their short length many things are left out - the characters are not fully developed, or major events are just skimmed through. This one was different, since we already knew the characters rather well and some of the major events related to them were already covered in depth in On Dublin Street. Novella was the perfect format to tell the story of Ellie and Adam's love.

I especially liked the way their story is told in retrospect though Ellie's diary entries. The story focuses on main events in their relationship and it's a long one starting back in Ellie's childhood. The going back and forth between then and now worked well for me. It is touching, emotional story of love and regret, some bad decisions and missed chances and ultimately finding happiness together.

We got glimpses of Ellie and Adam's story in the first book but this novella showed us the road with all its wrong and right turns it took Ellie and Adam to finally find each other. There were no surprises here, no major drama or unexpected plot twist. It was just a great love story of the meant-to-be kind of type.

It was short and sweet, feel-good love story. The relationship between the characters was very romantic like Ellie herself and very hot like Adam.

This is my final review of this series so far.You can also check my opinions of Castle Hill and Before Jamaica Lane. Now, I will be anxiously looking forward to Ms Young's next book in the series, telling Hannah and Marco's story.