Review: Only You

Only You by Addison Fox
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the fourth book in the series about three boys, brought up as brothers, by a single woman desperate to help save them from their bad childhoods. Now they are all grown up and pretty successful in their own rights, although the ties to the past run deep.

Fender Blackstone was brought up by a violent, criminal, drunken father until Mama Lou rescued him. Now he owns his own garage and does all right for himself but the pain (both physical and mental) of his childhood still haunts him.

Harlow Reynolds is a Manhattan socialite and owner of an art gallery. She and Fender met in the last book when it emerged that Mama Lou had had an affair with a married man, Harlow's father, and his widow was determined to extract revenge all these decades later by trying to smear Mama Lou's campaign to run in the local elections.

Harlow and Fender have a wild opposites-attract chemistry but both acknowledge that they couldn't have a relationship, their lives are too different and their family history is a huge obstacle.

Earlier today I wrote a review of a book which also had a rough, gruff mechanic brought up by a single mom. I had to DNF that book because I disliked the direction the characters were being taken. Oh, how different this book was. Although Fender did blow hot and cold with Harlow, constantly trying to break up with her for her own good, she's too good for him, they are from different worlds, yadda yadda, he is also deeply thoughtful and caring. Fender actually sounded like a thirty-something year old man and not a sixteen year old stuck inside a man's body.

The blurb says this is a book about love and what it means to be a family and I think it really is. We see the love of a mother for her child, whether biological or not, the love for children for their parents, the love of siblings and of family. It is also about moving on and letting the past stay in the past. About allowing yourself to reach out and grasp what you really want.

I have enjoyed the books I have read in this series, still haven't actually managed to read the first book featuring Nick and Emma, each of them is different rather than a rinse and repeat set of characters.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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