Book Blurb:
Sabella
What happens when you drink a bottle of wine after your husband divorces you, and you see your childhood home for sale online? Well, you buy it, of course. When I hired a carpentry crew to fix it up, I didn’t realize the boss was my high school sweetheart from thirty years ago…
Darius
She left me with no explanation when we were eighteen. I didn't realize who my new client was when she showed up at my job site all these years later. Old feelings and anger come up, and she tells me about the trauma she endured. Now we have to hash out our past so we can move on, but some things never change.
Tropes:
*Dark Star Romance ALC *High school sweet hearts *Second chance for romance *found family
*State Challenge Louisiana (Repeat) *spice *forced proximity *dealing with long term grief
*Green flag MMC *Protective MMC *Fierce FMC *Couple in their 40's
Trigger warnings: discussions of past history of DV (some on page), discussions of SA (in past and present), miscarriage, cheating (not leads)
Thoughts:
Sabella (FMC) is at the end of her long term relationship married for a long time she's surprised when it implodes... turns out her husband is leaving her for a younger woman and wants a divorce afterwards she maybe drinks a bit too much and ends up buying her childhood home in Louisiana.
Making the move Sabella is excited for a fresh start she makes her move and has already hired a company to help repair her new home... only there is a lot more work than she originally thought would happen and a bit of a wrench is thrown into her plans when the owner of the company she hired happens to be her high school boyfriend Darius they were together for 4 years and had once thought they would be together forever.
Darius (MMC) begins work at his new job and finds someone he never thought he would see again his high school girlfriend and the one he never got over, she's still just as beautiful as she was when he was with her all those years ago, but he can't help but have his feelings of heartbreak return by seeing her... he bought a ring, wanted to be with her forever and she just left no reasons given.
Sabella had her reasons for ending the relationship but I couldn't help but feel bad for Darius since she kept some things from him that she should have told him years ago but she took the choice from him by making the decision for both of them. I do know that at the ages they were back when they were together that they were both just young and not always making the best decisions.
Sabella and Darius shortly after reuniting find that those feelings maybe never ended because they are back to feeling like high schoolers again. Their relationship doesn't progress right away which I appreciated as the ink wasn't even dry on her divorce paperwork when she moved back home and in that way I think that the pacing of the story worked well covering a larger period of time.
I enjoyed how Darius had a found family with his crew of workers and they right away accepted Sabella as one of their own.
This story goes back and forth between current time and the past showing how Sabella and Darius both struggled with DV in their homes growing up and my heart went out to both of our leads even with this difficult past they were able to find their own way in life and be successful, even though it's been many years between their last time meeting the love between them can be seen by everyone around them... they just need to get on board with getting back together.
Darius is such a sweetheart you could see in the past and current times how much he just wanted to take care of Sabella and give her what she needed to feel safe, happy and sastisfied, he also was caring and protective towards his found family as well.
The longer Sabella
is around Darius the more she realizes how well he had always treated her … and
what was truly lacking in her marriage.
The banter between these two was fun, I liked the duet narration the narrators Troy Duran, Miel Webb and Jack Hill did a great job bringing this story to life.
There were several very emotional sections in this book and covers many sensitive topics so please check out your trigger warnings prior to reading or listening.
I wasn't sure if this would be the book for me when it first started and there were some parts of this story that were difficult to hear, but over all this is a heartfelt story between two people who lost each other once but have found each other again and this time they are going to hold on tight.
Have you read this one? What did you think?
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