Ruby Tosemito: Numb

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251403604-numb

Book Blurb: 

This novel is heartbreak wrapped in luxury, tension, and unresolved love.
**
After a horrific car accident, Ethan Forbes becomes paralyzed from the waist down. As he struggles to navigate his new situation, Ethan becomes bitter, cold and pushes everyone he loves away. He not only has lost the ability to walk, but feels that he is losing his identity.
As time goes by, he begins to resent the whole world around him.
Then one day, out of the blue, the one he hates and loves the most, comes back into his life, claiming that she wants to help him walk again.
Will Aurora Davis be able to help him walk again?
As Aurora helps him with rehabilitation, he’s determined to find out why she left him 6 years ago. Will he find out?
Will she explain everything? But most importantly, will Ethan & Aurora be able to face and overcome the approaching threat called 'El Diablo'?

~ So if you like emotional romance, wounded characters, tension, longing, second-chance energy, suspense and stories where love still lingers even when people try to bury it, Numb looks like the kind of book that is going to wreck you in the best way.

This one feels like aching, intimate, and full of that quiet kind of pain that stays with you.

*2nd chance romance  *ARC read 2026  *family secrets  *Family drama *villains 

*betrayal  *Twists *Dark themes  *protective MMC  *Physical Therapist FMC x patient

*danger *Age Gap *Wealthy MMC  *State Challenge Oregon/New York  (both repeat)

*MMC with disability  *Suspense  *multiple POV  *spice  *Indie Author

Thoughts:

Aurora meets the love of her life while in college... oddly enough she was at a party at his house but she was using her time to study.  Ethan is handsome, wealthy and charming he's used to having women approach him so when he meets Aurora in the restricted part of his home at a party his sister is throwing he can't wait to talk to her again... only she doesn't call him right away!  What?  He can't let her slip away and uses their mutual aquaintance (his sister) to take his chance which leads to so much more. 

Ethan thinks that Aurora will be with him forever he knows she's it for him he got the ring now he just needs the perfect night to ask.  Only instead of the life time of happiness with her he's expecting leads to depression, bitterness and feelings of betrayal she left him without even looking back moved almost 3,000 miles away from him and won't return his calls he wants answers from her but he'll probably never get them.

Six years later Aurora is a well respected Physical Therapist known for doing the impossible and when Jasper (Ethan's older brother) Contacts her for her help after Ethan got into a MVA leading to loss of mobility in lower extremities against her better judgement she gets on the next plane to Oregon... only to be met with Ethan not wanting her help... well she knew it wouldn't be easy.

Ethan and Aurora seeing each other again brings old feelings to the surface... lets be real those feelings are not old they never left.  Aurora is set on keeping Ethan on a strict recovery schedule she wants to help him walk again but he needs to put in the work.  

Aurora has a lot to make up for even though her reasons for leaving were valid and she may be putting herself in danger again by even being back in proximity to Ethan... will he be willing to let his guard down again to let her help him regain mobility?  Will she ever be able fully tell him what happened all those years ago that led to their break up?  

This story is full of twists and turns.  Family secrets come out to the open, there is a lot of family drama and when everyone Aurora loves could potentially be in danger will she have the courage to step up and do what needs to be done?  Aurora has been running away for years with this terrible secret, once the truth comes out will anything be the same again?  

If you enjoy a combination of Thriller with sweet second chance romance that will put you on a bit of an emotional roller coaster check this one out.  

Tylor Paige: Good For Her

 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/235992431-good-for-her

Book Blurb: 

Falling in love with her first love wasn’t part of her plan. Helping her kill the Hollywood elite wasn’t part of his. 

Hollywood loves a comeback. Too bad Evie Reyes didn’t come back to play nice.

Five years ago, she watched her mother—an iconic Final Girl—die on the set of Simon Says. Now, she’s back on the same studio lot, cast as the lead in the reboot no one asked for. But Evie’s not here for fame. She’s here for revenge—and she’s got six names on her list.

Sebastian Shaw is Hollywood’s golden boy, a walking six-pack with just enough charm to disguise the fact that he’s a professional liar. He also happens to be Evie’s ex. When he finds out why she’s really back, he doesn’t try to stop her. He offers a he’ll get her access to each of the men she wants to confront—in exchange for six chances to sleep with her.

No feelings. No strings. Definitely no dates.

As bodies pile up and the on-set accidents get harder to explain away, Evie walks a razor-thin line between staying alive and getting justice. And Sebastian? He might be the only person who sees her clearly—and the one person she can’t afford to trust.

This Final Girl isn’t just surviving—she’s stealing the whole damn show

*Netgalley ALC 3/12  *State Challenge: California (Duplicate)  *second chance for romance 

*revenge thriller, slasher  *Morally Gray MMC and FMC  *darker romance  *Dark Rom-com 

*slow burn  *spice *found family  *Frienemies --> more  *Voyeurism

*Trigger warnings (not sure if there is a list for the book but the ALC didn't mention them and there was a lot of darker stuff in here including serial unaliving in multiple different ways, SA, death of parent, and questionable consent related scenes)

Thoughts:

Evie Reyes and Sebastian Shaw are teenagers in love they have grown up together from a young age on movie sets as Sebastian was a child star of a hit slasher series and Evie is the daughter of Scream Queen Lita Reyes.  Only when they had their whole lives in front of them Evie's world crashes when she finds her mother dead... worst thing is that she sees someone fleeing the scene of the crime but instead of the police actually investigating they help cover up the evidence.  

Evie left Hollywood a few days later with a broken heart in more ways than one she lost her mother but also lost Sebastian as well.  Moving in with family she builds a large following doing a channel that focuses on all things horror movies when she's called to Hollywood to pick up the movie series that her mother was working on when she passed she takes this as the opportunity to get revenge she knows that her mother was meeting with a group of high up men in Hollywood and she now has a list of names they will pay for taking her mother from her.

Sebastian has grown up a lot over the years but he's never forgotten his first love, the one that got away, now he's a hardened actor who has had to do some questionable things at the encouragement of a shady agent (who he has fired) and now that the project that he's resurrected is on track the 6th movie in the series things are going great in his world... until things come crashing down when he realizes that one of his possible love interests for his character is Evie the one who wrecked him so many years ago... what is she doing here now?

Evie and Sebastian quickly pick right back up where they left off even having their own secret language involving movie quotes.  This threw out dark rom-com vibes as there were dangerous things happening but our lead characters were sloppy and inexperienced with everything and tended to do things without fully thinking anything through.  There are a lot of famous horror movies brought up in this along with some famous lines so if you enjoy movie trivia you will probably enjoy that aspect.  

What starts out as Evie on her own focusing on revenge plan quickly turns into a group effort as Sebastian agrees to help her in exchange for 5 chances to win her over and have her want to stay with him (the 5 chances being spicy times... whenever he wants and some of these events take place in front of an audience).  Two of their other co-stars figure out what is happening as well and offer to help Evie with her revenge quest leading to now 4 people who don't really know what they are doing developing messy scenes they have to figure out how to clean up from.

Throughout the book Evie begins to unravel more of what happened to her mother, the fact that Hollywood really does a number on young starlets (and the males too from what has happened to Sebastian).  There are a few mysteries involved that our characters are trying to work through and it kept me wanting to find out what would happen next.

The MMC and FMC were both still young (early 20s) and were true to their age at times appearing to be more naive (especially the FMC... girl why did you not prepare yourself with a better plan)  

I listened to an advanced copy of the audio book and felt both narrators did a good job with their parts.  Some of the sections in the middle dragged a bit and I wonder if it could have been better if it didn't drag out to being over 400 pages.  I've seen this book labeled as horror but I would put it more in a slasher rom-com and not so much in the horror (other than the fact they were on set of a "horror" movie sequel).  

If you enjoy a dark rom-com that try to make things lighter than they are with slasher rom-com vibes you might enjoy this one.  

Have you read this one?  What did you think?  Have you read anything else by this author?  What would you recommend?