Book safety, content warnings, and tropes & tags down below.

All he wanted was the shame to stop and the heavy pressure in his chest to ease up enough to let him breathe.

This is another one of those that are a little bit difficult to rate. I love the book, but at the same time, something is missing got me to give it the full five stars, and I’m probably not gonna be able to say why.

“I thought he’d stop if I stopped fucking up, but I couldn’t ever do anything right.”

I really do adore the plot in this. Two broken men with trauma, with a suspense plot as well (my favorite). Not that the suspense is a massive part of it, but what is there is important. It was a reread for me, and I had forgotten quite a lot of it actually, other than the general impression and a couple of scenes.

“Maybe if I’d dated in high school, gone to the movies and prom, participated in the activities normal teenagers did, I wouldn’t have felt so desperate to cling to someone who wasn’t any good for me.”

The book is about the fallout of Jesse being abused by a boyfriend, and Jesse’s bandmates accusing him of being an addict when the abuse starts impacting his performance on tour. The book starts after the band has a big blowup, and Jesse escapes to a cabin, where he later meets Ryker. They start as enemies, and very slowly become friends. I enjoy that part of the book a lot. How they very slowly build trust. When that trust builds into something more, it’s very sweet. Jesse is very much affected by the abuse he suffered tho, which leads to the book being a very slow burn, romantically speaking. There’s very little (almost no) spice, only a small scene near the very end. It fits for these characters, even though I would have loved a lengthy epilogue so we could see them a bit further down the road when they’re more healed.

The book spent a little too much time hating on Kyle (Jesse’s best friend and bandmate), instead of showing us how they rebuild trust. Overall though, I’m glad no one was let off the hook when it came to how they treated Jesse when he needed help.

A good story that deals heavily with mental health and life after abuse. Low on spice for those who want that. Unfortunately lacked some editing at the time of reading. A sweet and tentative HFN, imo.

Blanket spoiler warning ⬇️

⚠️ Tropes & tags ⚠️
Forced proximity
Former soldier
Rock star
Past trauma
Size difference
Slow burn
Suspense
Low spice

⚠️⚠️ Content warning ⚠️⚠️
Self harm
Suicidal ideation
Domestic abuse (detailed flashbacks)
PTSD
Panic attacks
Mentions of war/combat
Violence

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Book safety ⚠️⚠️⚠️
Cheating: No
OM drama: No
Third-act breakup: No
POV: 3rd person, dual POV
Strict roles or versatile: N/A
MCs age: 27 and 32