I have never written a review like this, but I had a really hard time with this book. Plot holes and serious character issues in my opinion. I read it all because I kept thinking it had to get better after hearing so many positive reviews, but I’m just at a loss. Maybe I was just cranky while reading it...

I feel like the history that makes these characters who they are is glossed over and we get the same repeated dialogue throughout the entire book.

Spoilers ahead...

Darcy and her twin, Jamie, share a best friend, Tom. As children, Tom was like an additional child in their family. There are mentions of the twins’ parents caring for him and taking him on family vacations and there is discussion of Darcy’s grandmother, Loretta, caring for Tom like he’s one of her grandchildren.

Darcy has a heart condition and has always felt like a burden on her family. She was always left behind while Tom went along to keep her brother company on whatever adventure was next. The twins come across as completely spoiled. Tom seemed to have issues with his own parents, but this was not fully addressed. Tom has always felt like if he’s not perfect he’ll get the boot from their family and their lives. The twins fight for his attention almost like they are trying to claim rights to him.

Darcy has this idea of Tom as a loyal animal, always the protector. The way she describes it almost feels demeaning. She also has apparently always had a crush on him.

Darcy is rebellious and a runner, which is fine, but the thing that initially made her a runner was Tom... and I’m still not quite clear on that. When he says he loves her she responds cruelly. I think what the plot was trying to show is that she thought he loved her like her protector but not as someone who wanted her and she was frustrated. But then her grandmother sends her away to Europe. Loretta seemingly loved and had this deep, and psychic, understanding of Darcy and Tom yet separates them right then and there. If she knew they both loved each other, what the heck? When Darcy comes back from her international jaunt, Tom is with someone else and that’s that.

Then 8 years later Tom and Darcy collide again as he works on renovating Loretta’s house after she passes. Of course Darcy and Jamie fight the whole time and Tom is in the middle. When Darcy finds out he is not engaged anymore, she jumps on him and then we go back and forth between her feeling rejected and knowing how much he wants her. She thinks he sees her as a sister and seems to simultaneously think he has all this sexual desire for her, which is it?

The same conversations seem to happen over and over and yet they never discuss the initial “I love you” that tore them apart. Tom is insecure about her leaving again, but then does the exact same thing when he thinks he makes a mistake that doesn’t even matter.

The most frustrating thing was the complete disrespect Jamie has for Darcy. He is cruel, rude, arrogant, and just a total ass. For reasons I don’t understand, Tom is his best friend even thought Jamie treats the woman he loves like shit, and also treats Tom like a puppy. I kept wanting Tom to stand up for himself and Darcy, and it just never happened. Jamie calls his sister trash and tells her she is so far out of Tom’s league that she better leave him alone. Their relationship comes out in a less than ideal way to Jamie, but Tom lets him trash talk her again and then runs.

In the end, the twins miraculously become halfway decent humans in a 2 months period and Tom reappears and everything is fine.

Final thoughts, I couldn’t tell if Tom was supposed to be an alpha or submissive to the twins, I felt like it kept bouncing back and forth. Was Jamie in love with Tom? It was weird. Darcy’s heart issues were overplayed and didn’t feel authentic. And the sex scenes in this were painfully awkward.