Blog Tour + Review | Ache by S.M. Soto --> 4.5 Stars
TITLE: Ache AUTHOR: S.M. Soto GENRE: Second Chance Romance
RELEASE DATE: April 9th, 2019
A second chance romance.
What happens when you fall for the boy next door?
Bea Norwood had the market on normal.
Drama free life? Check.
A single-mother who doubled as her confidant and partner in crime? Check.
A neighbor and best friend she trusted more than anyone? Check.
But that was until the day her mother remarried. The day that changed everything.
When her best friend's cousin, Liam Falcon, is sent to live with his aunt and uncle to clean up his act, Bea finds herself falling for the boy next door. With their hearts so infinitely entwined, Bea turns to Liam as her only escape from her new step-brother's daily torment at home. Bea thought their love could conquer anything. But she was wrong. Love was for fools, and she was the biggest fool of them all. When Liam left Lakeport, he took her heart with him, shattering the organ to pieces.
Six years later, Liam takes a trip back to Lakeport to visit his family, and to see HER.His first love.
The girl who holds his heart.
The same girl who shattered it six years ago without looking back.
Liam is hell-bent on seeing Bea again after six years, but what he finds tears his heart in half. Bea Norwood is a shell of the girl he fell in love with. Underneath the baggy clothes, and pale skin, he knows she's still in there somewhere, he just needs to find her. Liam will stop at nothing to win his girl back, but sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and Liam isn't prepared for Bea's truth.
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⭐️ 4.5 "Sweet B" Stars ⭐️
Ache is so fittingly titled, because it’s exactly what I felt reading this profoundly emotional story! My heart was in a vise; I was losing my breath from the agonising feelings that had me a blubbering mess through a good portion of the book. My throat was raw from all the crying! Bea’s ache from her abuse were transmitted to me as a reader and Soto’s beautiful writing captured the distress of her situation perfectly!
"He's my planet. All my stars. My whole world. My solar system. My entire universe. Liam Falcon is my everything. He's always has been, and he always will be."
The subject matter of this book isn’t easy and the descriptive sequence where Bea suffers from her abuser can be difficult to bear, but this story needed to be told. Sexual abuse is something terrible, but it’s something real too! Liam Falcon, Bea’s first love, comes back into her life when she feels broken from all the mind games and awful treatments she received for the last six years. He certainly doesn’t recognize the girl he fell in love with and is determined to find out why she’s so skittish and closed.
"I do have a life, Bea. You know what else? I also have a girl that I love more than life itself."
I enjoyed the scenes set in the past that provided a beautiful show of Bea and Liam’s teen romance. I would have liked to get longer scenes though, because those moments were so lovely! Liam is perfect with Bea, her forever protective hero! So caring and dreamy really! Years later, he’s still very thoughtful about the way he handles her with respect and care! The way he is so patient with Bea in letting her open up about her trauma is wonderful and so touching. I also enjoy seeing Bea take confidence and learning to breathe again. Not only with the help of Liam, but because she's strong and wants to be better! She's a true survivor!
"Our love was written in my scars, just as it was scattered across the stars."
There’s little details here an there that bothered me throughout the story and kept me from rating it 5 stars, but they weren’t enough to eclipse the whole feel this book gave me. It was a sublime story of perseverance and fighting your demons! A beautiful example of true love never-ending that gave me goose bumps! S.M. Soto unquestionably established herself as a new favorite author of mine in the recent months. Each new book is a punch of feels to the heart and Ache isn’t an exception!
** ARC received in exchange for an honest review **
S.M. SOTO
S.M. Soto was born and raised in Northern California where she currently resides with her son. Her love for reading began when she was a young girl, and has only continued to grow into adulthood. S.M. lives for reading books in the romance genre and writing novels with relatable characters. She refers to herself as a bit of a romance junkie. S.M. loves to connect with readers and eat copious of donuts that will surely lead to her demise (carbs are life).
