Indira couldn’t ask for a better life. Dream job, wonderful boyfriend, and the honor of watching her brother marry the love of his life in his upcoming nuptials. While she knew life was pulling her in different directions, she was determined to reclaim control and refocus her priorities. The problem was one of her priorities was busy with a blond on her couch when she decided to surprise him with a home cooked meal and wine. Completely floored, mainly by the amount of peanut butter involved in the deplorable scene, Indira flees to find solace at her brother’s home – only to be greeted by her childhood nemesis, Jude. There were two things Indira could feel directly to her soul, her love for psychiatry and her loathing for Jude. 

Apparently the feeling was mutual from the look of sheer disdain he shared upon seeing her. For Jude, the biggest problem he had with Indira was her ability to see directly into the recesses of the human mind, to the things one wanted to keep hidden. After the ever plaguing nightmare of GHCO that has left him as a shell of his former self, the last thing he needed was her looking at him, seeing him, knowing his secrets. 

All they needed to do was avoid each other, so simple yet impossible as they were part of her brother’s wedding party. Add that her now ex was also a groomsmen and Indira couldn’t figure out who she wronged in life for this to be her situation. The one thing she has gotten right is that something is off with Jude. When an incident reveals what lurks beneath, the two agree to help each other survive the pre-wedding events with the goal to come out in one piece. You know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer – but how close is too close?

What I like about it: First, while I understand it is standard formula for many authors, I am so grateful we skipped over the breakup, make up rigmarole in this one. What I also celebrated was continuous message projecting the power of understanding, acceptance, trust, being seen, and asking for help. Yes, this was a romantic comedy and quite humorous (the running gag about the peanut butter was a nice touch) but Eddings took it so much further than that. She used the love story as the foundation of two people struggling to survive the world around them, finding each other and still acknowledging that the struggle exists – that love isn’t going to conquer all but having a support system does make an impact. Doing the work, sitting through the hard parts, failing and trying anyway despite the plague of self doubt – that is what you saw in this story. You wanted your HEA but it wasn’t what you thought – it wasn’t about two people finding each other and riding off into the sunset. It was about two people finding the help they needed, they path that would help them heal, and being given a second chance at life, at happiness.

What I love about it: I love the issues of mental health that were tackled in this book. From Indira’s abandonment issues and need for extrinsic validation to Jude’s struggle with PTSD. It was gut wrenching to have the easy brush off of mental health highlighted in this book. Eddings is right – it is an invisible disorder, disease, illness that isn’t treated with the same sense of urgency as a broken bone or an infection. The mind is sick, broken, fractured, take a pick but because we can’t look at it and see it for ourselves, only witness what people are experiencing (or say they are experiencing), we have the right to invalidate it. 

There were so many moments of Indira sharing knowledge on how to embrace the struggles that one may experience. Her constant reminders that no one is broken, helpless, and that you can be a multitude of things – happy and sad, struggling and forgiving, there wasn’t a moment where one of her diatribes shouldn’t have been made into a presentation and shared with the world. So many could benefit from her message.

I don’t even know what to say about Greg. The abandonment issues created by that man and the continuous psychological damage he inflicted was infuriating. I sided with Indira when she fought with Collin and agreed he had no place in their lives. It isn’t about being the bigger person or growing up and forgiving. For Collin, he was simply an enabler – awarding whatever imagined effort their father put forth with unwarranted love and opportunities. He gave a man, who clearly did not hesitate to break a promise or put everything else before his first born’s wedding, too much of the benefit of the doubt – with nothing to show for it. The worst was when confronted, he was convinced he was the victim and was doing the best he could! How can someone heal when you have that to deal with?

Shifting focus to Jude, his moments of PTSD just floored me. They were so debilitating and terrifying. I can’t even begin to imagine what he experienced in those moments but it sheds light on how little we, as a society, are educated in this matter. We see PTSD as something military service members may experience but we don’t factor in horrific experiences that may create it as well for civilians.

Asides for the philosophical rollercoaster, the sensual scenes in this book were intense! It wasn’t even the explicit scenes that were hot, the make out and building up moments were scorching as well. The amount of attention shared between two people was never lost. Every touch, every thought, every moment – you bore witness to all of it. You felt the love and connection well before the characters verbalized it.

I have every intention of going back and ready Eddings’s books from the beginning. I can’t gush enough over how much I enjoyed this book, how immensely I value what it taught me, and the imprint it has made on me as a whole.