Title: Always Loving You
Series: Danvers Family Book #6
Author: Sydney Landon
Genre: Contemporary
Blurb: Ava Stone has spent her entire life looking over her shoulder—waiting for the past to catch up with her….
After surviving a horrific attack as a teenager, Ava has never been able to truly overcome her fears. The incident was covered up by her family so she wouldn’t have to deal with it publicly—yet only one person understands what she had to endure in private: her brother’s best friend, MacKinley Powers, who found her the night of the attack. But even he doesn’t know everything—and she’s afraid to open up to him.
Mac has loved Ava for most of his life—and being in close contact with her every day as head of security for Danvers International isn’t helping. In fact, it makes him realize the painful truth: He has to walk away to keep his sanity. But when Ava is forced to rely on the only man who has never let her down, can Mac break through the protective walls she’s needed for so long?
Thoughts: I’m always leery about starting a book that is so far in a series (book #6 in this case) and I have not read any of the prior books in this series. In fact, I haven’t read any books by this author prior to this one. However, I found this book blurb so compelling, I just had to read this one – and I’m so glad that I did. This book captivated me with the depth of emotion and realism portrayed in it. My heart went out to Ava – and as much as I might see some people growing irritated with some of her behaviors, to me I could see why she might act the way she did. With Ava having been a victim of traumatic rape, her behavior is not always rational – but that is what really added to the realism of the book for me. While people never really fully get over something like that, Ava was even more behind in her recovery than most people would be at that point in their lives – the way the situation was handled afterward, the way she dealt with it herself (or lack thereof in some ways), etc. almost left her in a period of stasis. It was almost like she seemed fine on the outside, but on the inside she was screaming for help. I felt such sympathy for Ava, and I loved her character. Mac, on the other hand, was the epitome of strength with the patience of a saint. You can’t help but love him, even when he decides he has no choice but to move on. Luckily, that is just what it takes to prod Ava to make some changes – even the hard ones.
While there are serious elements and topics to this story, there were some amazingly humorous moments as well! There were quite a few moments that had me laughing out loud, and it had much needed touches of humor to the story. Additionally, there were other amazing characters that added much needed interaction to the story – not to mention setting up for some future stories.
I didn’t find it difficult jumping into the series at all either which is always a plus!
All in all, a great story and an author that I will be keeping an eye out for more books from – as well as delving into more of her backlist titles!
Rate: A
