Title: Harder
Series: Caroline and West bk 2
Author: Robin York
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary
Caroline still dreams about West. His warm skin, his taut muscles, his hand sliding down her stomach. Then she wakes up and she’s back to reality: West is gone. And before he left, he broke her heart.
Then, out of the blue, West calls in crisis. A tragedy has hit his family—a family that’s already a fractured mess. Caroline knows what she has to do. Without discussion, without stopping to think, she’s on a plane, flying to his side to support him in any way he needs.
They’re together again, but things are totally different. West looks edgy, angry at the world. Caroline doesn’t fit in. She should be back in Iowa, finalizing her civil suit against the ex-boyfriend who posted their explicit pictures on a revenge porn website. But here she is. Deeply into West, wrapped up in him, in love with him. Still.
They fought the odds once. Losing each other was hard. But finding their way back to each other couldn’t be harder.
Thoughts: This was the first book by York I’ve read and I really liked it.
The book picks up months after the end of Deeper when West leaves Caroline and their school to go back to the small town in Oregon he’s from. Not having read the first book where Caroline and West met and fell in love I was able to pick up their love story and follow along with where they were now.
Six years ago West had to make a decision. It was the hardest thing he’s ever done, but he did it. That decision had ramifications on his entire life, because he had to walk away from the most important person in his life, his little sister. Now he’s back in Silt, and doing everything he can to protect her from their father. In choosing his sister, he had to say goodbye to the person who owned his soul, Caroline. Now his father is dead and he does what he knows he shouldn’t, he calls Caroline.
When Caroline arrives in Silt, all she can think about is being their for West in whatever way she can. She knows he’s going to push her away. That he doesn’t want her there. But if he really didn’t, he wouldn’t have called her. When West does the one thing guaranteed to push her away for good she calls him on his shit and walks away.
There is a lot happening in this book, both West and Caroline are dealing with things that happened before they were together the first time. West can’t forgive himself for the dick move he pulled on Caroline to get her to leave the piece of crap town he was from. When he finally listens to the advice of those around him, who isn’t related to, about what is best for him and his sister, he packs them up and goes back to college.
Watching Caroline and West traverse their new reality, was a pleasure. West knew he’d messed up. Caroline didn’t forgive him right away. But at the end of the day ever action they’d done had been because they loved each other.
While I doubt I’ll go back and read the first book in this series, I really liked West and Caroline where they are when this book starts. I don’t need to read the other one to know what happened in it and how it impacted their lives. I liked watching them forge a new future for them. I really liked how Caroline never gave up on West.
Overall this was a great read, one I couldn’t put down.
Grade B+
good review!!