Three things in my life were fact.
I needed Sarah to survive.
I needed sex to remain sane.
And I could never mix sex with Sarah.I just knew—deep in my marrow—that if I did, I’d somehow lose her. All my deepest darkest secrets would crack open, bleed out, and ruin everything between us. I wouldn’t unleash the shit inside me on my worst enemy, let alone her. So she stayed strictly in the friend zone.People probably thought I never went there with her because of her cerebral palsy, but f*ck them. She knew she was the most important person in my world, and I wasn’t about to risk hurting our relationship just to make my c*ck happy.Until the moment she begged me to take her virginity.
Now it’s all about to hit the fan, because how the hell do you resist the one person forbidden to you when she says please?–Brandt Gamble
Disclaimer: This might be the 8th book in the Forbidden Men Series by Linda Kage, but it CAN BE READ AS STANDALONE – in fact, this is my first introduction in this series.
The blurb just really gets you doesn’t it?
This is the best kind of friends-lovers sort of story – the warmest, sweetest and the most freaking amazing romance I have read in a really long time!! If you adore loyal, sweet and protective alpha heroes, then Brandt is the hero for you. And if you adore sassy, smart and cocky heroines, then Sarah is the heroine for you!
“This right here—every single piece of you—is very precious cargo to me. If anyone mistreated it, I’d lose my shit. You’re not just my best friend, you’re my sanity. You’re priceless, Sarah.”
This romance is told throughout the years, from the first time Brandt and Sarah met each other, their friendship and the eventual headlong falling of both into love – a love that remains silent until one *cough* Sarah *cough* decides that she needs to live her life, try out new things and do not let her disease be a deterrent.
What she doesn’t realise is the effect this decision will have on her best friend, Brandt.
It’s a bit hard for me to read friends-to-lovers stories, somehow it makes me nostalgic, especially considering my own love story has been one – but it tends to hold a level of angst that I am not comfortable with – because I have found through the years that I FEEL EVERY SINGLE EMOTION THAT THE CHARACTERS ARE FEELING – and hence, I tend to avoid books that I feel could be so well written, that I would end up in a daze, even days later.
And I JUST KNEW, that this could be one of those books – but THAT BLURB, that blurb just wouldn’t let go! So I hunkered down and read it. In one single sitting. Through the whole night. And its days later and I still haven’t been able to let go of this book.
Brandt is a healthy college student, with a healthy appetite for the opposite sex – so what if he has been in love with his best friend since he understood what love actually is? So what if he KNOWS that he wouldn’t let anyone near Sarah, even if he couldn’t have anything but her friendship in his life?
Sarah is a woman who was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, but she hasn’t let it stop her from being the best that she can be! Sure, she doesn’t really have many friends, but she has the BESTEST FRIEND in the whole world – Brandt, who has been by her side from the first moment she has known him. Yes, she is in love with, but what does it matter, for she knows that he deserves much better than him.
“You matter,” I murmured, knowing the next few words I said may just be the most important thing I ever uttered. “I could lose everyone I know and everything I had, and I’d still be able to handle it as long as I still had you. You’re the only person who does matter to me.”
Throughout the book, I had this feeling of warmth underneath every single of heartbreak this book gave me – because no matter what happens, no matter what DID happen, they love and loyalty for each other never wavered. EVER!
As for the plot, a heroine suffering a cerebral palsy was different for me – maybe there could have been books, but this was the first for me and I adored how beautifully the author wove in the struggles and the tensions that come with the disease – and how even just one person’s acceptance could make the world of a difference.
This is not JUST a friends to lovers story – there is a healthy dose of demons that both Sarah and Brandt battle – most of them known to the reader early on – BUT it takes a while for both of them to open up to each other.
AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I wasn’t even MAD about the lack of communication between Sarah and Brandt – because when they did realise that they had been harboring some serious assumptions about their relationship, they hunkered down and talked it all out – not to mention the moment their “friendship” shifted, Brandt became the kind of alpha male boyfriend that I so dearly LOVE to read about!
Seriously, this book, this romance, the characters were absolutely PERFECT! It doesn’t really get better than this! Honestly!
“I always thought you’d end up with Brandt, anyway.”
I choked on my surprise and gaped at her. “Say what?”
“Yeah, don’t even act surprised, chickie. That boy is completely and irrevocably in love with you. He worships the ground you roll upon. And it’s clear as day you love him back.”
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
For The Love of Fictional Worlds 