Author: Rachel van Dyken
Rating: 4/5
Thanks to Skyscape and NetGalley for letting me receive a digital copy of this book before its official release date.
Coming out of a coma was one hell of a wake-up call. While I was in the dark, my estranged twin brother, Bridge, had replaced me in the company I owned and swept up my fiancée in the takeover. With my ruthless reputation, can I blame them for falling in love? I have to look long and hard at where I’ve been and where I’m headed. Alone time? The universe has other plans.
Our family’s secluded Vermont cabin comes with a gorgeous—if at first, unwelcoming—surprise. She’s renter Keaton Westbrook, a social media superstar struggling with her own private grief. As a winter storm bears down, we’ve found something to keep us warm—an intimacy neither of us expected and both of us need.
After we say goodbye, what happens then? Keaton and I are longing to reconcile with our painful pasts. I can’t bear to do it without her. Is it too much to ask of fate to give us a second chance at life and love?
I've been so excited for find out more about Julian after I finished reading Stealing Her, the first book in this series. There's something about Rachel van Dyken that makes a reader know for certain who's the ideal book boyfriend, only to come around with a new release and making one doubt your choice, falling in love with a new potential book boyfriend. So I can't even say if Julian is better than Bridge. I don't have to choose, do I?
Sure enough, I think both books involve a lot of depth. I've come to realise that Mrs. van Dyken becomes more and more adult-ish when it comes to her stories. Or she's just hoping for her readers' tears, that might be it, too. Having read Stealing Her first, I thought my heart was beyond repair. There was so much pain and ache, but also so much swoon-worthy scenes and so much love, it was beautiful. Coming to think of it, I think there was just more to it than it was in Finding Him. Probably because Bridge and Julian's life had to be told at first, there was so much background information we got, the story revolved around more than it does in the second book. I'm not saying that's a bat thing, I'm just saying that this story seemed a bit more surface-like. We already knew what Julian had to go through in his childhood. There wasn't much new information we got, other than that he's amazing and has a big heart, which you would have never figured after the first book in the series and according to the way he treated Isobel.
Anyway... There story in this one focused on pain. The raw kind. Keaton's grief is heartbreaking, earth-shattering. Rachel van Dyken does an amazing job of finding just the right words in order to describe Keaton's thoughts and her fears. And seriously, I realized that she doesn't even need that many words. But she chooses just the right ones, the exact kind needed for this. Maybe they're flying to her or maybe she's just that much in her character's worlds that it all feels natural. I'm in awe, really. Even though Keaton sometimes got on my nerves as well. Especially when she was so afraid of other people's opinions, of what they would say. When actually, all that mattered was that Julian had become this swoon-worthy type of guy. I wanted her to see that!
In the beginning, when Julian and Keaton are snowed in, I wasn't sure whether this would really be my kind of story. It seemed so predictable, which is why I was glad not the whole plot is actually set here. We got into both heads, we understood both of their feelings also when they were in their real worlds again.
Every once in a while, the reader will get to read flashback scenes. I've come to dislike those for some reason in the recent past, but Rachel van Dyken wouldn't be one of my ultimate favorite authors if she took my fear and raised her middle finger at it. Seriously though, I liked those a lot! And again, I think it's in her magic for the words, for creating scenes that my heart just can't cope with, but melting it at the same time. I've come to like Noah, I felt Keaton's pain so much. And while I'd be usually cheering for just one team (team Julian obviously!), you also get a glimpse of the life she had with Noah and find yourself liking him, too. He was described a good person, the purest kind of good.
I'm really sad this series will be two books only, though it makes perfect sense since it's about two brothers. Anyway, I will cherish the Covet series forever. It was really special.
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