Review: Another winner from Cara McKenna!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 20, 2014
This was my second Cara McKenna book and it certainly won’t be my last! I read Unbound last fall when it came out and LOVED it so when I saw she had another book coming out I was very excited. Then I saw that it was about a woman who falls for a convict while she’s working at the prison and I was like whoa! Sign me up!I knew from my previous experience with Cara McKenna’s books that she writes her characters in such a way that it feels deeply personal and you really get to know them, like you are right there with them.  This book was no exception. Annie and Eric were both such well-rounded characters, even if you didn’t agree with them you could understand why they made certain decisions and had amazing chemistry. OMG right off the bat when Annie catches Eric’s eye on her very first day working at Cousins, you can tell this is going to be intense. When he was narrating that first letter to her, I had so many butterflies! That’s how I felt for pretty much the first 40% of the book as they carried on their illicit affair. It was so exciting and yet also nerve-wracking wondering if they’ll get caught, when she ever wrote him her first reply I was freaking out! And the letters, oh wow, the letters. Pretty hard not to relate to the feelings Annie was having as she was reading them, and very hard not to fall for Eric! It was so fascinating trying to reconcile the felon to the hopeless romantic from the letters.Then the curveball comes and we learn that Eric was granted early parole and then it’s a whole different type of nerves that held me for the second half of the book. Wondering if she’ll give him a chance and if they could make it work in the real world (or the ‘great big world’ rather because as Eric pointed out, prison was his real life for 5 years) because up until then the relationship was safe and more of a fantasy. Then once they got together I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was clear that Eric was not apologetic for the crime that he committed that landed him in jail so I had the same worries Annie did, will it happen again, will he end up back in jail, will she lose him? Exploring all of this was a lot of fun and I was very happy with how it all ended, of course I wish there was an epilogue because I wanted more. But I’ve learned it’s the author’s style to give you a few breadcrumbs but ultimately leave it up to you to envision their long term future.Aside from the lack of epilogue, I really loved this book and didn’t want to put it down, sneaking in chapters whenever I could. 4.5-5 stars!!