Review: A rating...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 10, 2014
My Review:Okay, straight off...competing funeral home businesses...a bizarre choice for the author to use as the conflict, but other than that, I loved this book.I liked the history between Ellie and Finn. They both came from unhappy homes, both were smart, and both very competitive. That competitiveness put them up against each other all the way through school...until the night that Finn's father kicked him out and that competitiveness turned to a different kind of passion. Then he left, leaving Ellie feel like a fool and used. She's truly never liked thoughts of Finn ever since although she hasn't seen him since that night.Ellie came back home to help her father who has Alzheimer's. He's been declining for a while, but never let her know. So when she gets home, he's already at the point of needing to move to an assisted home, which is expensive. She has to keep his funeral home up and running to pay for his care, but Finn has opened a competing funeral home. This town is too small to support two. One of them is going to fail.Finn needs his funeral home to stay open because it's providing a lifeline for his mother who has finally had the courage to leave his abusive father. The funeral home enables her independence.Both of these characters need their business to succeed for the sake of their parents. That makes it hard to root for one or the other....and for me, definitely kept me emotionally invested. Both of them are working for someone else to benefit from that success. I'll admit, there were times when I cringed at their competitive tactics...funeral homes...yikes, I really wish the author had chosen another business. But those moments of personal cringing aside, I did enjoy the competitiveness between the two. They are both really smart, really driven people.They are both really vulnerable people. For Ellie, she's basically alone in the world. She has personal issues with this small town from when her mother died in the midst of scandal. She's never wanted to come back here, but she's doing it now for her dad. For Finn, his abusive father is the town banker, well-respected in this small town. No one has ever known how he treated his three boys and wife. Finn is torn between outing him and protecting his mom from any scandal or drama. But he's still that person who grew up being beaten on a regular basis by someone the town looks up to. That's not easy.And then there's the two of them together and yeah, all that competitiveness turns into some pretty hot sizzling on the page. Overall, I liked the book, I liked the story, and I loved the characters. I can't wait to read the other two Donovan brothers' stories. There were glimpses of them in this book and nothing is quite resolved with dad yet, so there is still a lot of story to come. I look forward to reading them.I received a complimentary copy of this book in return for an honest review.