Review: Is the damage from the past too great to allow Rachel and Dylan a future together?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 24, 2013
From the outside, it seems like Rachel Daniels has it all - a heroic firefighter husband, two beautiful children and fulfilling work at a nonprofit organization that she created. On the inside, however, Rachel's mind is a nest of fears, insecurity and never-ending anxiety. Her heroic husband has been sleeping in the guest bedroom for months, and burnout is stealing away the satisfaction she has always taken in her charity organization.Things only get worse when a terrible tragedy brings her face-to-face with Dylan Easton, the boy she'd fallen in love with in high school...the only boy who had ever made her feel truly confident...the boy who had smashed her heart into a thousand pieces.Damage Done follows Rachel and Dylan as they seek answers to heal their wounded hearts. Even as old wounds reopen, passion still lingers between them. A dormant spark rekindles, but is the damage from the past too great to allow them a future together?Damage Done is a unique romance novel and refreshing in many aspects. It's not often that romance focuses on two thirty-somethings - one of whom married with young children. Rachel is written as a severely flawed character - a woman constantly prone to anxiety and insecurity who automatically wilts at the first sign of confrontation.Author Virginia Duke does a good job of getting inside Rachel's head and painting her as a very human and fragile person...perhaps a little too good. I was never able to warm up to Rachel as a character. Her constant anxiety attacks, fear, snarky thoughts about those around her and waffling became exhausting throughout the book. I connected much more strongly to Dylan, who was always eager to move forward into the future and take what he wanted.Romance readers will enjoy the hot, graphic and toe-curling bedroom scenes.I think a lot of women will be able to relate to Rachel and identify with her predicament of a lackluster marriage and grinding job. For those women, Dylan will be a breath of fresh air - a very chiseled, handsome breath of fresh air - and I think Damage Done could be an appealing read.(This book was provided to Compulsion Reads for review by the author.)