Review: I liked it
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 31, 2014
I really liked the first book in this series "Silence in the stars". In fact I liked Sandy in the first book so much that I really wanted him to get his happy ending and was pleased to see this book. Moreover, usually I am not keen on couple from the first book showing up in the story just to be friends with the main character/couple, but I was perfectly fine with Mike and Gio and Emma making some guest appearances. Because it was already established that Mike and Sandy were as close as brothers, so even if Mike was mostly being a friendly support for Sandy in this one, I was fine with it, it felt organic.The book is once again features a romance of the two opposites - blue collar guy and "artsy" guy. Sandy does construction work, and Everett is a violinist. Their attraction is again fast, but because initially it is purely sexual one, I could deal with it, I liked to watch how in front of my eyes purely sexual attraction became something more.The conflict in this book is however completely different from the first one.  It concerns Sandy having PTSD and the effect it has/may have/will have on his building relationship with Everett.The writer chose to show somebody with the milder case of PTSD, and I was okay with it, because the worse PTSD is, the less believable it is for me that the relationship may actually work out without the guy being in therapy for a long time. However I thought that with what was shown she dealt realistically. And Sandy having a "milder" case of it is of course only comparatively speaking  - he has horrible nightmares after what he had to deal with in Afganistan and while they do not stop him from living his life, it sure stopped him from getting everything he wanted out of life. Sandy was so worried that Everett may see him having a nightmare when they just started dating that he did not want to spend a night at his apartment initially. Of course it came out pretty fast and I was very pleased how both of the guys dealt with it.Everett does worry as to how Sandy's nightmares may affect them long term, but he knows that he is very attracted to the man and he wants to give the relationship his best shot. It is made very clear however that Everett cannot help him, and if Sandy wants to try to get better he should seek help from the therapist.  And Sandy does start the therapy; he does it for himself, even if Everett may have been a push which Sandy needed. The push was Sandy wanting to give a relationship real try though, Everett himself did not insist on anything.  It is made very clear that Sandy is not cured at the end of the story , after all he has a nightmare again in one of the last chapters and even therapist tells him that even though he improved he may never get completely cured. I really liked that. Sandy definitely feels better overall though and I was happy for him.I do wish Everett was portrayed with more depth I have to admit. He is not a one dimensional character by all means, but I just did not know him that well when the story ended and I think I should have. I thought he and Sandy were really good together though.