Review: brilliant!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 13, 2014
Imagine you’re 17, you’ve never been kissed, never had any boy pay you much attention then suddenly the hunky rugby player at school is asking you to dance at the Christmas disco. You’re on cloud nine; this is the best night of your life! Then you find out he had ulterior motives, he only asked you for a bet. You would be devastated, humiliated and never want to show your face at school again.Well this is what Cass is facing when the story starts, and my heart went out to her straight away. Luckily she has her best friend Neve to console her, and also her very own knight in shining armour in the form of Flynn, Neve’s older brother.Before that night, Cass had never taken much notice of Flynn. Now, she is viewing him in a different light. Feeling like a spare part in the home she shares with her mum, step dad and young sister, Cass spends a lot of time at Neve’s house, and after staying up one night talking to Flynn she realises that she likes him. A lot. Unfortunately for Cass, Rob (the hunk) isn’t too happy that he lost the bet, and he’s not going to walk away quietly.The story is everything I love about mature YA/NA stories.  Those butterfly feelings you get at the start of something new, the excitement of your first love, and feeling that nothing will ever come between you. Flynn evokes all of these feeling in Cass, feelings she’s never had before and she embraces it all. I loved Cass, she was so sweet. She lacked the confidence to believe that a boy would find her attractive but when she spends time with Flynn she started to blossom, I could feel her positively glowing! And as for Flynn, I fell in love with him big time! The way he was so gentle and patient with Cass, not wanting to rush her into anything made my heart melt.  He knew just what Cass needed, when to say the right thing, when to take a step back, and when to step up. The little things they did together were so sweet, especially the scene in the park. I’ll never look at a packet of Minstrels the same way again!I don’t want to spoil this story for you by saying too much, but there is some… how shall I say… unpleasantness for Cass and Flynn to deal with, and it threatens to tear them apart. My heart broke for the pair of them, I wanted to reach into the book and give Cass a hug and to tell Flynn to hang in there. I was rooting for them to overcome the obstacles because they were perfect for each other.This was a great debut from Nicola Hudson, and I’m very happy to learn that she is writing a second book about Neve and Jake (Flynn’s friend). I’ve added Heart to my ‘to-read’ list and I’m secretly hoping there’s more of Cass and Flynn in there too!