Review: Vanella for the win! Definitely recommend
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 17, 2014
Move over Trace Corbin, move over Landon O’Brien there is a new book boyfriend on my list and his name is Van Ransom. Holy hot tamale, Van is the epitome of the bad boy rock star. He lives his life trying to block out the memories of his past by using many drugs, alcohol, and of course many, many women. His soon-to-be label and manager gave him an ultimatum go to rehab or lose everything he had worked for, including being replaced in his band. Naturally, he decides to go to rehab, Second Chance Ranch, to please his label and manager for the time being. What he didn’t expect was to run into Stella Jo Chandler, they literally collide into each other the first time they meet. Stella’s turns Van’s whole world upside down, she keeps him grounded and keeps his night-terror memories from the front of his mind. Instead of living just to escape his memories he starts to live for Stella and be a better man not just for her but for himself also.Stella Jo Chandler hasn’t lived her life since before she got injured during a showcase. Her childhood wasn’t warm or inviting so as an adult she keeps people at a distance because that is what she know, what she grew up around. She takes a job at Second Chance Ranch because she can’t go home and face the disappointment in her mother’s eyes because she doesn’t live the lifestyle that her mother wants her too. She doesn’t go back home because she doesn’t want to face her father that could never look at her, none the less walks out of the room when she walks in. Starting new at SCR trying to leave her past behind her, learning the dos and don’ts of the facility, she runs into Van and is mesmerized by him. Actually, I would be drooling over him but that’s just me. Just being in his presence makes her feel, probably-er-mostly lust but that’s still a feeling. While at SCR she gets to know him and around him makes her want to feel and have emotions for another human being. Knowing the number one rule at SCR, absolutely no employee-client relations, she is hesitant in forming such deep bonds with Van but she is pulled to him like a moth to a light, like two magnets.Many may say that this story has the insta-love element to it but I think that it was a very small influence in the story. They met and were attracted to each other but they got to know each other first and formed a bond. They each had their own issues and they both had to work through those issues but they needed each other in order to work through their pasts. Two broken people find their other halves, their person that makes them whole and they take on each other’s battles, they stand in each other’s corners and be their strength when they are down; that is what Van and Stella are for each other.This book is more than just a forbidden love story; it isn’t an insta-love, happily ever after right away story. This story isn’t sugar coated; it takes on deep issues, like addiction, that many people have experienced in one way or another. LSC starts with an author’s note explaining a little about her family’s struggle with addiction this note shows others, whether they are an addict or their family, that read it that they are not alone in those struggles and that they too can find light in the darkest of hours. CQ put her whole heart into this book and it shines throughout. This story is one I definitely recommend and will probably read over and over again.