Review: Nora and Brand are soaring
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2014
This book harkens back to my favorite, IF YOU STAY. I love the impact that Brand made 10 years ago on Nora and the fact that she pulled from her memories of him to strengthen her as an adult. I love the simplicity of the Angel Bay community, the presence the lake had throughout the book, the hospital meeting, the reference to 'The Wolf', and the sweet oblivion the sleeping pills brought. All of these things reminded me of Pax and Mia. However I am referring to writing nuances that interweave this story to the place and community, I want to be clear that this is a completely fresh and interesting story on its own. It is just obvious who the author is and it is certainly Courtney Cole at her finest.What an opening chapter ONE was! I want a fierce warrior with magnificent cerulean eyes to heft me up and save my life...(swoon).Also I found myself crying early on when Nora was bolstering her moxie to offer the 'proposition'. Her mind constantly relied upon the repetition of Brand's tattoos and his words of wisdom to steel her spine and that was so incredibly touching.After reading this book I feel sad that this ride with these people is over. Courtney is a writer that I can count on loving...her style and word choice are awesome. I do wish these characters were slightly more fleshed out-like I said maybe I am forlorn and so I am reaching for criticism because I so badly wish there was more. I feel that Nora went through a tragedy and did not really deal with it. Her storyline was so important to how she viewed Brand and why she harbored a torch for him after all this time. Also abuse needs work, you don't simply bounce back into happiness, even though new love has amazing powers. Once the shiny rubs off of their love Nora is going to have emotions that will need dealing with...hmm hmmmm mmm, Courtney...a novella option??!!!Also, I wish that Nora would have had a conversation with Brand about why she chose him. There was a lot of inner dialogue that was beautiful but it was not shared amongst the characters, and they seemed to be great mind readers to put plot points together for the advancement of the story, however more discussion would have been nice.**A hint regarding Brands military service: a soldier who graduated from college at 22 and then spent say 3 years in the military would have made it to the rank of Captain, perhaps Major if he were highly decorated throughout his time in combat during war...but know way would that young of a man have been a LtCol. That is only two steps away from General and not every officer becomes a general in their career. Also their are fewer officers in special ops units, and Westpoint trains officers of the highest caliber to be placed in areas of literally running our military, they become strategists and the like. They do not generally take officers from Westpoint into Ranger training. FYI for credibility.