Review: Heart, Warmth, Trust
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2014
Hold on Tight is one of those romances that worms its way into your heart without being full of unnecessary angst and overly flowery descriptions. Selena Bell has told a heart-warming tale of two people who are as realistic as their story is to today’s world. Mira was young, Jake was shipping off to the Middle East, strangers that met one night, who made a connection that would stay in their hearts forever. Eight years later, Mira is finally taking responsibility for her life and that of her seven-year-old son, Sam, but to do that she moves across the country, back to where she grew up. Fate had a plan to bring Jake and Mira back together, both older, both cautious, neither able to share their true feelings that were never voiced. For Jake, surviving and coming home from Iraq is bittersweet, he lost his best friend and part of his leg. Feeling survivor’s guilt, suffering from PTSD and struggling to feel like a real man again, he is a mess, one that he feels Mira would be better off without. Knowing that Sam is his son and he wasn’t there for him or Mira just lays on the guilt. How can he be a role model for Sam if he is, in his opinion, less than a man? How can he tell Mira what his heart knows to be true, because she needs someone who is whole, as perfect as she?Mira is determined to show Jake that in her eyes he is all she could ever need, both for herself and Sam, but first he must let her in. She is the perfect therapy for some of Jake’s problems, but it’s the wise Sam who cuts to the chase with these two, with his blunt and innocent ways. Will Sam and Mira’s belief in Jake bolster his courage to push himself into partaking in the joys of life? To be more than he ever dreamed? Will their love help him down the road to recovery from the nightmares he has lived through?Serena Bell has taken a very contemporary ordeal that is lived out daily for soldiers who have faced the Hell of war and survived, and given it the respect it deserves without lessening the physical and mental pain these brave people must deal with. Her spin is positive while acknowledging the journey ahead. But this is romance, and she gives heart and warmth to her characters while putting them to the test with their trust issues, independence issues and low self-esteem. Wonderful, warm, sigh-worthy romance with a twist.