HAPPILY EVER AFTER / ALL OF ME

HAPPILY EVER AFTER                          LORI WILDE
Posted:  Jan. 6, 2014

  Two Wedding Veil Wishes novels, together for the first time in print!
Legend claims this antique Irish wedding veil can grant your heart's deepest desire. But be careful what you wish for . . .

ADDICTED TO LOVEGrowing up in Valentine, Texas, can make anyone believe in happily ever after. Anyone except Rachael Henderson. After having not one but two grooms ditch her at the altar, Rachael commits an uncharacteristic act of rebellion-and gets arrested by sexy Sheriff Brody Carlton, her childhood crush. Rachael's sworn off of love . . . but now she's fantasizing about Brody. Can it be possible to have her wedding cake and eat it too?

ALL OF MEWhen a searing betrayal leaves Jillian Samuels heartbroken and wishing for a fresh start, her newly inherited cottage in Salvation, Colorado, seems like the perfect place to find it. It has a fireplace, a mountain view-and the most gorgeous and infuriating man she's ever met already living inside! Tuck Manning won't give up his home without a fight, so until they can untangle who owns the cottage, the two resolve to live as roommates. But as the days-and nights-heat up, they find that sometimes salvation comes when you least expect it . . . (170,000 words)

MY REVIEWS:

Happily Ever After

   If you are looking for a really good book to read this is it.  In fact I have read them twice now.  Rachael Henderson was born and raised in Valentine, Texas.  If your mind jumped to the holiday then yes you’re right on track.  Only this town and it people engulf the whole love, romance, and happily ever after like Valentine’s Day on steroids.

     You see Rachael was sold the myth that someday her knight in shiny armor would come and whisk her away and they would live as one.  So, far though all it ever got her was heart ache, being left at the altar twice and pitted against the town’s people now.  And it all started with Sheriff Brody Carlton.

     Brody is a war hero and he used to live in Valentine but moved when he was like 12 which broke Rachael’s heart.  Ever since she was five she had been in love with him.  In fact on Valentine’s Day she made him a card and took it to him while he was playing basketball with his friends.  He just looked at it while his friend’s made fun and ripped it up in tiny pieces.

     Now he was back in town really?  When she was at her worst and breaking the law could he pick a better time?  It has to be done this billboard is lying to every little girl.  It’s giving them false hopes and dreams that marriage is the answer.  Rachael was done with her fantasy world.  This will be their cute meet but neither one knows it yet because they don’t know who each other is yet.

     Once the mayor said who each of them were Brody’s hit with memories of Rachael rushing back in little snippets.  First, of her being the cutest little pest who followed him around all the time.  Then, of how cute she looked in her pigtails and of them hanging out together, how she always made him feel good and important.

     What are they each looking for now is it friendship, booty calls, or love?  Read to see who wants more than a booty call.  See who’s scared of love but is friendship enough?  There did seem to be some parts that dragged where there was too much outside stuff and not the characters of the story themselves talking to each other.  Just in their heads otherwise I totally enjoyed it.

ALL OF ME

     Sometimes it takes a total shake up of our lives to see we are headed in the wrong direction.  In this case Jillian Samuels had gone

to work for the D.A.’s office straight out of law school.  Blake her mentor brought her in.  He was her rock and father figure.

     Especially, since she didn’t come from a great back ground no family except her dear friends Delaney, Tish, and Rachael and of course Blake, an old professor she heard speak and then kept in touch with.  He was her father figure and she was the daughter he had no relationship with after his marriage broke up.

     On a bad day at court (no she didn’t lose she won which was worse.)  Why you ask?  Because it meant nothing and she felt not one thing.  That scared the crap out of her.  So, she went to seek out Blake but when she arrived at his office she received the shock of her life Blake had died of a brain tumor that morning, one he knew he had and didn’t share with her.  The hurt she felt from that was more then she could share.  Then, as if the week was not bad enough, the one man she let her defenses down with and let a man into her heart it turns out he is a lying, cheating bastard.  Why you ask?  He started dating her without telling her that one little thing that matters most to Jillian, He’s Married!  Plus, he is the one who is going to take over Blake’s job as D.A. and as her boss. Of which he wasted no time to call her in his office and expected her to take up the affair, so she quit.

     Then she remembers the wishes the girls made on the wedding veil Delaney, wished to get out of marrying the wrong man and she did marrying her soul mate, Nick Vinetti.

Tish, wished to get out of debt which brought her back together with her husband she lost and never stopped loving.

Rachael, wished to stop being so romantic, she did, ended up marrying the hero of her dreams.

Jillian, didn’t believe in dreams.  Saying it was a load of crap.  But, she’d lost everything else the veil was all the hope she had left.  She wished, “I wish I’d been born into a loving, trusting, giving family.  I wish…I wish…I wish…I wish I had a brand new life.”

     Jillian’s whole life is about to change.  A new man will be entering it, Tucker Manning.  Will she allow herself to trust him?  Will he allow himself to open up to Jillian?  Life has been hard for Tuck the last few years.  His heart has suffered a major blow.  Can he love again?  Can Jillian truly love for the first time in her life, a toe curling love?  “Do You Believe In Magic?”

     I really enjoyed this story.  It had some really funny parts but it also had some really gut wrenching parts too.  When I read this the first time I gave it a five star and I would not change it but I was made at the ending but this time around the part before the epilogue is where the truth comes in and I missed what was really being said.  So watch for it.