The Reality of Everything
Fight & Glory series
Rebecca Yarros
August 24, 2020
Entangled: Embrace
Blurb: Two years after the man she loved was killed in Afghanistan, Morgan Bartley is trying to put the pieces of her life back together. The reno on her dilapidated beach house in the Outer Banks might be just the distraction she needs to keep her debilitating anxiety attacks at bay and begin to heal her heart…if she can ignore the ridiculously handsome guy next door.
At twenty-eight, single-dad Jackson Montgomery’s life revolves around his five-year-old daughter and his job as a search-and-rescue pilot for the coast guard. He’s no stranger to saving a damsel in distress, and though his gorgeous new neighbor is clearly in distress, she’s no damsel. She’s stubborn as hell with walls a mile thick, and the dog tags hanging from her rearview mirror give him a pretty good clue as to why.
It doesn’t matter that their attraction is undeniable—she swore she’d never fall for another pilot, let alone a military man. There are some wounds time can’t heal, and some fears too consuming to conquer.
She’s a barely breathing heartbreak on the edge of recovery.
He’s a crash waiting to happen.
Together they could have it all…if they can endure the coming storm.
Purchase Link:
Amazon
Yes, The Reality of Everything is the first book I’ve read in Rebecca Yarros’ Flight & Glory series and it’s number 5, and guess what? It didn’t matter at all. Usually I will complain that a book says it’s standalone when it isn’t, when you get 50 characters you’ve never heard about streaming across the pages as if you’re supposed to care. While there were a few of those characters, I found it just didn’t matter. Why? Because the niche that Yarros created in my beloved Outer Banks with the characters of Morgan (Hello, Kitty), Jackson, Finley, Sam, and Christina et al was wonderful and EVERYTHING.
Morgan is hurting. Two years after the love of her life died in Afghanistan, she is having anxiety attacks and is diagnosed with complicated grief. She’s also bought a ramshackle oceanfront property on Hatteras Island, which happens to be next door to an amazing single father, Jackson, and his daughter, the collector of injured animals, Finley.
The meet cute involving Morgan breaking through the landing on her dilapidated house and Jackson getting an eye full of her Hello, Kitty underwear is funny and, of course, cute, and proves to be an awesome beginning to the book as well as providing Morgan with Jackson’s nickname for her.
So much happens in this book. And because I frequently feel letdown by the majority of romance books anymore, I kept anticipating that moment when I would grow bored or worse disgusted. It didn’t happen. The ending of the book? Unexpected and thrilling.
This book literarily (heh, see what I did there?) has all the feels. I am going to go back and read the previous books as time allows but I wasn’t that intrigued with those characters because I felt like they had let Morgan down so we’ll see how that goes. And those books aren’t about Coasties and they don’t take place in OBX, which also isn’t in their favor. But this one? I highly recommend.
Rebecca Yarros has earned a place on my must-read list after this book and Great and Precious Things, which I reviewed back in March. Both of these books show that romances can have depth and contain layered characters as well as be intelligent.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
rating:
5 out of 5 butterflies