Date Night with a Book: Ever After Always by Chloe Liese

 Date Night with a book is the new After Dark series of posts on my blog, books posted for Date Nights contain Adult  Romance themes and scenes. From now on I will keep my reviews of all books I read that have explicit scenes in them for Date Night posts for those of you who prefer to avoid them or easy to find for those of you who seek them out ;)

Read for: Anticipated Release/ Netgalley/ Requested Review

Synopsis: "Buckle up for an emotional journey of hijinks, heartache, and a hot slow-burn in this marriage-in-crisis romance about going the distance to make love last.

Aiden

I’ve spent twelve years loving Freya Bergman and twelve lifetimes won’t be enough to give her everything she deserves. She’s my passionate, tender-hearted wife, my best friend, and all I want is to make her happy. But the one thing that will make her happiest is the one thing I’m not sure I can give her: a baby.

With the pressure of providing and planning for a family, my anxiety’s at an all-time high, and I find myself pulling away, terrified to tell my wife how I’m struggling. But when Freya kicks me out, I realize that pulling back has turned into pushing too far. Now it’s the fight of a lifetime to save our marriage.

Freya

I love my cautious, hard-working husband. He’s my partner and best friend, the person I know I can count on most. Until one day I realize the man I married is nowhere to be found. Now Aiden is quiet and withdrawn, and as the months wear on, the pain of our growing distance becomes too much. 

As if weathering marriage counseling wasn’t enough, we’re thrown together for an island getaway to celebrate my parents’ many years of perfect marriage while ours is on the brink of collapse. Despite my meddling siblings and a week in each other’s constant company, this trip somehow gets us working through the trouble in paradise. I just can’t help worrying, when we leave paradise and return to the real world, will trouble find us again?

Ever After Always is a marriage-in-crisis, opposites-attract romance about a sensitive, fierce-loving woman and her resilient husband who has anxiety disorder. Complete with island vacation antics, a sibling prank gone wrong, and a steamy slow burn, this standalone is the third in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after."

My Review: I was so excited when I discovered this book, not often do I find romances around an already established marriage that might be struggling a bit. While I love the concept of the story because it is something I could relate to (having been married for 14 years) but it ended up a bit too relatable and was difficult and painful at times to read. With that said, I absolutely loved Freya and Aiden, they are so in love with each other but clearly struggling to connect. I loved their commitment to making things work and overcoming their own personal battles. As someone who struggles with anxiety, this was a bit more eye-opening that I expected from a romance book and there were definitely times I had to put it down and ponder what Aiden's struggle was revealing about myself, maybe not something I wanted to face in what I was presuming was a light rekindle the romance book. I also had not read the previous two books in this series and it is definitely something I would recommend as this is clearly a family series and a very close knit family at that, we spend a lot of time with a group of very involved siblings that we should be familiar with already. I do think I will go back and read the rest of the series because I love the family dynamics of this group of characters.

My Rating: Do not go into this book expecting a light fluffy romance story, this is hard hitting, deep thought, discover yourself kind of book. I was not expecting to dive into anxiety issues, potential fertility issues and more when picking up this book and it was definitely a bit difficult to read at times.  I do think it was all handled rather well though and really appreciated the effort on Liese's behalf.  I give this one a rating of Three Paws and a Stump Wag.

I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley, the above is my honest review and opinion. 

You can find out more about Chloe Liese and her books on her Goodreads Page or Website.

Ever After Always was just released on Tuesday, January 12th so you can now obtain your own copy in print or digital format from Amazon  or request it at your local library or bookstore.