4 Smooches!
Synopsis
Cooper Sterling has been in love with Briley Sheffield since fifth grade, when he asked her to marry him on wide-ruled paper crafted into the fold-and-tuck square.
But life isn’t that neat and tidy.
Years later, defending Briley from an attack lands Cooper in prison, powerless to protect her and unable to convince her to wait for him.
When a failed engagement opens up the possibility of a relationship with Cooper, a mysterious envelope threatens to slam shut every door in Briley’s path. Now she must choose . . . risk the stability of friendship she has with Cooper, or put everything on hold and solve the mysteries of her family secrets.
Wait For Me is book 1 of a 2-book series, but can be read as a standalone.
Review
I absolutely loved the synopsis for this book. A best friend to lovers story is always guaranteed to get its sweet and sexy claws into me so with Wait for Me I was eager to dive right in and uncover all the mystery and angst that seemed to be promised.
Briley is our female protagonist, suffering in a complicated and incredibly unstable relationship, cheated on and pretty much in total isolation from the only person she can trust and turn to when in need of guidance or comfort- her best friend, the delectable and dangerous Cooper. Cooper is what absolutely makes this story so captivating. He’s toxic with rage and anger, something that has landed him in serious trouble time and again but it’s his loyalty, love, friendship and secretly harboured romantic love for Briley that keeps the fighting soul in him alive.
‘“I’m going to taste you. I’ll wait until you’re relaxed and ready to give me every ounce of your trust.” His eyes flashed with desire before he kissed the opposite corner of my mouth in the same manner. “When I’m finished with you, you’ll never remember you were ever with anyone else. The only name you’ll ever exhale from this day forward is mine.”’
Wait for Me started out great, in fact I was mesmerised and surprised by the setting in some circumstances, the storyline was remarkably fresh and unused and for once I wasn’t entirely sure what the outcome was going to be with these two tortured and well-developed characters. Unfortunately it was the to and fro pull of Coop and Briley that dulled the plot down considerably as the story progressed. I’m all for a angst and trouble and the big dramatic disruption to the equilibrium of the relationship but when it becomes an overused template of couples not communicating on basic things and the whole ‘I’m pushing you away to save our life long friendship’ thing, I lose interest and such was the case here. Jealousy, pettiness and one-up-manship do not a happy couple make, or reader for that matter and for the last part of the book that is exactly what we got. It is difficult to accomplish a genuinely perfect ‘best friends to lovers story’ without recycling certain tools and showing the natural progression of love between them but for me, the drama was anti-climatic, it just fell a little flat and left me disappointed in what should have been a five star read.
I will say Wait for Me is tremendously well written and like I mentioned previously Cooper is a super sexy hot-headed force to be reckoned with, it was just my personal displeasure of certain aspects in the plot that let the book down as a whole, regardless, many other readers will love it.
~Nicole
