Inseparable, an all-new gritty, friends-to- lovers romance from USA Today bestselling author Siobhan Davis is available NOW!
I received this book via the author, Siobhan Davis. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.
Published by Self Publish on 2018-01-08
Length: 396 pages
Reviewing eARC Rating:
Reading Challenges: 2018 New Release Challenge, COYER Winter Switch
A gritty, angsty, friends-to-lovers standalone romance from USA Today bestselling author Siobhan Davis.
A childhood promise. An unbreakable bond. One tragic event that shatters everything.
It all started with the boys next door…
Devin and Ayden were my best friends. We were practically joined at the hip since age two. When we were kids, we thought we were invincible, inseparable, that nothing or no one could come between us.
But we were wrong.
Everything turned to crap our senior year of high school.
Devin was turning into a clone of his deadbeat lowlife father—fighting, getting wasted, and screwing his way through every girl in town. I’d been hiding a secret crush on him for years. Afraid to tell him how I felt in case I ruined everything. So, I kept quiet and slowly watched him self-destruct with a constant ache in my heart.
Where Devin was all brooding darkness, Ayden was the shining light. Our star quarterback with the bright future whom everyone loved. But something wasn’t right. He was so guarded, and he wouldn’t let me in.
When Devin publicly shamed me, Ayden took my side, and our awesome-threesome bond was severed. The split was devastating. The heartbreak inevitable.
Ayden and I moved on with our lives, but the pain never lessened, and Devin was never far from our thoughts.
Until it all came to a head in college, and one eventful night changed everything.
Now, I’ve lost the two people who matter more to me than life itself. Nothing will ever be the same again.
A standalone new adult contemporary romance with a happy ending. Only suitable for readers aged eighteen and older due to mature content and possible triggers.
Review
As I sit down to write the review for Inseparable, my heart aches. Siobhan Davis has delivered a powerful, emotionally stirring novel about the bonds of friendship, trials of adolescence, and the heartbreak of true grief. I was overcome many times during the reading of this book and had to set it down and simply have a good cry. Devin, Angelina, and Ayden are wonderfully written, fully fleshed out, and came to life as I read. When I read the prologue, my first thought was “This book is going to destroy me,” and it did.
The majority of Inseparable is told from Angelina’s perspective so let’s start with her. Angelina is a determined, young woman with a bright future ahead of her. She knows exactly what she wants out of life and she has it all planned out. I found myself identifying with her as she reminded me a lot of myself at that age, friendly to everyone but only two or three really close friends. Yet she struggled with feelings she had developed for one of her best friends. It’s something I’ve heard a lot growing up that guys and girls can’t be friends because inevitably one of you will develop feelings towards the other. That is exactly what has happened here, and the author fleshes it out beautifully, showing the angst and division that derives from it.
The story also follows Angelina’s neighbors and two best friends: Devin and Ayden. I could easily sum these two boys up as the bad boy and the good boy, the Pacey and the Dawson if you will to Angelina’s Joey (Yes I totally am referencing Dawson’s Creek and showing my age), but they are so much more than that. When the story opens, it is clear to the reader, if not entirely clear to Angelina, that Devin is spiraling. He’s in a really bad place and truly lost. My heart broke for this boy who wasn’t quite a man yet and everything that was happening to him that Angelina couldn’t see through her own heartbreak. Then there’s Ayden, the golden boy, town football star with his entire life mapped out for him. He is seemingly in love with Angelina, yet waiting in the wings for her to notice. Yet when their dynamic changes, so does he and the spiraling we saw in Devin begins in Ayden and Angelina is helpless to stop it.
There are so many things I want to discuss about this book but I can’t for fear of spoiling it. Every moment, every word needs to be read and savored and mulled over because it is so important. Siobhan Davis is the queen when it comes to foreshadowing! As I sit reflecting over moments in the book, things that caught my attention but I didn’t think was important at the time are big red flags screaming “Warning!” at me now that I know the ending. To be honest, I had predicted what would happen (thanks to the amazing foreshadowing!) so I wasn’t surprised but it still broke me. The brutal emotions and vivid imagery of what the characters were thinking and feeling leaked into my own emotions. I felt what they felt and was utterly devastated.
Overall I loved Inseparable! Every moment, every heart ache, every word….I loved it. Angelina and Devin and Ayden will stick around with me for a while. The sad truths, the grief, the unimaginable pain that only those you are closest to can inflict….Siobhan Davis writes it all in beautiful, heart-aching detail. If you enjoy contemporary romance with a lot of angst and drama, I highly recommend you grab this book.
Excerpt
He leans in, his lips brushing my cheek as his mouth makes a round trip to my ear. “What if I told you I want to be your most favorite person? The one you adore above everyone else?” His warm breath is doing strange things to my insides. My entire body is tingling, and my limbs feel like they’ve turned to rubber. He moves his hand up and down my spine, and a soothing warmth seeps bone deep. I clutch his waist harder, subconsciously moving closer until there’s barely a sliver of space between us. Every cell in my body screams for him, and I should pull back, withdraw from temptation, but I’m already under his spell.
He kisses my cheek again, and I melt into him. “What if I wanted that, Ange?” he prompts. “What would you say?”
I should refuse to answer. Throw out a lie and put a halt to this. But I can’t. “That you already are.” My heart is thumping wildly in my chest, and I can scarcely hear for the blood rushing through my ears. “That you always have been.”
He cups my face firmly, and fierce emotion blazes in his eyes. “I’ve wanted you to say that to me for a long time. I suspected, but I needed to know, because I’m a selfish, greedy bastard when it comes to you.”
“Dev, I—”
“Ssh,” he interrupts, sweeping his thumb along my lower lip, and the look in his eyes almost melts my panties off. My body sways forward, my craving for him reaching an unparalleled high. “This is the most supremely selfish act of all, but I can’t resist.”
“Resist what?” I croak, my voice hoarse, raw with need. I’m holding my breath in anticipation. Every nerve ending in my body is on heightened alert.
He licks his lips, dropping his hungry eyes to my mouth. My body pulses with need, and I squirm a little, keeping my eyes locked on his, knowing the desire I see is mirrored on my own face. “This,” he confirms, closing the gap between us and slanting his mouth over mine.
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