Reviewed by Danielle

TITLE: Wholehearted

SERIES: Hope Cove #2

AUTHOR: Cate Ashwood

PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH: 208 Pages

BLURB: Officer Declan Grant responds to a call at the Hope Cove docks to find Lucas Hale barely alive after being beaten and tossed off his fishing boat. The violent crime rocks this tranquil community where everyone knows each other and doors are rarely locked. Despite Declan being new to Hope Cove, he wants to keep his new home and Lucas safe. He starts by volunteering to care for Lucas after he’s released from the hospital.

Lucas just wants to put the whole incident behind him and move on, but the more he gets to know Declan, the harder he finds it to push Declan and his do-right attitude away. The investigation into the assault continues, but Declan will soon face a moral dilemma, a choice that may topple his tidy life and force him to choose between Lucas and the law.

REVIEW:

First let me start off with saying I think it’s fantastic that author Cate Ashwood and publisher Dreamspinner press are coming out with these three (eventually) books one right after the other.

I love the fact that I don’t need to wait a year or something to read the next part so kudo’s for that 🙂

Back to the story. After having read the first I was curious for the next one I liked the character of Declan in the first book so I was interested in how he would find his love match so to speak.

The beginning of the story takes us on the journey of Declan trying to find out why he is so attracted to Lucas, who he met when he was bleeding and beaten almost to death because of a hate crime as the blurb tells us.

He cannot stay away from the young, mysterious man he saved and finds himself wanting to be with him and take care of him. He even takes Lucas into his home when he is released from the hospital.

This is the second book in the “Hope Cove” series and the first part of the story is about building a trust between both main characters. You feel them slowly getting to know each other and especially Lucas learning to trust Declan.

Most of the story is built on them finding their way to each other and building a relationship slowly.

That is also a bit of the critic I have on this part it is a slow build, which people might like but for me it could have been built a bit faster. One of the things I really liked were the little snippets we were offered about Mack and Oliver and Hayden and I would have loved to have read a bit more of all characters.

After three-quarters of the book we get some drama that you know will be coming for a while.

The fact that Declan needed to deal with the assault his way couldn’t be without consequences.

Unfortunately, you can also figure out what is going to happen and for me it was hard to deal with that part. From the start I had more difficulty connecting with these two characters (especially Lucas) than I had with the characters from the first novel and when the drama hit the top in this second book, I found myself just thinking this is too much and too expected and rejecting the reactions of the character.

Without giving away too much detail I will leave it at that I personally was struggling at the end with one of the main characters.

On that note I would like to say that author Cate Ashwood did a very good job at wrapping the story up.

Not dragging it out and just a clear ending and dealing with the emotional baggage and aftermath.

For someone who likes a slow building friendship, instant love story I can recommend this and I would definitely recommend the whole series but for me this second part was very different than the first.

The surprising twist near the end involving the main characters from the first book (Brokenhearted) totally got me as a pleasant surprise.

I am looking forward to the third and final part and to seeing all the characters coming back and how it will all play out.

Thankfully, as I said in the beginning, we don’t need to wait too long for that.

Danielle rates it –  [3.75 Stars ]

BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner Press