Reviewed by Kat & Danielle

TITLE: Believe in the Wish

AUTHOR: Christi Snow

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 211 pages

RELEASE DATE: May 11, 2016

BLURB:

I buried my twin sister six months after she found out she had cancer. Her funeral was three months ago. Today is our birthday and it started with delivery of letters from her.

It seems she didn’t trust me to move on after her death. She knows me too well. But how can I go on when my other half is just…gone? That’s not something I can recover from with a snap of my fingers. But I also can’t ignore her instructions even though I’d be perfectly content to cuddle up with my buddy, Johnnie Walker, and call it a year.

She has a list of things for me to do and there are rules attached.

There’s one major problem besides the fact it’s been three months since I left the house. I have to do all these things with her jerk of an ex, Hawk Simmons. He abandoned her shortly after she found out she was sick. If that wasn’t enough to make this a really bad idea, the fact that he makes an appearance in all my nighttime fantasies probably does.

I don’t think I can do this, but I owe it to my sister’s memory to try.

KAT’S REVIEW

I read the blurb and decided to give this new-to-me author a try.

Ethan Roberts buried his twin sister three months before their 25^th birthday. Cancer doesn’t discriminate by age, gender or where you are in life. It is brutal and just takes who it wants when it wants. And Ethan can’t get past it. His sister Emma was his rock. They lived together in a house they bought together. They started and ran “E-Squared…the graphic design business they’d created together”. She was his only family left, at least as far as he was concerned. They shared everything, well almost everything. They didn’t discuss their love lives at all since a particularly nasty incident in high school. And now it is everything Ethan can do to just keep on going. He drowns his sorrow in a bottle every moment he doesn’t have to take care of work and that is even slipping. Now his sister’s attorney shows up and tells him that he has to complete 25 tasks in order to keep his home and business. Not only that but he has to do it but with his sister’s ex in tow. The man that dropped her when she learned she had cancer. And she makes him make a wish before he blows out the candle on his cup cake! How the heck is he suppose to do all this while suffering his devastating loss? Oh, and how is suppose to do it with the man he hates, Hawk Simmons…even if he has deep, dark secret desires for said man! Ugh…this is impossible! But he can’t let his sister down. After all, these are her dying wishes.

I can’t imagine, if you are as close as Ethan and Emma are suppose to be, that she would torture her beloved twin in such a cruel way. I get that she knew he would retreat in and would need the nudge. I even get that she probably had ulterior motives. But the way this was all executed and the secrets involved were just plain cruel and, at times, dangerous! And at some point, especially after the garage accident, the attorney should have stepped in and said enough! There is a point when it becomes too much. I understand where Hawk felt like he had his hands tied. He didn’t want to see Ethan lose everything. But Katya, Emma’s attorney should have had some common sense that things went way south.

I am going to warn you also, there is an attempted rape scene and a flashback to an event that even Ethan’s psychiatrist, Dr. Dixon (who was a bit over-the top) classified as rape. Also an accidental almost suicide. I know these can be triggers for people and wanted to put it out there.

Even though this book had some hard things going on, death, depression, attempted rape, accidental attempted suicide, hidden secrets, I still found that I liked the book. I do think that the end is a bit rushed. It could easily have been (and might still be) a HFN instead of a neatly wrapped up HEA. I’m not totally convinced that this is a stand-alone book but might be the start to a new series for the author. If so, I will keep on reading them if we are so gifted. I could see more of Ethan/Hawk’s story. And also Miller’s, Katya’s and Michael’s stories to come. I know that this book was inspired by the picture that is the cover. I am thankful the author was so inspired and hope she is inspired more in the future.

RATING: 

DANIELLE’S REVIEW:

I completely fell head over heels in love with this story. I even contacted the author to encourage her to write more in this story line. I seriously need more Ethan and Hawk but I am so incredibly curious to read stories about Miller, Michael and definitely Slade (and perhaps more people from the club) and even though I am not really reading M/F I seriously would love a M/M/F with Katya 🙂

But back to the story. I have to say I was a bit hesitant to start the book after reading the blurb but without even realising we were reviewing it for Love Bytes I felt drawn to the book and bought it on my holiday.

And boy was I happy I did. Where the story starts out heavy, with Ethan at the lowest part of his life after losing his twin sister Emma, the story doesn’t suffer from it. The author did an excellent job with how the story evolves and processes. It is fabulous to walk with Ethan (and Hawk) through the assignments she worked out and meeting all the characters because of that, is a blessing.

We follow Ethan on his journey to find some kind of peace with trying to keep living while Emma couldn’t. We struggle with both men trying to deal with what Emma throws at them and with their feelings towards each other.

Where I believe author Christi Snow wrote a very complete story with a very satisfying and sincere ending I cannot wait to read more about all of these men I met through this wonderful story.

Highly Recommended!

RATING:

BUY LINK:

Amazon