Review: Forever Never by Lucy Score

Forever Never by Lucy Score

Publication date: March 4th, 2021

Pages: 588

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

You don't fall for your brother's high school sweetheart, your boss's daughter, or your ex-wife's best friend. Especially when they're all the same woman.

Under Brick Callan's mile-wide chest beats a loyal heart with a few cracks in it. He's the steadfast, overprotective type. Especially when it comes to the one woman he can never have. It's a long, complicated history punctuated by fights, friendship, family, and an attraction that strains his iron willpower.

When Remi Ford returns to Mackinac Island in the dead of winter with a secret, Brick makes it his mission to find out what put the shadows in those green eyes. Even if it means breaking down the walls he's built between them. Even if it means falling for the one girl he'll never get over.

The free-spirited artist just needs to lay low for a few weeks so she can figure a way out of this nightmare. She's definitely not staying. Not when the man who broke her teenage heart into splinters keeps showing up at her parents' dinner table. Remi doesn't need broody, bearded Brick riding to her rescue... again. Not when it will put them both in danger, costing them much more than their hearts.

Author's Note: Frenemies-to-lovers. Opposites attract. Slow burn. Girl in danger. Glorious, glorious banter. Fighting as foreplay. Small-town shenanigans. Big, grumpy, pining, overprotective hero. Wild-child, trouble-finding heroine who keeps on pushing the hero's buttons. Steam Level: Lava. Suspense: Nail-biting. Feels: Big time.

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Review:

Remi has returned home to lick her wounds and find solace in the familiar faces of her family. That included the cantankerous man of her teenage dreams, Brick Callan. She needed the protective feeling of her home and the stoic man that has always protected her from harm. She had only planned to stay long enough to figure some things out and catch up with family but it seems that her connection to Brick was still alive and well. Despite Brick's determination to keep Remi at arm's length they can't deny their chemistry. They have always had and now Remi has decided it is time for Brick to either put up or shut up. Either he accepted that they were attracted to each other and take that first step or lose her forever. Remi also has a dark secret that she is hiding from the inhabitants of the island and it just might dampen the shores of their quiet town and ruin the peaceful tranquility for good.

I loved the firecracker that is Remi. She was full of fire but also wounded by trauma that she had to overcome. She was seen as a troublemaker, which she was, but she also never meant any harm by her antics. She was misunderstood by everyone save Brick Callan. She carried a torch for the man for years and now that she was back she wasn't going to let him slip away again. I loved that she finally told him to put up or shut up. Takes a strong woman to put that ultimatum out there when the outcome could very well be not to their liking. I think Remi was a well rounded female lead and the heat between her and Brick could melt the pages of the book.

Brick frustrated me to no end. It was like he was putting obstacles in his way for no reason at all. Everyone already knew he loved Remi and didn't have a problem with it. They even encouraged it but he still held onto the belief that they couldn't be together and that he wasn't good enough for her. It was so deeply anger inducing. I wanted to reach through the pages and strangle the man! And then maybe hug him a bit. Poor little damaged cop! 

I think the chemistry of the story was great, the suspense, and the overall feel of the dynamic of the small town island community was stellar. I could not have wished for a better small-town romance book than this one. Lucy Score outdid herself and I can't wait to read more.