BOOK REVIEW: NEVER CLOSE ENOUGH BY ANIE MICHAELS

The last thing Ella Sinclair needed on her birthday was a cheating boyfriend, a broken heart, and a dead car battery in a remote beach town. At her greatest moment of need, a protective and sexy Porter Masters comes to her rescue. Ella takes a holiday week at the coast to discover herself and finds her attraction to Porter potent and undeniable. Uncertain of their future together, Ella struggles to open her heart to trust again.

Porter Masters takes care of his own: his single mother, his company, and now he’s compelled to protect the beauty that walked into his world. Never one for relationships in his past, Porter discovers that he was waiting all along for Ella. As their time together comes to an end, will Porter fight for the woman who stole his heart? Porter will find a way to keep her, despite the obstacles

spoiler-free!

I bought this book on a whim and ended up being quite impressed! Although this might not be everyone's cup of tea, considering this contains kind of insta-love (it's not at first sight but they're in love after a few days of knowing each other), it was a really great read!

So the book starts out with our main protagonist, Ella, who has flee'd her hometown to a getaway week she and her now ex-boyfriend were supposed to be going to. Why? She caught him cheating on her. On her birthday. Poor girl. But every cloud has a silver lining and the lining here is the handsome Porter. He's charming, protective and quite talented with his building skills. After a rocky introduction, things heat up between them and they spend some wonderful times through this book getting to know eachother, falling love and being in their own little bubble. It's what you expect and you can't not love these two together, their relationship was written quite well.

Then, we get to around 70% into the book and all hell breaks loose. Things I didn't expect to happen just came up and broke my little heart, I thought the book was going involve some kind of drama because most NA books do but seriously. Why hurt me. I was reading this book at work and I got quite emotional, how Anie Michaels wrote what Porter was feeling during this really, truly broke my heart. She has a real way with words and it pulled at some of my heart strings. Oh, Porter...

It was emotional. I was hoping it would all be cleared up by 95% and it would all be hunky-dory.

Nope.

Anie Michaels decided to not only rip my heart into two but to put it in the shredder aswell. I closed this book saying 'I'm actually emotionally unstable right now' because I grew to love these two together. And she does that. WHY. I had to buy the next book instantly - which I didn't know existed, I thought it was a stand alone - and I threw myself back into this story. I have to know what happens and I'm a quarter into it and it's still heartbreaking.

My creys.

I was genuinely scared for one of the characters because, in the past, as I've been reading books, I've been thinking 'nah, she won't kill them off' and the author's been pretty much like 'LOL U SURE. WATCH ME'. I have a list of books that have caused me to mourn over a fictional character and I was praying this one wasn't going to be added to it. When the sad parts came up, I checked to see if there was a book two and when I saw Never Far Away I thought 'oh no. Is this a "moving on" book?'

Speaking of moving on, let me shift over to the rest of the book. The characters were great, relatable, lovable and easy to get attached to. I adored that they lived by the sea, it's something I'd love to do. Having your house lead onto the beach and being able to sit and watch the waves every morning. Yes please. Toasting marshmallows over an open fire on the sand, swimming and sunbathing, how great would that be?

As this is a New Adult book, it will involve the emotional back story but in Never Close Enough, it didn't drag. It wasn't brought up all the time, it was literally just mentioned once or twice and that was refreshing. It's a pet peeve of mine when authors feel the need to constantly remind us of a traumatic experience that happened to the characters as kids. Ella and Porter had great banter and chemistry and their love was cute and somewhat believable. As it is sort of insta-love, as I said earlier, it wasn't silly or ridiculous. It was understandable to see why they love eachother, and you can see how much effort and time Michaels put into developing the relationships and I liked that, it was obvious to the reader.

For the price I paid, it was worth every penny. I loved it. If you like books like this, NA contemporary with an adorable couple that you can't help but root for, some drama at the end and some adorable mother-son relationships, this is for you.

I was going to rate it 5 stars but I took half a star off because of the spelling mistakes/typo's.