After the Storm by Katy Ames

We’ll start with the disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first book from NetGalley, and what a positive experience to start with!  We all know I love me some love stories, and this one definitely fits the bill.  A lot of the ones I’ve read/reviewed recently felt stale, and I feel like my discussion about them was boring because the stories weren’t super exciting.  This book reminded me why I love romance novels so much.

Tristan is running from his past.  Not knowing how he’ll continue to survive without connecting with anyone, including himself.  Tessa is running from her family, knowing she can’t escape them without loved ones suffering.  Now that they’ve run into each other, how will they escape the mysteries plaguing them and experience the true love they may be destined for?

As always, a couple of things I didn’t love:

• The last scene of the book felt a little unnecessary.  I get that there was some more loose ends to tie up, but I honestly don’t think they needed to be re-covered.  It felt like the book had two endings and the first one would’ve been sufficient.
• Tessa is not on birth control.  I’m sorry, but I just feel like a 30 year old woman who’s sexually active would be on birth control.  I feel like there were supposed to be additional intimacies tied to this, but it just felt a little forced and could’ve been covered differently.  Side note: it did end up with some fun steamy scenes to get where they needed to without doing the dirty right away.

Ok, I REALLY enjoyed this read, so some things I did love:

• I felt like there was so much better character development in this than so many romance novels I’ve read.  It’s easy to do cookie cutter stories, and they’re not necessarily bad, but reading something that is well written and tells a story you want reminds me of how much I enjoy these types of books.
• There are two mysteries.  And not lame ones you totally know what’s going to happen but follow along because they move the story.  These are super good mysteries that leave you wondering.  For both characters.  They’re both a little screwed up.  I like that they’re messy.  It’s more realistic and made it easier to get lost in the story.
• Not everything turns out perfect.  Yes, there’s a happy ending, but some of the people who’ve wronged our main characters are getting payback.  And partially because our hero/heroine aren’t feeling forgiving.  Amen for walking into the sunset… after setting a few things on fire.  People aren’t totally forgiving!  This also felt more real.

All in all, I loved this read.  I’ll be checking out the other two in the series.  If you’re wanting a little romance for your day? I’d check this one out for sure.