5 Smooches!
Synopsis
The sequel to Lead Me Not, this dangerously sexy second installment in the Twisted Love series continues Aubrey and Maxx’s love story, from New York Times bestselling author A. Meredith Walters—who “writes the most beautifully flawed characters that still have you swooning” (Sawyer Bennett,USA Today bestselling author of the Off series).
Aubrey Duncan has loved…and lost. Should she follow a heart that’s betrayed her or a head that tells her to let go?
Maxx Demelo’s addiction almost destroyed him. It ruined his life and, most importantly, his relationship with the only girl he ever loved.
He has vowed to become the man Aubrey Duncan deserves. Even if he has to tear himself apart to do it. So he enters rehab, trying to fix the parts of him that are shattered as he longs to be healthy and whole.
Aubrey lost everything because she chose to listen to her heart. Now she has sworn to put herself first, to heal in the only way that she can…far away from Maxx and his demons.
But just as Aubrey is starting over, Maxx is released from rehab and thrust back into her world, determined to prove how much they still need each other. And the chaos that had defined them threatens to unleash once again…
But a heart, no matter how broken, is impossible to ignore.
Review
Often these romance novels that I review are my escape from reality. I am the stay at home mother of 2 beautiful children and a very supportive husband, but I often find my escape in these sexy and fun novels featuring hot alpha men. I mean let’s face it, if a man ever did REALLY tell me what to or go all alpha crazy on me, I would probably smack him upside the head. So, these books are about something different for me, living an alternate life for only 300 pages or so and then going back to my very good REAL life. But, I have to say that these books in the A Twisted Love Series were completely different for me. Because I know what it is to love someone with a horrible addiction. I know what it is to love and lose them to that addiction, so I was very much invested in Maxx and Aubreys story. I could totally relate and I was totally pulling for Maxx from the very beginning of Lead Me Not all the way to the conclusion of Follow Me Back.
Follow Me Back picked up right where Lead Me Not left us. Maxx almost dying and deciding to go to rehab and Aubrey facing all of the consequences of being in a relationship with Maxx. Which all of that is drama enough ,if you ask me, but throw in the fact that they are still madly and deeply in love with each other you have the recipe for a really emotionally provoking book.
“I couldn’t escape him. And I was terrified that in the darkest recesses of my heart I still didn’t want to.”
Maxx isn’t giving up on his love for Aubrey even though their relationship had proved to be destructive and too co-dependent for words. I found myself feeling much like Aubrey for most of this book; on edge wanting to trust him and knowing that I shouldn’t. But I couldn’t help rooting for him and his happily-ever-after.
“But I did know one thing. That I loved this woman in front of me in a way that I would never be able to love anyone else. It was a deep-in-my-bones, drowning-in-it sort of love. It was desperate. It was obliteration. it was total anarchy in my heart. It was mine. It was all that I had.”
This book probably gave me way to many feels, but I honestly loved watching Maxx evolve into a different Maxx. I loved watching him worm his way back into Aubrey’s life. I loved watching both of these two damaged people find their way together.
“Kissing Max was like waking up. Like stepping through the mist into a clearing. It was love and lust and passion. It was and anguish and gut-wrenching turmoil.”
A. Meredith Walters took a very sensitive and grueling topic and handled it with beautiful and tender care. Follow Me Back was emotional, sexy, and a poignant representation of addiction and it’s consequences. It spoke to me on levels I will never be able to fully explain. It was just brilliant.
~Amie
