Older by Jennifer Hartmann

Older by Jennifer Hartmann
on April 3, 2024
Genres: Fiction / Coming of Age, Fiction / Romance / Contemporary, Fiction / Romance / New Adult, Fiction / Small Town & Rural
Pages: 436
Format: eBook
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“Falling for you has been the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Everything else? Painful. Torturous. Difficult beyond belief. But loving you? Effortless.”

Bruised and abused, and victim to a loveless household, I shimmered with new life the moment he found me drowning my sorrows in a lake beneath the stars.
A chance encounter. An unspoken connection.
I was smitten; he was curious.
But, as everyone knew, fate could be decidedly cruel.
He called me Halley, like the comet.
I called him Reed.
And my best friend?
Well…she called him Dad.

The forbidden nature of their relationship is what I enjoyed the most. The author had me entranced with Halley and Reed’s interactions, each one purposeful and intended to build towards things turning physical and creating a “love” connection. That aside, Halley as a heroine was strong and resilient, given what she’d gone through. Both with and without Reed’s help, Halley was able to become an independent, successful women in spite of circumstances that used to hold her down. I loved both Reed and Halley. My heart hurt for them. I loved seeing them together, but I really wish we would have had more time with them as a couple.

However, this isn’t going to be a 5 star for two reasons: (1) the meet cute was weird. All I’ll say is Reed had no reason to go back to that house party, and I couldn’t get over that, and (2) though the characters became intimate and spent time together, it was under the cloak of being forbidden. When their secret blew up in their face, the ending was a bit rushed, and the epilogue was a typical time jump that shows the HEA in the future. Due to how long they weren’t an actual couple, I would’ve loved to see Reed and Halley together more in the open, as they finally deserved. These issues aside, It was a four star rating for me. It was still a solid release from this author, and I’d recommend it!