Before and After You, an all-new heartfelt small-town romance from Hope Ellis is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!

Leigh D’Alessandro is a fighter. She fought to escape her dysfunctional family, to end a soul-killing marriage, and to build a new life in a small Tennessee town. When the fate of the community hospital she works for is threatened, she’s primed and ready for battle. What she can’t fight any longer is her unshakable attraction to her best friend’s brother, who has a notorious reputation and triggers all her worst fears about trust and betrayal.

Walker Leffersbee is a lover. At least that’s the reputation he’s built in his hometown. Scion of a prosperous Tennessee banking family, he’s a known ladies’ man and a confirmed bachelor. His hands are full as he juggles competing demands from his family’s bank and his growing property renovation business. The last thing he needs is to give in to his long-standing craving for his sister’s headstrong and hot-tempered best friend. Especially because she’s the only one who knows the secret that threatens to upend his life.

When a home renovation project brings them too close for comfort, they both struggle to withstand the growing heat. As they grow closer helping each other navigate family minefields, Walker learns that love is not a four-letter word, and Leigh realizes that some battles are meant to be lost.

But Walker’s secret is the one thing that could keep them apart, unless they both decide to fight for the love they never looked for but now can’t live without.

‘Before and After You’ is a contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #2 in the Leffersbee series, Green Valley Chronicles, Penny Reid Book Universe.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

“What did you say you were doing here?” I prompted again, realizing with no small amount of uneasiness that we’d both been silently contemplating the other while I was absorbed in my thoughts. “Bitterly regretting that I left my crucifix and garlic at home,”

One day, you’ll understand the baffling blend of pride and fear that comes from raising your own son in this world.

I’d always joked that God had been bored the day he made Lucia and decided to dally long enough to sculpt the high cheekbones, cupid bow lips, and tip-tilted eyes that made her stunning.

‘You gonna be speechless after you find out what it’s like with a Southern gentleman… We do it different,” I informed her… She smirked. “What, does your dick wear a monocle like Mr. Peanut and talk like Deputy Dawg?”

This must be what the short road to hell felt like. Cozy and pleasant enough that you don’t care about the hot flames licking at your feet.

 

My Review:

 

This is my second time reading the cleverly amusing observational humor and insights of Ms. Ellis’s work and she has made a ride-or-die reader of me with her oddly compelling Leffersbees. I admire the complexity of her characters, even though I didn’t always like them or what they were doing. Her cast of characters was diverse, complicated, uncomfortably knowable and flawed, curiously irresistible, and authentically drawn. The story unfolded slowly and occasionally dragged, but I was invested, wriggling on the hook, and ensnared in the brutal betrayal of the unfolding family drama as well as the blossoming romance that was an inevitability with combustible sensuality that left me dehydrated and grabbing for libation. I’m beyond curious to see what she does with the remaining sibling who is truly unlikable.