Title: Beginning with Forever
Author: Lan LLP
Publisher/Year: Entangled Publishing 3/14
Length: 486
Series: Forever #1
Overview
Love isn’t easy to forget even if you’re determined to never feel it again. It has a way of finding you when all hope is gone, resurfacing tender emotions you’ve buried deep in your core because the pain of acknowledging them is too much for you to handle.
Carson Bradley, CEO of a powerful pharmaceutical corporation is rich beyond boundaries with a missing soul. His heart faded away fifteen years ago with the death of his first love.He strives every day for the sake of his cancer research because he’s determined to eradicate it forever.
Lillian Ly is a humble, young medical student whose kind and generous heart is as vast as the universe. Being raised poor by a single parent; she matured quickly and respected the sacrifices her mother made for her. Lillian’s determination leads her down a stringent five-year path with no room for love.
When their paths cross at an unlikely place thousands of miles away from home, they both realize that fate has brought them together, and Carson will never let anything or anyone tear them apart. He knows how desolate life is without love and refuses to return to that empty place ever again.
Lillian enters Carson’s world with the purest intention of loving him with all her heart, but discovers that his volatile world will alter her uncomplicated life indefinitely. Regardless of what obstacles are thrown in their path, Lillian and Carson will endure them all to hold onto their forever from the beginning to the end.
My Thoughts
I always wonder what the right time is to introduce a twist into the mix is, and in this instance, we hardly had to wait at all. I think that it’s interesting, although i feel like it detracted from a bit of the initial romance since personally i kept wondering what the back story is and when the other shoe would drop.
To take a step back, what we have here is a really great romance between our typical sexy and steamy CEO Carson who isn’t sure that he’ll ever find love again since he lost his first at a very young age. At the same time, we have our leading lady – Lil who is quite driven in all things academic and professional yet she’s incredibly naive in all things dealing with men. This comparison though, aside from the missing BDSM bit screams FSOG – but in a good way.
Where we meet these 2 is a bit in the past, as a lead into where we’ll be in the present – with Lil being accepted to an acclaimed accelerated medical program in St Croix, and Carson on his way to his wedding which he’s not overjoyed about. His plane goes down, and he ends up at Lils feet – literally and this is where their lives take a huge turn.
The story from there really gives us a heart warming romanticism – in the sense that they’ve both realized that they are perfect for one another, even in a matter of days or weeks. Carson is only temporarily on the island an Lily can’t bring herself to leave because of school, so we see them get hot and heavy fast – with some great scening and passion to go along with it.
Where the twist arises is with Carson’s ex – Bianca who’s not quite ready to give up on Carson, for reasons that we don’t quite know yet. what we’ve been clued in on is that she’s not really faithful to Carson, given that she’s in a relationship with her female assistant, and she’s more of a gold digger – but there seems to be more. I don’t know about any other readers, but i’m wondering what else she knows or thinks she knows.
It’s only towards the latter third of the book that things get really good. Not only do we see roller coasters going on with Carson and Lil, given that there are secrets and they aren’t in the same locale (he in Boston and she on St Croix) but Richard (one of her besties at school) and Bianca are up to no good. The other bit is that there’s some less than good stuff going on with Carson’s company and he’s concerned that it’s putting a lot more than just his research in jeopardy. This leads us to a very dicey cliffhanger of sorts, and one that made me quite sad, since we see a death in the midst of what was finally looking to be an upswing.
So, with all that, we have the makings of a great introduction to a series – hot romance and passion, a bit of naughtiness all around, and tension and anxiety since we don’t know all the motives, and who’s still to be trusted and who can’t be. Between you and me, i feel like Owen (Carson’s #2) isn’t to be trusted – he’s just a bit too ‘on his game’ but that’s just me being a cynic i hope. Anyhow – i’m upset that i have to wait a while to get book 2, but you guys should def check out this book 1!! Enjoy!