Trish Hogan’s life was destroyed when she gave her trust to her high school boyfriend, Jackson, and he threw it away, changing the course of her life forever.

A decade later she’s living in Manhattan — she has a roommate, a steady boyfriend and a career. When a hurricane puts the city on lock down, Trish gets a message she never thought she’d receive: Jackson is dying and alone. In a city of millions, she is the only person who can sit by his side.

Jackson Davis was once the golden child of a senator who went against his father’s plans and became a musician. Tatted up and broken, he wakes up in a hospital only to see Trish — the one person he needs to atone his sins to — standing before him. He will recover from his injuries, but not from the pain he caused in the past.

Trapped by the storm, they embark on a night of reckoning that has one running away to Hawaii and the other following in her steps. As the victim becomes the villain, the two are forced to face the past, live in the present and find a way to navigate into the future.

In the beginning Trish the female lead felt “strange” to me kind of disengaged and may I say weird? I get that certain experiences shape a person but the shape her personality received was not what I would have expected and somehow in my eyes some things did not work for her character.

Yet the Moment Trish and Jax are in one room things suddenly are just like one would expect from the storyline. I would even go as far to say they feel real. At one moment a line came to my mind that said : “Only from real true deep love this kind of raw hate can develop”

And I as a reader could feel that …

The author choose to not use accidents or surprises leading to revelations which is a nice change because it opened up the possibility for the characters to really TALK instead of being placed in situations out of their control. And their exchange was good – really believable and deep.

Again Trish showed tendencies that while I might kind of sort of tiny wee bit understand them I cannot support them. For example no spoiler here when I say that the blurb mentions a boyfriend. – while I was afraid about possible cheating which is a trigger for me –  the plotline convinced me that to be able to cheat you would have to have a relationship first … yeah … I leave it at my personal thought that says “I’d rather be alone than in the wrong company” …

And for someone whose privacy has been violated so badly she sure goes all the way when it comes “an eye for an eye” … … that is me not liking that phone snooping at all.

I liked that Jax did not try to hide his mistake, on the other hand he was throwing out comments that were really a “wow – did he just say THAT ?”

As the story progressed I kind of felt that it lost its way a little … there was to much forward and backward and parts felt weird to me as the characters were dancing around the elephant in the room. I get that there were things to overcome but it was not handled very convincing in my opinion.

Up to that point of about 90/95 % that book was a 4 star read for me but then the author added something that I felt coming from like lets say 70 % on … and the way the complete issue was handled felt unbelievable and far fetched. From the way the “issue” happened to the way it was handled. The whole story was slow and forward backward until then but with this issue suddenly a kind of “turbo” was installed and the impact it showed in the story was in no relation to what it should have been. But worse was the reaction of the characters they were reacting totally out of their given characteristics

But in the end it is not about me liking Trish or Jax it is more about Growing up and taking responsibility for your actions, about forgiving – . So while the book kind of lost me in the finish line it might still be a great read in another person’s opinion so do not take my opinion as face value but check for yourself