The First Installment of the Forever and Ever Series.
Cayson is in love with Skye Preston, his best friend for over twenty years. They grew up together, bathed together, and spent every holiday together. Hoarding the secret hasn’t been easy. Every time Cayson sees her with a boyfriend, he wants to smash his fist into a wall.
But he could never tell her the truth.
The close friendship they have is too good to be ruined. If he confessed his deepest feelings, how would it change what they have? Would he lose her altogether?
But everything changes when Cayson finds Skye at a party, drunk and incoherent. Unable to stand on her own two feet with breath reeking of alcohol, she’s easy prey to the men staring at her noticeable chest. Cayson immediately scoops her into his arms and takes her home. But when they arrive at the house, Skye doesn’t want to sleep. Instead, she wants Cayson in a way she’s never had before.
What will this mean for their relationship? Is it the start of something Cayson has always dreamed of? Or will it be the end?
If you’ve seen the books I’ve read last year, you’d know that I’ve read quite a bit from E.L. Todd. I like her work. Sure, there are a few misses, but I like the escape in reading drama. For the most part, she is like my literary guilty pleasure where I delve into her stories just to see all the crazy that happens to her characters. No, it’s not too off the wall crazy, but there is drama and I like it.
All I Want is You is the first book in a new series that is actually a sequel to the Forever And Always series. The Forever and Always series features the parents to the twenty-somethings of Forever and Ever. That previous series was a series hit and miss. I liked the first book, but didn’t quite care for the second as much. I ended up leaving the series at that because I wasn’t sure.
That said, you do not have to read that series to get into this one. Yes, there are hints of events that happened in the previous series, but I didn’t feel like I was confused or unable to get into the story. If anything, those hints make me think that I should read the other books of the first series.
I love all of the characters in this book. I could see them as real people and I even felt a kindred spirit to a smartass guy named Slade. The off the wall things he’d say was very close to the things I would say amongst my own friends. The main hero, Cayson, is a lovable guy who I felt was a great person. There didn’t seem to be anything bad about him except maybe his lack of courage in telling his feelings right away. I understood his reasoning though. And, he may be just too nice at times.
The main heroine, Skye, is a girl I wanted to smack at times. I couldn’t understand why she was dating a guy she didn’t even seem to like. I could understand her thoughts that the “sex was bad, but maybe that was normal” (I have personal experience of thinking that). However, I don’t understand why she stayed with him. I was in love with the guy who I had that experience with, she isn’t. It didn’t feel right. That said, that was really the only thing about her that I wanted to smack. And, to the other characters’ credit, they seemed to want to at times too.
E.L. Todd’s writing is easy to get into and I was able to finish this book within a day. Which is normal for this author, but it’s always good for me to point that out. I didn’t want to put the book down.
I did have an issue with certain dynamics though. Almost all of the characters have strange names: Skye, Cayson, Slade, Silke, Trinity, Clementine… that’s a lot of unusal names. There was a name that could be considered unusual, Roland, but I don’t see it as strange because my Dad’s name is Roland. There was a bit confusion as to who was who’s siblings/cousins/parents. The younger generation, the main focus in the book, all consider themselves cousins or siblings. They aren’t all blood related, but that generalization of their thoughts made it difficult to figure out who was blood relataed to whom.
And then there was the fact that most of the older generation characters had one daughter and one son. Though I know the average family has two and a half children, I would have liked to see a third sibling in the mix or more same gender siblings. Sure, there’s a 50/50 chance you can have a girl vs. a boy, but the idea that all of these couples had that seemed odd to me.
However, those certain things are me just nitpicking. If the things I had issues with turned you off to the book, it’s best you don’t read it. I, on the other hand, will be reading the second book to this series. I loved the drama and the romance wasn’t over the top, in your throat, icky. There was some kind of “it factor”.
A good and fun read for a quick romantic escape.
Casia's Corner 