- Title: Never Let Me Go
- Series: Inevitably You #2
- Author: Lyla Dane
- Genre: Hurt/Comfort
- Relationship: MM
- Rating: 5 Hearts
- Publisher: Self / Amazon
- Tropes: Best friends to enemies to lovers, size difference, slow burn, touch starved, mental health rep, substance use, villain redemption
- Heat Level: 3 Flames
Blurb:
“Beck was as good as they came. A blond-haired, blue-eyed angel on Earth… and I was the devil.”
Beck Bowman was once my best friend in the entire world. No one compared to the kind and gentle boy who stole my heart when we were kids. But that was a lifetime ago, before our friendship was torn to pieces and I became a spiteful, rotten shell of a person. Now he can’t stand the sight of me, and all I want to do is avoid the contempt in his eyes—except that’s impossible when we go to the same college and wrestle on the same team.
But he can’t hate me more than I hate myself.
Hate my own cowardice and vicious anger.
Hate that I’m so afraid of my dad I’m willing to destroy myself.
There isn’t much left of me anymore, and the parts of me that Beck once loved are buried so deep I’m sure they’re lost forever.
After I make the worst mistake of my life in my senior year, I’m ready to give up. I’ve destroyed everything, everyone despises me, and I’m drowning in regrets. For two years, I’m intent on forgetting I even exist—until Beck finds me one night and tries to save me. He’s still the perfect golden boy he’s always been, the do-good hero that needs to fix everything around him. He’s convinced he can help me, and no matter how hard I fight him, he refuses to give up on me. I hope he never does, but Beck is everything I don’t deserve and can’t allow myself to have.
How could anyone ever love a monster like me?.
Never Let Me Go is a high angst MM romance with dual first-person POV about two big wrestlers with a broken past. It contains a lot of roughhousing, a royal term of endearment, tons of hurt/comfort, a long journey of redemption and healing, some offensive comparisons to large mammals, and a hard-fought HEA. It’s the second book in the Inevitably You series, but can be read as a standalone. Only intended for mature readers ages 18 and up.
*Please note: This book contains spoilers for the first book in the Inevitably You series, Someone Like You.
Review:
Why aren’t more people talking about this one?!
The way l loved this book! lf you love the broken ones, this is for you. lt’s 1/4 books that are tied for my favorite of the year. l wanted to start over and read it again after l finished. 🖤
I’ll be honest the way this book starts, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it because Gavin is a real jerk. And he’s terrible in the previous book, but this is his redemption arc, and it is amazing.
I knew there was no coming back from any of this. I was fully burning in that pit of hell, and I’d be there for eternity. I deserved nothing less. And still, all I wanted was for Beck to hold me again. Just one more time.
There were times l really wanted to slap him upside the head because he tries your patience something fierce. But then he thinks the most heartbreaking things, and you just… can’t.
He was the only person who’d ever looked at me like that. Like I had more to offer than just disappointment.
“Okay. I’ll see you in a couple hours, princess.”
I’d never tell him but when he called me that, it made my chest burn with pleasure. It made me feel precious when I’d spent a lifetime feeling worthless.
See what l mean? 🥺
l could go on and on but l had to cut out half this review bc it wouldn’t fit. lf you read/liked Burned & Bound by A. Winchester (which I highly recommend if you haven’t read it yet) this has a similar “feel” to it but different story lines. Beck reminds me a lot of Jackson.
Because no matter what he did now, I would always love that boy. Always.
Lyla Dane is a new author for me, and how this is only her second book l have no idea. Easily five stars for me. Give it a chance. l’d love to know what you think.
This title is part of the KU library and is free with membership.
Purchase links: Author’s Website | Amazon
