All There Is by Violet Duke

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Violet Duke debuts an emotional series about letting go, starting over, and trusting in the redemptive power of love.

Emma Stevens is ready for a fresh start in Juniper Hills, but she still lives with the impossible guilt of her past: having failed to rescue her little stepbrother from a fire that decimated her childhood home and her family. Her next-door neighbor may have been the one to drag her out of the burning building that night, but it doesn’t exonerate him since he caused the fire. Not even when he shows up fourteen years later to help salvage her bakery.

Jake Rowan may not have been able to save Emma’s brother from the fire, but at least he was able to save his own brother. By taking the fall and the punishment for him, Jake managed to protect his older brother’s future…but it cost him the girl of his dreams.

Now Jake finds himself on Emma’s doorstep once again. Not to save her life this time, but to repair it. And more importantly, her heart, if she’ll let him.

Book 1
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~  Available with KindleUnlimited  ~

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Mary Jo – ☆☆☆☆
Lots of emotional baggage in this book, but I think the writer does an excellent job of describing the horror that is the past and the people who have to learn how to live life afterwards.

Emma feels unending guilt about the fact that her little brother died after her home caught on fire while she was home babysitting. The adult Emma constantly second guesses her teenage self and has nightmares about what she did or didn't do that night. Her sister, Megan, was also home that night and while she was able to save her life, Megan was severely burned.

Also feeling the guilt of the past is Jake. Jake lived next door to Emma and she was his first true love. Nothing ever came of it because of the fire that took the life of Emma's little brother. A fire that he took responsibility for. A crime that his father coerced him to admit to in order that his older brother and his dreams would be saved. Compounding that crime is that his father had his name changed before the sentencing hearing (as well as Jake's other siblings last names) so that his name and that of his smarter, older son would not be tarnished by this crime.

Jake has lots of regrets about the past, yet does not outwardly show how much his family has hurt him by the betrayal by his father and subsequent betrayals by this mother. His younger siblings as well as his older brother have rallied around him and encourage him to fight for his life, rather than just take what it hands him.

Emma has a hard letting go of the past, of the boy she knew, to get the know the man Jake has become. She comes to love Jake, but can't forgive him or herself for failing to save her brother.

This book has it all and it’s written with empathy and compassion along with hope for a better future.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Violet Duke is a former English professor ecstatic to now be on the other side of the page. She enjoys writing emotion-rich stories with fun, everyday characters and sweet, sexy matchups. Since her acclaimed debut series in 2013, more than a million readers have put Violet’s contemporary romances on the USA Today bestseller list sixteen times, the New York Times bestseller list three times, and the Top 10 charts across the major e-retailers, both in the United States and internationally. Born and raised in Hawaii, Violet continues to live the no-shoes island way with her nutty kids and crazy husband, her most devoted fan.

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of All There Is (Juniper Hills #1) by Violet Duke to read and review.