Book Review 

Everything I've Never Had by Lynetta Halat

 

Celeste Hebert appears to have it all, but there are many things she's never had, been forbidden from having.

One night. One song. One kiss. The perfect trifecta to unleash the floodgates of a forbidden attraction between the widow and her husband’s bad boy cousin, Adrian.

Celeste endeavors to rebury the feelings that surface after this one night since her powerful family despises him. Kindred spirits, best of friends they attempt to douse their attraction; however, Adrian always seems to know exactly how to push her buttons and may prove too much to resist.

Having defied his family by making his way on his own terms, Adrian struggles to regain their acceptance. When he meets his cousin’s wife and wants her for his own, he feels he’s finally lived down to the title—black sheep. But, when his cousin dies unexpectedly, Adrian fights his attraction and swears to honor them both by helping her raise her boys.

Finding himself enveloped in a cocoon of love and acceptance, Adrian knows it’s more than just physical attraction. However, unforeseen events threaten to destroy those he now holds dear and his new found peace.

Will the ties that bind them be their undoing?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spoilers Ahead:

I enjoyed Everything I Never Had it was a different take on a romantic drama between a single mother and her new lover. What I didn't anticipate was the struggles they would face in the form of their own family. What I didn't get was why their family felt they had the power to keep them apart. Also why did the family want Celeste to get together with her deceased husbands creepy brother, instead of the cousin. Why were they all in favor of that? But that was also a twist that I never saw coming. What I didn't like was that it took forever for Celeste and Adrian to get together when there is no real obstacles but each other keeping them apart. Why don't they just get together and be happy?!?!? To me there's nothing more frustrating than when characters continuously make the same mistakes, or when no real obstetrical is keep them from being together. Without the part where the main characters get in their own way for a lot of the novel I think this book would have been perfect. It was romantic and yet a little bit dark.
  

A.B.