His Forever - Laney Powell

Reading Challenge Category: Free ARC from Booksprout

Official Blurb:

Broken Falls Ranch...Where broken hearts go to heal.
It's been twenty years in Recon, and the last year has felt like all twenty at once. I'm finally ready for retirement, but it's not the celebratory event I'd thought it would be. I'm lost, adrift, and not sure what the hell to do. Which is when Cole, a former member of my team, invites me out to Montana to visit him while I figure it out. The ranch where he's living has room for one more, apparently. It's good to have some sort of direction.
The last thing I expected was to meet anyone, much less someone like Lily. But all it took was one meeting, and I was done for, hook, line and sinker. All I want is to love her and keep her safe.
Except you can't keep someone safe when they won't let you. Now Lily's not talking to me, and the danger is growing.
Can I fix what's broken between us in time? Or have I lost her forever?

My Thoughts:

I was really surprised when this book came on Booksprout as book five, and I realised I’d somehow missed books three and four. The author advises that this can be read as a stand-alone. So having read the backdrop books and I knew the general players I decided to grab this and not worry that I’d be missing out on integral and essential plot lines.
This can indeed be read as a one-off story, but characters that I’d not met were involved, and you do find out their fate and happy ever afters without having read all of the books. So, I do wish I’d managed to read them all, but it didn’t ruin this book in particular.
When I first started reading it, it all felt a bit regurgitated from the books I had read. A military guy finds himself at a loose end after leaving service and heads to Paulson, Montana. I suppose that this is the nature of the series, but I did feel, to begin with, that I was reading nothing new. This doesn’t last long as the main characters, and the storylines are unique. We have a lot of drama, especially where Lily is concerned. I did find her neurosis a little bit over the top and drama for the sake of drama, but I suppose we couldn’t have them having the perfect relationship from the beginning of the book otherwise that would have been very dull.
This is a fast-paced story, and you could really feel the chemistry between Doc and Lily. I really liked them as a couple.
So, overall a great addition to the series and it has made me want to read books three and four sooner rather than later.

Buy Now on Amazon