What If You & Me by Roni Loren

 

Title:  What If You & Me

Author: Roni Loren

Read by:  Desiree Ketchum

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Length: Approximately 7 hours and 48 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Netgalley. Missing first two chapters so then purchased from Audible.

What if fear of the world can turn to trust and love?

Andi Lockley has a mysterious past traumatic event in her teenage years that has made her distrustful of the world and of relationships.  She meets her new neighbor, Hill Dawson after he barges in thinking she is being assaulted when he hears the screams from the horror movie she is watching.  They meet again when Andi runs over to his place after finding her back door open during another horror movie-a-thon.  Andi is a horror novel writer and Hill is a retired firefighter. Hill has trauma in his own past as he lost first part of his leg while rescuing people from a fire, and then his fiancée when she cheated on him with his best friend.  Will these two seemingly very different people find love and a way to move forward in life?

I LOVED this novel.  I really loved how the two main characters had very different trauma in their life and were able to work through it to build a trusting relationship together.  I also loved how this novel brough in elements of suspense as well.   This novel does have open door romance in it, but it did not go overboard.  I didn’t realize this was the second book in a series until I was well into it.  It stands on its own, but I do want to go back and read the first book.

What If You & Me is the August selection of the Brenda Novak Book Group. I listened to the meeting a day later on Friday, and it was a great interview with author Roni Loren.  My question was asked about whether Loren was a horror fan herself and what were her favorites.  It turns out she read a lot of the same books that I read as a preteen / teen – RL Stine, Christopher Pike, etc.  She then turned to a love of classic horror.  I am not much of a horror movie fan myself, but I enjoyed Andi’s passion for them in this novel.  This book group meeting is still up on Brenda Novak’s Facebook page if you would like to listen.

I downloaded this audiobook from Netgalley for review, but it was unfortunately missing the first two chapters, so I bought it from audible.  Desiree Ketchum was a delightful narrator.

Overall, I loved this romance and want to read more from author Roni Loren.