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“Micha pulls back and smooths my wet hair out of my eyes.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again. I can’t do this without you.”
But he needs to figure out life without this perception of me, because I don’t know how long I can keep doing it without drowning.”
This is our intro to two amazing characters. Tortured and lost Ella, and gorgeously loyal Micha. The prologue to this book left me shocked with its emotional intensity, and I was instantly drawn into the hard, and somewhat sad, world of these characters.
Ella ran away from her real life eight months ago, leaving everybody and everything behind to reinvent herself in an effort to forget about the traumas in her life. But the past has a way of coming back, and when she returns to her home town during her summer vacation, she is immediately confronted with Micha – her best friend since childhood, and the man who loves her and has spent eight months searching for her (and who just happens to live next door). He immediately recognises that Ella is not who she used to be, and makes it his mission to uncover the girl he loves and bring her back to him.
I love these characters!! Ella has two personalities, the “loud spoken, reckless girl, who showed what she felt to the world”, and the new, polite and never out of control girl she is trying hard to be. Determined to protect herself, she tries to push Micha away – “That Ella you knew is gone. She died on that bridge eight months ago.”
And then there’s Micha. “That boy is dripping with sexiness”. Oh yes he is! A tattooed bad boy, with a lip ring who plays guitar and is in a band. What more could we ask for? Oh yeah, he’s hopelessly in love with his girl. Swoon!!!!! Determined to get ‘his’ Ella back, he slips straight back into their old relationship as if she’d never left.
Having never really gotten together, their relationship is that of best friends who want more but have never actually taken the step. There is heaps of flirting and a fair bit of touchy-feely. It’s all very hot, and the chemistry between them is intense. And the more time they spend together, the more Micha chips away Ella’s defences, and bit by bit, she starts to open up to him.
“You can’t just change who you are on the outside and expect it to change who you are on the inside”
… “You’re wrong.”
… “Am I? Because right now that fire I love so much is burning pretty bright.” He reaches for my cheek, to touch me – entice me.
“Micha, this is who I have to be otherwise I can’t breathe. Please just leave it alone. That damn fire might exist, but I want it gone.” I spin my back to him, praying he’ll listen to me for once, because if he keeps it up, sooner or later I won’t be able to resist.
Ella and Micha are both believable characters, they both had their own issues they had to deal with, and there are some really serious parts to this story, but there are also funny moments, and lots of gorgeously innocent (and not so innocent) but still swoony scenes. But it is the relationship between them that really makes this book special. I’m always a sucker for best friends to lovers story, and I loved how these two were there for each other when it counted, and that they managed to find their way back together so that they could start to heal.
“I love you, Ella May and nothing will ever change that. You can push me away – run away – and I will still love you.”
There is a HEA, and it’s not a cliffhanger, but there is so much more to Ella and Micha’s story, and I can’t wait for the sequel… and for a little more on Lila and Ethan – I’m liking that development as well!
Loved it – 4.5 stars.
The Secret series
The Secret of Ella and Micha (#1)
Review
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The Forever of Ella and Micha (#2)
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The Temptation of Lila and Ethan (#3)
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The Ever After of Ella and Micha (#4)
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