When you love two women…

Synopsis

There are first loves and there are last loves. But what happens when they overlap?

Tom Blythe falls in love quickly. He fell for Olivia the first time they met. The same thing happens when he meets Grace. The problem is: Tom is still in love with Olivia.

Pulled in two different directions, Tom has a choice to make. He knows he’s unhappy, but is that enough for him to forget the vows he made? Both women have difficult pasts and Tom is desperate to help them, but at what cost?

Can he let Olivia go and commit his future to Grace? Or will the pull of the past prove too strong?

My review

When Tom meets Grace, it’s love at first sight. Only once has he fallen in love instantly, and that was when he met his wife Olivia.
Even if at the moment he is unhappy, he stills love Olivia and with Grace’s appearance he has to make an impossible yet important decision. Is it with Grace where his future is? Or is his love for Olivia too big to put behind him? What he does know, is that both women’s past wasn’t easy and it’s in his nature to want to help…

While reading the blurb of this book, I thought it would be about a man that starts cheating on his wife and that he would have to choose where his future would lay.
So while I was intrigued, I was also immediately disliking Tom, before I had even read one word of the book.

But I was happy that this book turned out to be something completely different, and I did not see that twist coming in the end…
Not only do we see Tom in the present, when he meets Grace but also we see Tom when he meets Grace.

While I don’t truly believe at first sight myself, I could see Tom falling easily in love with these two women.

And slowly, getting to know Tom better, I started to like him. Not only because how he is being a loyal boyfriend and husband to Olivia, but  also because he keeps his distance from Grace. He doesn’t cross any line, and he makes it clear that Olivia is still in the picture and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

It was lovely to see how, thanks to Grace, Tom finds something to enjoy again. He has been through a difficult period, so seeing him having fun again was a real nice thing.
But while things are strictly platonic, I was always expecting that moment where a line would be crossed. And while I understood that his marriage wasn’t easy at the moment, I couldn’t agree with taking things further with Grace.

Not that I am condemning Grace, because she also has been through difficult moments, and she deserves to finally find a man that will love her unconditionally. But I couldn’t see Tom being that man, as his love for Olivia was still palpable.

So I was constantly having mixed feelings… I wanted Tom and Grace to be together, but I also wanted Tom and Olivia being still together…
And then we had that twist that I didn’t see coming. It was a twist that broke my heart, because of all the things I would be expecting, that didn’t ever cross my mind…
But I have to admit, once that was out, so many things made so much more sense to me. And my hostility towards Tom, evaporated completely.

This was a read that confused me, because there wouldn’t be one right choice to make. And both women deserved that unconditionally love from a man.
But once the pieces of the puzzle fell together, I realized what a beautiful story this was. It shows us the beauty of falling in love, but also the feelings of guilt of meeting someone new when your heart already belongs to someone else…