Review: Jewel E Ann's "When Life Happened."

Amazon.com:   http://amzn.to/2sNBuWS

Amazon UK:    http://amzn.to/2tGoYso

Synopsis:

Parker Cruse despises cheaters. It might have something to do with her boyfriend sleeping with her twin sister. 

After a wedding day prank involving a strong laxative, that ends the already severed relationship between the twins, Parker decides to grow up and act twenty-six. 

Step One: Move out of her parents’ house. 

Step Two: Find a job. 

Opportunity strikes when she meets her new neighbor, Gus Westman. He’s an electrician with Iowa farm-boy values and a gift for saying her name like it’s a dirty word. 

He also has a wife. 

Sabrina Westman, head of a successful engineering firm, hires Parker as her personal assistant. Driven to be the best assistant ever, Parker vows to stay focused, walk the dog, go to the dry cleaners, and not kiss Gus—again.

Step Three: Don’t judge. 

Step Four: Remember— when life happens, it does it in a heartbeat.

Review: Surj 

Jewel E Ann's "When Life Happened" was definitely a book of two halves for me, both in terms of my personal feelings towards it but also in terms of the story line. I'll admit, I really struggled with the turn of events that unfolded in the 50% or so and there were moments I wondered whether I should just give up and move on to another book. I wasn't particularly invested in any of the characters, especially Parker and Gus and the supporting characters didn't help matters either. I struggled with the story line too. I didn't feel that spark between the Gus and Parker and to me it just felt like it was a physical attraction more than anything else. There didn't feel like there was heart to their relationship and on many an occasion I wanted to shake them both and knock some sense into them. That in turn meant that when the first bomb shell hit I was just a bit meh where as I should have been knocked on my ass. 

"We often hurt the ones we love the most... or the ones we should love the most." 

Now the second half of the book, well now that was a complete game changer for me and I suddenly found myself completely invested. I was loving the change in direction the story took and even found myself having a real change of heart in terms of the characters. Was I really hoping for a HEA all of a sudden? Yup, I sure was. 

August Westman proved he was the devil. Parker became the worst possible version 

of  herself in his presence. He drugged her with his words, pulled her under with

his confidence, and stole her innocence with a whisper. 

One thing I will give this author credit for is making me feel. I went through so many emotions reading this one. Frustration, anger, being soooo pissed off I could have hurled my kindle at the wall at the carelessness of the characters. But then in a stroke of genius, she had me doing a complete 180 and had me rooting for characters, my heart getting all kinds of giddy and excited at how things were turning out. Go figure, for a book I almost DNF'd, I was itching to get to the end because I was desperate of that HEA. 

So all in all a mixed bag in terms of thoughts and feelings but definitely a book I ended up really enjoying. 

"When Life Happened" gets ❤️❤️❤️❤️