The End and Then: A Kayla Hicks Book Review

What happens when the people who are meant to protect us fail? When the person meant to protect us falls short and shatters our expectations of them.

What is it about?

What do you do when life as you know it ends?

Eden Ross is trying to figure that out.

She starts by packing up the remains of her life and moving to a small town in Colorado to run a bar alongside her best friend. But the work still doesn't provide a sufficient distraction from the demons nipping at her heels. Estranged from the family she loves, she tries to focus on her new, tight-knit group of surprisingly accepting neighbors. That includes Chase Taylor, a charismatic outdoorsman she fails to keep at a distance despite her best intentions. But letting anyone get too close carries the possibility of them finding out her ugly truth, and that's a risk Eden's not willing to take.

When a revelation from an unexpected source rocks her to her core, she's forced to make a decision that will change the course of her life. Faced with this impossible choice between her family and her well-being, she knows she needs help, and the only way to get it is to tell the truth about what has happened, so she can finally leave the past behind once and for all.

In her debut novel, Hannah Bird deftly explores what it truly means to be a family, and whether those ties that bind us all can- or should- ever be broken.

Follow Eden on her journey to discover the goodness of life and love after tragedy, and the importance of those that support us along the way.

My Review:

I loved this book and truly found it hard to put down.

At first, I was a little skeptical as I felt Chase and Eden's relationship was sudden and choppy in terms of the author wanting to make them have an instant spark. However, as the story went on, I felt that their relationship and how it formed became more natural and believable, leaving me to feel satisfied as a reader with their end result.

In terms of the tough issues that this book handled, I applaud the author for how well she handled it. I appreciated how realistic the fallout of the mother-daughter relationship was and how it needed to be. And I also appreciated how well it was conveyed that even though tragedy strikes one person, the ripple effects that ensue are just as tragic in the long term.

I would definitely recommend this book to others and give this book a 4-star review.

You can get it here: The End and Then