Book Review – Hold Me Close – Megan Hart

I’m a HUGE Megan Hart fan, and this book, yet again, reminds me why I’m so in love with her writing! Everything about this book was pure pure perfection!

Hold Me Close is the story of Effie. Effie was kidnapped at the age of 13 and locked in a basement by a sick man. But she wasn’t alone. Inside the basement she met Heath, a 15 year old boy. They suffered together inside that basement for years until they were rescued. Now as grown ups they still mean the world to each other.They fell in love at that basement, but while Heath is out with his love for Effie, while he knows he will never love anyone as much as he loves her, Effie has her doubts about the whole thing. She loves Heath, she does. But she wants to forget those torturous years in the hands of a mad man. And Heath is a constant reminder of that.

When you loved somebody, you wanted to give them everything you could. You wanted what was best for them, no matter what. You wanted them to move beyond what was awful and terrible, beyond anything that had ever hurt them. She would never be able to do that for him, nor he for her. They would forever and always be a reminder to each other of all the things Effie wanted them both to be able to forget.

So as much as she loves having Heath in her life, as much as she loves him, she can’t be with him.

She loves him. She will probably never love anyone else, not like this. But how would she ever know if she could, if she doesn’t even try? If this is all they have because it’s all they believe they can ever have, how is that good for either of them? To never have even the illusion of choice?

And so begun this angsty torturous love story. And while it made me hurt, while at times it annoyed me, I fell in love with it completely.

See, I’m a huge fan of a very certain type of heroine, and Effie was not it. Heath loved her so much he hurt every day with his love for her. And she continued to push him away. I hated that she did that. Even while I understood her need for normalcy. She was definitely a different sort of heroine… I would say a very Megan Hart kind of heroine… emancipated, sexually liberated… but as I’ve learnt with her heroines, a bit on the selfish side… maybe a lot. I just hurt for Heath the entire time 😦

“Everytime we’re together, I tell myself not to hope that this time you’ll just fucking see that there is nobody else for you. That you’ll give me a chance to prove we’re good together, really good, no matter what your mother says. Or anyone else. And overtime that hope, it fucking slaughters me, Effie, because in the end it’s so obvious that you could not possibly love me. If you did, you wouldn’t keep pushing me away.”

Sigh. I loved loved loved this man. How he held his heart on his sleeve.

“Don’t you understand? That’s why it’s no good for us to be together. All we do is remind each other of the past. It will keep us both… crazy.”

“Haunt me,” he whispered. “Make me crazy for the rest of my life. But please, Effie. Don’t leave me. Just let me love you.”

He was the hero of my dreams, this man. How he stepped up and was there for Effie even when she didn’t deserve him… and let’s not forget how sexy he was 😉 Because yes, we do get steam… lot’s of it… at a temperature I was shocked to have handled, even while reading in the bus 🙂

But the story as you can imagine is not a hearts and flowers kind of story. We get their present which is nothing but hurt… and we get their past which was nothing but torture. The days in the basement where they suffered together, where they were tortured together, where they fell in love with each other… and the present where their love for each other is so strong, so undeniable, yet so difficult.

I can’t explain what this book did to me. It was everything I needed it to be. It was Megan Hart at her flawless best. One of my favorite reads of the year, no doubt.

5 stars.

Amazon Buy Link – Hold Me Close by Megan Hart

I’d like to thank the publisher for providing this ARC for my review.