How Not to Let Go (The Belhaven Series) by Emily Foster – eARC Review

Publication Date:

December 27th, 2016

Publisher:

Kensington Books

From the author of How Not to Fall comes an electrifying, powerful new story about love, trust, and emotional surrender.

Once upon a time, med student Annie Coffey set out to have a purely physical fling with Charles Douglas, a gorgeous British doctor in her lab. It didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, secrets—and desires—were bared, hearts were broken, and Annie knew she had to leave this complicated, compelling man who remains convinced he can never give her what she needs.

Walking away is one thing. Staying away is another. Annie and Charles reunite at a London conference, rekindling a friendship they struggle to protect from their intense physical connection. Little by little, Annie gets a glimpse into Charles’s dark past and his wealthy, dysfunctional family. Soon, she’s discovering what it means to have someone claim her, body and soul. And she’s learning that once in a lifetime you find a love that can make you do anything…except let go.

Review:

*I was provided a copy by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Once again this was a buddy read with Cristina @ My Tiny Obsessions so click HERE to read her review :).

Last summer I read the book How Now to Fall and while I didn’t love the book at the time I was still intrigued to know what would happen next so when I saw How Not to Let Go on NetGalley I knew I had to request it. Unlike a lot of new adult series, this book can’t be read as a standalone. You could try but you probably wouldn’t understand a lot of what happened because everything is connected to the first book and because it features the same main characters.

How Not to Let Go took me by surprise. Because I had a few problems with the first book I thought the same thing would happen in this one but let me tell you I was wrong. I wasn’t expecting to like it so much but I did. First of all, I loved how deep this book was. While the first one was a lot about sex this one showed a lot more connection between Annie and Charlie. They spent a lot of time in this one talking and trying to figure out each other, especially trying to help Charles dealing with some stuff in his life. I loved how much they supported each other and how much both Annie and Charles grew. The character development in this was amazing and that’s what made everything better in this book. One of the main problems I had with book 1 is that it had a lot of sex and I was uncomfortable most of the times but in this one every time that it happened it felt natural. There were still a few situations that might have left me uncomfortable but it was only a couple of times and it was doable. I can’t talk a lot about this book because it deals with mostly things that happened or were talked about in How Not to Fall but let me just tell you that the way everything was dealt with was amazing and it’s one of the books with more character growth I have ever read.

One thing I loved about this book is that it was told in a dual POV. Here’s the thing, How Not to Fall was told in only Annie’s POV and at the time I read it the only thought I had in my head was how much I wanted Charles’s POV so I could understand what was going on in his head. We had Charles’s POV in this one and it made me understand him so much better. Reading from his POV was heartbreaking almost all the time but it was so necessary. I loved that Emily Foster included this because I think the book wouldn’t have been so good if she didn’t.

Overall, this book was quite a surprise for me. I loved it and I loved how deep and emotional it was. I would totally recommend this one to everyone even if it isn’t happy most of the times. But just try it because you will be surprised with how much you’ll enjoy it.