Veronica Larsen

4.5 Stars
ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.



Mila is a tough-as-nails executive who prides herself on showing little emotions, teetering in heels, and not needing a man. Her life was forced in a new direction when the man of her dreams, her fiance, leaves her with no word on the day of their wedding. She thinks she's overcome the ache from losing him, replacing him with a best friend in Andrew and a career that she gives her all to. What she never planned for was the confusing emotions towards her friend or for her ex to appear right when she thinks she has it all figured out. He comes with answers to questions she thought she had buried, he comes with a past filled with people and memories she hadn't thought of in ages, and he comes with her heart, a piece of her she didn't know he still held onto.

"Oh, to live in a desert of resentment. And to be its queen."

Mila, Andrew, and Cole are the center of this complicated romance. Their emotional love triangle is made up of years of pain, it's made of friendship, and it's made of secrets that will leave readers speechless. Its not typical though, because it is apparent from the start that this love triangle just isn't meant to be. There are two who are meant to be, they have more than just chemistry between them, and the love between them will burn you with how bright it burns.

"I used to think you two balanced each other out, but sometime I wonder if all you do is consume each other and everything that comes between you."

Veronica Larsen makes you fall in love with Mila, the headstrong heroine that finally deserves her own happily ever after, but the journey there is fraught with painful history that's jaded her. Though I could never picture who she was perfectly I wanted, so badly, for her to end up with the good guy, a guy that could give her it all, and a wedding too. But I also found myself wanting the artistic Cole to get his second chance, because his story didn't make me pity him, it made me love him. Mila and Cole, and Andrew too, share a maze of history between them, connected in ways that are hard to imagine. The men share affection for Mila. They lust for her beauty and her brain, and their connections with her are told to readers in such an erotic fashion. It's both touching and sexy, made even better by poetry-like writing. I could feel their agony and their delight, and their euphoria when in the throes of passion.



Then there's the heavy subject matter, more than just two men desiring the same women. Their lives were all altered by horrifying events brought on by drug use and addiction. Veronica Larsen paints a picture that you want to turn away from, it physically hurts to let these events play out in your mind, but it makes The Edge of Us all that it is. Friendships, families, and romantic relationships must overcome the darkness, they require forgiveness, but there are some things that can tear them apart forever. It takes true to talent to take a romantic novel in a different direction, focusing instead on the power something dark has over love rather than the feeling that love can give and the comfort that comes with it. Love isn't a heal all, it isn't an instant happiness or just moments tangled in the sheets, it's a feeling that makes you want to bear it all, even the ugly times. The Edge of Us makes readers see those crippling moments and to feel the suffering the characters face all in the name of love. The characters are incredible, strong, and memorable, because of the wretched events each has experienced with one another and Veronica Larsen conceals all these bits of their stories into a book that makes you believe in love.

"Love is neither patent nor kind, because love can't be tepid. It's unrelenting, all consuming, and unreasonable."

Some art is confusing, some art is just pretty to look at, and some art impacts you in such a profound way that you are never the same. This art makes you think, it inspires words in your mind, it wraps around you and alters your perception of something or maybe of everything. The Edge of Us is that piece of art; a beautiful, second chance romance that's more heavy heartache than stomach butterflies. Veronica Larsen tossed out the cliches and gives readers an unconventional romance that uses the usual tropes in a unique way. The classic love-triangle drama? It's far more than just simple lust and a person torn between two. Drug abuse? It's not just a passed over problem, it's the core of this story. Second chances? They do not come easy and there is no forgetting the past. It's a book with characters that feel real; their personalities, individual characteristics, and emotions come out of the pages like a physical person is standing right in front of you. You'll picture yourself in their shoes and you'll weep alongside them. The situations they face are authentic to the actual world, they aren't just things that happen in the fictional world. And though books are supposed to be this idealized world, this place we escape to, Veronica Larsen has such beautiful prose that you'll fall in love with the flawed characters as they scale the precipice in The Edge of Us.

"A cycle we can't break. A story without an end."

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Dear God...what just happened? This is my first book by Veronica Larsen and I feel like I was hit by a bus. An emotional bus. This book is raw, gritty, real, amazing, mind blowing. I could go on and on. This story is heart breaking and gives you so many emotions. The author says this is the book she was meant to write, and I have to say...she's right. This book give the author a voice, an unbelievable character set that will blow your mind. Told in alternating views, you really get into the heads of the characters; it lets you feel what they feel. I really do not think 5 stars is enough.

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