Synopsis

Homer Carnegie. Admit it—you know my name. Your kid’s got my e-trading card. Your husband sits up straighter when I stroll onto the TV screen. He knows I’m going to crack the bat and save the day. Even your grandma’s jonesing for my autograph. But women my age? They’re the worst. Or would that be the best?It’s not my fault they line up at the door. They catch my balls all right, two at a time sometimes. Believe me, everybody wins.

At least they did—until the video. I heard TMZ paid a million for a bird’s eye view of Homer on his A-game. The only folks who didn’t watch with eager eyes? Red Sox management. They want me benched, or worse, shipped off to rehab.

It’s a long story, what happens next. How I end up on a boat, bound for the world’s most remote island: Tristan da Cunha. Just a speck of dust in the Atlantic.

Except my heart is there.
I don’t know that when I step onto the boat.
I don’t know a lot of things.
What I’ll covet…
What I’ll lose…

Review

4,5 triggers stars

I completely had forgotten that I had asked for that book! As it had been delayed it popped up on my kindle quite as a surprise!
I recalled asking it not for its blurb but for the author’s name.

I had read only one other book by Ella James (The Boy Next Door) but was truly taken into the story. She has the knack to bring you harsh and dramatic stories. The one you will read and suffer right alongside her characters, grinding your teeth as it is so painful for them and for you.

I won’t say anything about the blurb because it is so deceiving!

Honestly what’s in the synopsis does not come close to a tenth of what the book is about.
It’s rather misleading than anything else because this is not a sportsromance with a baseball playboy star and an island fair maidden!

Well yes Declan “Homer” Carnegie is a baseball star playing for the Red Sox. And yes Finley is an island girl. But this is a million years from the real plot!

What I will write is that the book holds its secrets like russian dolls.
One secret hides another one which hides another one.
Some you’ll guess pretty easily as the author is hinting quite loudly at them leaving snippets of dreams and memories here and there but others you will never guess and they will explode in your face!

You will also have two people really haunted by their respective traumatic pasts.
Finley had to survive a dramatic death in her young live leaving het marked for years. She is multi talented as many have to be on such isolated island. She is strongly resilient now and fierce in her feelings, being deeply loyal.
Yet she feels lonely. Transparant.

Declan also has lived traumatic events and has come to the island to get better. He will really have to fight a hard battle. Every instant. It is incredible how Ella James really put us in his head making us realize that some things are not simple to solve. That will is not always the master.
Declan was flawed and had made mistakes yet he was a victim and he was brave in spite of his weaknesses or maybe because of them.

I would like to say that Declan and Finley were like two peas in a pod or pot and kettle even if on the surface they were completely different.
One rich the other not.
One having travelled to the world the other knowing only her secluded island.
One used to the spotlight while the other lived in the shadows.
But when you digged below the surface they were just both traumatized souls harboring secrets.

Last parting words here: this book deals with a MAJOR trigger for me. One that has me running the other way and avoiding that topic like men avoid the mall on Christmas eve. I went in blind not knowing about it. And it was forunate because I would never have read this story and missed what has been a very intense, flawed and emotional story.

Recommend it? Yes.

Have you read it or any other book by Ella James? Have you read books with personal triggers?

Thanks for reading!

Sophie