Review: Unrelenting Feelings by April Kelley

Title: Unrelenting Feelings (Pickleville: Book Eight)

Author: April Kelley

Pages/Word Count: 101 Pages

At a Glance: An interesting novella about second chances, making amends, forgiveness and moving on when the time is right.

Reviewed By: Sadonna

Blurb: Robyn Heath has made a pretty good life for himself away from Pickleville. He loves his job as a paramedic, has a best friend he adores who also happens to be his partner at work, and he even gets laid every once in a while. Life couldn’t be better. Until the man who broke his heart comes back into town.

Caden Flynn has been gone for a long time. Five years fighting for his country has taken its toll and changed him in some fundamental ways. One thing he wants more than anything is to right the wrongs he’s caused Robyn. Robyn proves to have a very stubborn heart.

Review: I didn’t realize when I asked for this book for review that this was the eighth book in a series. In this case, however, it can be read as a standalone quite well. Apparently many of the other characters in this book are introduced in earlier books in the series, which all take place in the same town, but I didn’t feel like my not having read the previous installments impacted my understanding and enjoyment of this story.

Robyn is a young guy who falls hard for his first love. When that guy leaves him behind and breaks all contact, Robyn is crushed, but he gets on with his life—moves to the city, becomes a paramedic, has good friends and comes home every once in a while to visit his family back in the small town of Pickleville.

Then Caden, the jerk who left without a word, comes back. He’s been in the military and has been wounded and is not going back. He regrets what he did with Robyn, but he’s not sure how to get Robyn to even talk to him at this point.

Robyn has told himself he’s over Caden…that is until he sees him again and realizes that’s the lie he’s been telling himself for years. But, the truth is, he’ll probably never really get over Caden despite how badly Caden treated him. Caden desperately wants to make thinks right with Robyn, and recognizes what an idiot he was, but he struggles with just exactly how to do that.

Caden finally settles on trying to get to know Robyn again after so much time has passed (nearly a quarter of their lives—these guys are young), and to see if they can maybe try to start over. There are a lot of protective folks that don’t want to see Robyn hurt again, so it’s not just Robyn that Caden has to convince.

This is a rather short story that covers quite a bit of ground. There are a lot of other gay couples in this story, and they apparently have their stories told in the previous books in the series. I liked the way Robyn and Caden reacted to each other when they were reunited, as it seemed pretty realistic to me; although, if I were Robyn, I would have punished Caden a bit more I think ;-) and made him work pretty hard for a second chance. I liked the other couples and characters in the story, especially Robyn’s best friend, Mike, and his dads, Jaron and Travis. Caden’s brothers are also integral to the story, and I’m interested in reading more about them. There is nothing earthshattering in this book, but it’s an enjoyable story of getting a second chance to make things right and getting an HEA.