Showing posts with label Willa Okati. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Willa Okati. Show all posts

Guest Review: Only You (Second Chance Omegas #1) by Willa Okati

Second Chance – a small town where anything can happen.

Once upon a time, a teenaged Alpha named Alex fell in love with a pretty Omega boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Zachary was everything he’d ever wanted -- sweet, sassy, and sexy as hell. Alex would have married that boy and raised baby after baby with him -- if Zachary hadn’t run away when Alex popped the question.

Alex doesn’t give up easily. When a train derails on its way to Alex‘s hometown, he’s finally got another shot at the one who got away, and he’s not going to waste it. Now he’s got Zachary in his sights, and he’s never letting go again.

It killed Zachary to let Alex go the first time. He loved that man as much as that man loved him, and he’s never fallen out of love, but he left to give Alex his best chance at living his best life. He can’t -- won’t -- be sorry for that, no matter what it cost him.

Stranded in Second Chance with nowhere else to go and no way to get there, Zachary's got no choice but to accept the help and shelter Alex offers. The chemistry’s still there. The desire. The connection. The yearning. But when the secrets they’ve both been keeping come to light, will they shatter their bond for keeps, or bring them together in a forever kind of love?


Reviewer: Shee Reader

We meet Zachary on a train. He’s alone, unwell and desperate. He just needs to get away, but then the train derails.

He’s near the town where he grew up, and ran away from the future he was sure he didn’t deserve.

Alex found his heart when he was just a teenager, only to have Zachary run out on him after he proposed. Alex is broken, but becomes the man his people need him to be.

He’s on a train, aware of the man who broke his heart just a short distance away. After the derailment, he isn’t going to let Zazhary get away a second time. He’s going to take Zachary with him.

The story then unfolds as our two men carefully circle around each other. Alex offers everything Zachary has always wanted, but can’t accept. How can they find their way to each other? I enjoyed the story, but there were a few leaps I felt could have been better explained.

This is a beautifully written tale with twists, turns and some painful truths. The ending is happy, thank goodness!

Recommended.

I was given a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.



Release Blitz + Giveaway: Yes, You Are (Second Chance Omegas #2) by Willa Okati


Author Willa Okati and IndiGo Marketing host today's blitz for second chance omegaverse romance. Yes, You Are (Second Chance Omegas #2)! Discover more about the new adult romane and enter in the giveaway!

Title: Yes, You Are

Series: Second Chance Omegas #2

Author: Willa Okati

Publisher: Changeling Press LLC

Release Date: August 27, 2021

Heat Level: 4 - Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 109

Genre: Romance, New Adult, Action Adventure, Sex/Gender Shifters & MPreg, Single Parent/Pregnancy Romance, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Second Chances

Add to Goodreads


Synopsis

Darian's as unique an Alpha as Coby is an Omega, but opposites attract twice in Second Chance.

Everyone always assumed small, pretty Darian would be an Omega. He ticked all the boxes -- except for the temper and the tendency to cuss a blue streak. But whatever, right? And everyone always assumed big, athletic Coby would be an Alpha. Just stood to reason -- as long as you paid no mind to his tender heart. When they met in passing as teenagers, both boys had no reason to doubt that was who they’d be. Everyone said it, after all. But everyone was wrong.

When Darian and Coby meet again in grad school, Darian’s still small and pretty but he’s one hell of a ferocious Alpha -- and tall, muscular Coby still struggles with having turned out to be an Omega. The college is short on space due to storm damage, and they’ve got no choice but to share living quarters and come to terms with themselves and their past -- and when Coby gets pregnant, their soon-to-be future.

Opposites attract like lightning and steel rods when they meet again in Second Chance, but do they have what it takes to overcome the unexpected for the long haul?

Excerpt

All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2021 Willa Okati

Keys in hand, Darian was five steps ahead before he realized Coby hadn’t budged. He looked over his shoulder. “Well? Are you coming?”

Reluctantly, taking one more glance at the admins probably to make sure this was really happening, Coby unfolded himself. He was still half a foot taller than Darian, maybe more, and he’d filled out those lanky bones into wide shoulders and legs long enough to make a man want to try and climb him like a tree. <em>I mean -- damn.</em>

But Coby didn’t walk like he used to, full of confidence. He sloped along with a slouching kind of gait that suggested bashful uncertainty, and the way he kept his head down indicated shyness, but the look on his face was nothing but pure, frustrated rage.

Darian couldn’t blame him. Hell, this was fucking with his head. He could only imagine how tangled up Coby had to feel about it. Coby, an Omega? Seriously? He made an even weirder specimen that way than Darian did in his, so what the fuck even.

Behind them, Oscar gave them a wry salute before turning to head for his single digs.

“Bastard,” Darian muttered before turning to give Coby a dose of straight eye contact. “This isn’t how I planned for things to turn out either, but since they did, we can either bitch about it or make the best of it,” he said bluntly. “So come on. Or don’t, but if that’s your call then I’m going to leave you behind. It’s not even noon and I am fucking tired. So?”

Coby looked like he was going to argue, then shook his head and fell into step. He tried to stay behind, act like they weren’t together, but his legs were too long not to catch up. When he did, Darian had the weirdest urge to take his arm. Just an urge, of course. An Alpha thing, a real throwback to the days when a gentleman would take a submissive’s arm to guide him. If he tried that now, fuck knew if this new angry Coby would try and break his elbow.

Darian didn’t do playing it safe, but unusual times called for unusual circumstances. He kept his hands in his pocket and his walk to an amble, and -- again, not his usual thing -- took a stab at small talk. Anything to calm Coby down before his head imploded. “You’re a teacher too, huh? No kidding. Makes sense, now I think of it. I don’t make sense, but I’d started the pre-classes before things turned out like they did, and I’d put in too much work to go back.”

No answer.

Annoyed, Darian tried again. He hooked a thumb backward. “That was Oscar, a friend from back home. He can be a real douche sometimes, but deep down he’s pretty decent. A good guy to count on, in case you were wondering.”

Which Darian could tell Coby wasn’t. Too lost in his own head and his flinching awareness of every single person who paused to give them either odd or shocked looks when they put two and two together. Darian would have ignored those -- he’d gotten used to them years ago -- but being with Coby made him glower at everyone, daring them to make a deal out of it, and he could only do that so much before he gave himself a fucking migraine.

One more shot. “What are you teaching?” Darian asked. “I’m math. Calculus, trig, and basic algebra as I need to.”

Coby shook his head and kept his trap firmly shut, his head so far down that his chin almost touched his chest and yep, there went the temper Darian really did try to keep locked down. Didn’t help that looking at Coby made his mouth water and that pissed him right off because for fucks’ sake, his libido needed to mind its own business right now. The rest of him didn’t like the way the Coby he remembered had changed, and his being Omega wasn’t part of that.

He stopped in front of the big man, blocking his path, and lifted his chin. “Would you mind looking at me? And while we’re at it, what the fuck besides the obvious is your problem? It’s not like this is easy for me either.”

Coby glowered at Darian and shouldered past him, strong enough to jostle him aside.

Okay. That was really it.

Darian put on a burst of speed and shouldered past Coby in turn, minus the passive-aggressive shove, and walked in front of him all the way to the housing they’d been assigned. Not much to look at, just your basic small dorm. Still, his key worked on the front door and, down the hall, the quarters he and Coby would be sharing. God help them.

Which were not bad, actually. Darian’s eyebrows went up as he took it in. Roomy enough for two grown men to move around in without knocking elbows, decent closets, a closed door that was likely a private toilet. Even a mini-kitchenette with a sink, a cabinet, and space above a micro-fridge for a coffee pot and an illegal hot plate.

And of course, twin beds shoved in opposite corners.

Darian wrinkled his nose at them. “You’re not going to be able to fit in one of those. You’ll dangle off from the shins down.”

Coby shut the door behind them, and holy shit, Darian had not expected what happened then, nor had he noticed the near-total lack of airflow in there with the windows closed. His own Alpha scent wafted out in waves that completely failed to mask Coby’s Omega scent. Gunpowder and pennyroyal. They shouldn’t have gone together at all, but somehow they did and they gave Darian an immediate half hard-on that he was glad as all hell his loose shirt covered.

The Omega -- no, don’t call him that, he’s more than just a gender -- Coby -- was looking at him now, boy howdy, his hawk eyes gone so wide that the whites showed around his irises. “You really are an Alpha. How?”

“You really want me to explain biology to you?”

Coby ignored that. “You don’t look like an Alpha.” He started to reach for Coby with one hand, then pulled back at the last second. Even so, Darian had the strangest sensation that he’d followed through. He could feel the warmth on his cheek. “You’re still little, and still pretty, and -- look at me.”

Darian resisted the urge to rub his cheek. “I don’t look like an Alpha, and you don’t look like an Omega, so aren’t we an equal pair?”

“Equal,” Coby scoffed. He wrapped his arms around himself again squeezing tight. “Do you know the kind of shit I went through when I didn’t present, and when I did --”

“About the same kind of shit I did, I’d guess,” Darian retorted. “And if you’re going to have an attitude about it all summer --”

“Like you’re one to talk!”

Darian sailed past that. Mostly because he was right. “If that’s how you want to be, then I’m setting some ground rules.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “If we can’t get along, we keep our mouths shut when we’re in the same room. No bringing anyone back here to fuck, and that includes me with Oscar -- yes, we do fuck sometimes, because neither of us is all that sold on the standard rules. Find somewhere else or it’ll confuse everyone’s nose.”

Coby looked at him, shaking his head. “I didn’t ask for this. Any of it. I didn’t ask to be an Omega.”

“Who the fuck does? I didn’t.”

“You didn’t get it, either,” Coby fired back. “And you know what? I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself. I didn’t ask to share with you.”

“No, the resident director or whoever-the-fuck he is did, so if you have a problem you can take it up with him, mkay?” It wasn’t that Darian didn’t feel any sympathy or empathy for the guy. Turning out not to be what you’d always thought was hard, right? Which meant something else needed saying. He held up a finger. “One last rule. No bullshit embarrassment. We are what we are, and we can’t change that. In here, neither of us has room to hide.”

“And you’d be damned if you even wanted to try,” Coby scoffed. He dropped his bags in a messy heap, a deliberate insult from an Omega. “So it’s really easy for you to say, isn’t it? I’m out of here. There’s got to be somewhere else.”

He stormed out, slamming the door with a bang behind him.

“Shit,” Darian said aloud. He rubbed at his forehead. Well, this was going to be a fun summer, wasn’t it?

Purchase

Changeling Press LLC | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes

Meet the Author

 

Willa Okati (AKA Will) is made of many things: imagination, coffee, stray cat hairs, daydreams, more coffee, kitchen experimentation, a passion for winter weather, a little more coffee, a whole lot of flowering plants and a lifelong love of storytelling. Will's definitely one of the quiet ones you have to watch out for, though he -- not she anymore -- is a lot less quiet these days.

Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

  Blog Button 2

Release Blitz + Giveaway: Only You (Second Chance Omegas #1) by Willa Okati


Only You (Second Chance Omegas #1) is out from Changeling Press! Celebrate with author Willa Okati and IndiGo Marketing! Find out more about the A/B/O second chance romance and enter in the giveaway!

Title: Only You

Series: Second Chance Omegas #1

Author: Willa Okati

Publisher: Changeling Press LLC

Release Date: July 30, 2021

Heat Level: 4 - Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 100

Genre: Romance, paranormal, urban fantasy, sex/gender shifters & mpreg, second chances, action adventure

Add to Goodreads


Synopsis

Second Chance -- a small town where anything can happen -- and does.

Once upon a time, a eighteen year old Alpha named Alex fell in love with a pretty Omega boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Zachary was everything he’d ever wanted -- sweet, sassy, and sexy as hell. Alex would have married that boy and raised baby after baby with him -- if Zachary hadn’t run away when Alex popped the question.

Alex doesn’t give up easily. When a train derails on its way to Alex’s hometown, he’s finally got another shot at the one who got away, and he’s not going to waste it. Now he’s got Zachary in his sights, and he’s never letting go again.

It killed Zachary to let Alex go the first time. He loved that man as much as Alex loved him, and he’s never fallen out of love, but he left to give Alex his best chance at living his best life. Zachary can’t -- won’t -- be sorry for that, no matter what it cost him.

Stranded in Second Chance with nowhere else to go and no way to get there, Zachary’s got no choice but to accept the help and shelter Alex offers. The chemistry’s still there. The desire. The connection. The yearning. But when the secrets they’ve both been keeping come to light, will they shatter their bond for keeps, or bring them together in a forever kind of love?

Excerpt

All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2021 Willa Okati

“Coffee, sir?”

“As much of it as you can fit in a cup. No cream but double the sugar. Please.”

The train attendant shook his head, but with a smile and a finger briefly pressed to his lips as he passed over not one but two Styrofoam cups filled to the brim. He was an Omega too, in his mid-thirties by the look of him, and he wore a black jet widower’s ring instead of a wedding band. Things weren’t much easier for the widowed than the unmated or separated. He understood.

Zach took a grateful gulp, not caring that the coffee was hot enough to scald his throat, and asked, “How far behind schedule are we?” Stretching his legs at the next station would do him good; they ached when he stayed still for too long.

“About half an hour, at this point."

Wishing wouldn’t make the wheels turn faster, but with nothing to look at outside in the dark, Zach adjusted his position so he could get a better view of the passengers in his car. Like most Omegas, he wasn’t very tall. Some new folks had gotten on and others disembarked while he’d dozed, and he liked wondering what their stories were. Two young Alphas who acted like frat bros; interesting, they weren’t the usual size for Alphas, but small and compact and they weren’t at each other’s throats but laughed and joked like best friends. A couple that had to be recently married from the way they could barely resist climbing all over each other; an Omega with a contented smile, probably on his way back home, and --

Oh.

Oh, God.

Zach’s heart jumped into his throat and wedged stuck there even around the burn of his beverage. Three rows ahead, dark wheat-blond hair and a profile almost as familiar as his own turned to smile at the attendant as he refused their offer of coffee. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be, he hadn’t seen that profile since he was eighteen, but -- He’d changed -- well, he’d grown up, the way everyone did, the bones of his face maturing from soft boyish cuteness to strong, masculine definition. A short beard, trimmed and shaped, that suited his strong, stubborn jaw. The kind of casual suit that would have cost the equivalent of a month’s rent in Manhattan. Elegant hands with sturdy knuckles and deft fingers, and a smile that lit up the train.

He did and didn’t look a thing like the boy Zach remembered but it was, it was, it was him.

Alex.

Zach would have known him anywhere, even if he’d shaved his head and started scowling instead of smiling. If he closed his eyes, he could feel those hands on the bare skin of memory. After all, you never forgot your first.

“I love you. And I know you love me too.”

He should stop staring. Alex would sense it any second now, and he might look around, and --

His gaze drifted back up, drawn like a moth to a flame.

Alex. Oh, Alex.

Zach’s body twitched with the first pangs of arousal, wanting what he’d had once upon a time. He remembered it all, and he remembered it perfectly. He dreamed about it, when he slept. The taste of Alex’s skin, the softness and hardness of his mouth and how his eagerness had nearly rubbed the insides of Zach’s thighs raw. The fullness, almost too much and too tight, when he slid inside Zach.

“I love you. And I know you love me too.”

Anger slowly took alarm and unhappiness’s place – anger, and frustration with himself. Zach should have sensed this train was to be avoided. Dodged. Something! And Alex, sitting there as if he didn’t have a care in the world – it was everything Zach had wanted for him, the entire reason he’d left Alex in the first place, but seeing it in the flesh opened all those old wounds back up and made them bleed afresh. The pain from that moment of saying no to what Alex had offered with all his big, warm heart cut sharper than any knife – but he’d had to. You didn’t do that to your first boyfriend, did you? Take him up on a marriage proprosal and tie him down to a shitty life based on a few promises made in the afterglow?

He’d done the right thing by saying no, leaving, and giving Alex his freedom. Zach knew that. Was sure of it. Even if none of that had ever made him feel any better about it.

They must have been traveling farther and faster than Zach had realized, or he was more out of it than he’d known. Between one blink and the next the train’s PA system crackled to far-too-loud life again, announcing they’d reach their next station at Second Chance in ten minutes. Second Chance? What kind of name was that for a town?

Alex looked up at the speaker, nodded in an absent sort of way, and stood to open the overhead compartment. He took out a bulging messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder and stuffed a pair of thick gloves and a warm knit hat in the pockets of his coat. This would be his stop.

Zach caught his lip between his teeth, torn between – it was pure foolishness, the idea of going to him -- and sanity, staying right where he was.

Let it go.

Zach would have, really he would. But as Alex walked past him – always so eager to do things, that one; he would start heading for the exits before the train had even come to a halt -- he only made it two steps past Zach’s seat before he stopped. As Zach’s heart sank down past the pit of his stomach he saw Alex pause, then turn to look back.

He stopped, just like Zach had, blank with surprise. “Do I know you?”

Zach held his breath. Could he lie? Yes, but this new, matured Alex would have the life experience not to believe him, and he hadn’t changed nearly as much as Alex had. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“I do know you. I know your face,” Alex said. His voice had matured with the rest of him as he aged, going from sweet to firm with a raspy vocal fry on the edges. “Zach?”

Purchase

Changeling Press LLC | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes

Meet the Author

Willa Okati (AKA Will) is made of many things: imagination, coffee, stray cat hairs, daydreams, more coffee, kitchen experimentation, a passion for winter weather, a little more coffee, a whole lot of flowering plants and a lifelong love of storytelling. Will's definitely one of the quiet ones you have to watch out for, though he -- not she anymore -- is a lot less quiet these days.

Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

  Blog Button 2

Review: Breathe Deep (St. Hawk's Medical #3) by Willa Okati

A golden-hearted mountain man. A nursing tech with a secret. Life and death are on the line—and they’re running out of time.

Shepherd knows what people think of him. He’s too big, too tall and too broad not to be scary. But though he looks like a grizzly bear, he’s all teddy on the inside. He’s dreamed of finding someone to love. Someone who can help him break through his shyness and who he can shower with all the affection in his heart.

Kit knows what people think of him. That he’s young, good-looking, and kissed by luck. He survived leukemia as a teenager, and he thought he had his entire life ahead of him. But now, the cancer might be recurring—deny it though he might—and Kit’s world has come crashing down. He needs someone like Shepherd. Someone kind and caring, who’s strong enough to lean on.

Kit’s falling fast for the big mountain man—but he hasn’t told Shepherd the truth. He’s afraid that knowing he may be sick will be more than Shepherd can handle. And now, after delaying treatment, he thinks he may be running out of time.

Secrets can be life or death—and when it comes to telling the truth, they can make all the difference.

I so loved the blurb for this story. I mean, hello? Golden hearted mountain man and nursing tech with a secret? The potential for some delicious hurt/comfort lovin’? Yes, please, sign me up.

For the most part, the story delivered. Shepherd is a big, shy man with a heart of gold. He’s kind of uncomfortable in social situations, but it mostly comes across as just plain charming. Plus, his name is Shepherd and that is super cute for his description. Kit is a nurse tech who works in the geriatrics ward at St. Hawk’s. His goal is to get his bachelor’s degree so he’s a busy guy. He’s also a cancer survivor.

The guys have a meet-cute at the beginning that doesn’t really go anywhere but then meet up again later when Kit heads into Sheperd’s specialty shop to get a treat for a patient. Kit is the perfect caregiver character that way. I could totally buy into his personality and his profession, it was an effortless read. The second meeting has the whole awkward yet charming thing going on. It comes out that Shepherd has the caregiver gene in him too and reading about these two guys who really just need to find their matches to love all over was very sweet.

So, like I said, this had everything going on, for the most part. My problem was in a couple of huge plot points that were entirely too convenient but didn’t make much sense. Some semi spoilery stuff coming, just so you know. Kit is having symptoms very similar to those the first time he was diagnosed with cancer at 15. He ignores the signs though because he’s afraid they may be true. He’s a nurse tech, he works in a hospital and he’s ignoring symptoms that have the potential to kill him. He has ALL the information he needs, more than most other people ever could and he ignores it all. It was frustrating to read and I didn’t really get why he didn’t do something. I wanted something more profound from someone with so few excuses.

Extra spoilery parts ahead . . . Shepherd, what the actual fuck? All book long he’s a giver and selfless. Then when Kit finally gets his shit together and tells him the truth Shepherd walks away????? Your dude could be dying and you bail? No, sorry, not good enough, not buying it. I know he had to wrap his brain around the news but then TELL KIT THAT. Poor Kit can only assume he’s just been dumped and that sucked. Perspective and priorities boys, that’s all I ask.

Of course it all worked out but I wasn’t ready to forgive Shepherd for his dumbassery or Kit for his so I was happy for them but still irritated. I should have felt better and happier about the whole outcome, but dammit, those points were annoying and not strong enough to warrant the frustration.

Check out more about Breathe Deep over on Goodreads.


**a copy of this story was provided for an honest review**

Review: Best-Laid Plans by Willa Okati

Teddy and Jefferson get along like a house on fire. Literally. Jefferson’s a serious-natured soccer star, and Teddy was born to party till the wheels come off. Oh, they might have jerked it a few times thinking about each other, but they’ll burn this mother to the ground before they ever get along. The only thing they have in common are their friends--Jefferson’s buddy Emmett, and Teddy’s BFF Noelani. Emmett’s just blown all his savings on a house near campus, and he needs tenants to help make the monthly payments. That’s where Teddy and Jefferson come in. Hey, anything’s better than the dorms.

So far so good. Until Noelani’s former fiancé Beau--also Emmett’s former best friend--rolls back into town. Panicked over the return of their old feelings for the rough-riding badass, Noelani and Emmett decide the only sensible ‘save’ is to get married. Of course. Teddy and Jefferson both know that’s a bad idea, and that those two are going to need their friends more than ever. That means only one thing: no choice but to raise the white flag and join forces.

Pros: free rein for sexual hijinks in the name of ‘getting along’. Cons: Easier said than done.

Despite it all, Teddy and Jefferson are also discovering that they have more fun fighting with each other than they would kissing anyone else. Maybe--maybe--they're falling in love. But when Beau reveals the real reason for his return and everything turns topsy-turvy for everyone involved, is their new alliance strong enough to save the day?


This book suffers from trywaytooharditis.


It was too kitschy, too trendy, too many unnecessary words, puns and plot twists. Too much. Meh.

If I could get away with an entire review of just about 50 "meh" and "eh", this would be the book for it. I'll aim to review longer than the blurb. *fingers crossed*  But I'd rather get to the point (of which this book really didn't seem to have) other than showing how on scene it could be.

This book tried too hard to impress, tried too hard to be witty...it was closer to lame. Instead of trying to deliver distinguishable characters, other than a few stereotypes (ex. hot tempered red haired man, dramatic effeminate man, the 'butch' macho jock, etc.), their personalities were all kind of the same. It's hard to read a novel of basically the same character with different names.

Frenemies Teddy and Jefferson are college students who don't like each other because Teddy tends to get offended for every damn thing and Jefferson has a tendency to speak without thinking. The thing is Teddy was written to be a big mouth drama queen, but if he just shut up once in a while and stop being quick to be mad (I really can't with people like that, always looking for something to be pissed- it's exhausting) he wasn't that bad. Well, if he lost the quips too. In fact all the characters.  I grimaced all throughout the read and breathed a sigh of relief when I finally saw "The End". 

Jefferson and Teddy would get upset, play fight, avoid each other (quite foolishly) for a long period of time, then have a wank off competition. And then call a truce in the sake of their best friends and their relationship and then start up again for...why? Weak plot device that gets weaker when the ex-fiance shows up in town. The new adults show how adult they really aren't by playing in the big people sandbox and Teddy and Jefferson fall into insta-love during the process. The sex scenes,when they happened in between the quips and long puns was lukewarm because so many words of wasted page time. 

This book was two-thirds too long; a stretched-out-should've been novella where the secondary characters remained that...in the background. Noelani and Emmett and Beau get just as much page time as the main characters, maybe more I can't tell in between Noelani and Teddy huffing, hiding, climbing or running away in the heat of the moment. The pranks in the middle of the book served no purpose but I laughed at the Saran Wrap on the toilet seat prank. 

This is my first Willa Okati, so I don't know if this is standard fare. If it is, I can consider it my last. Because it's too reminiscent to a writing style that doesn't work for me - the cheesy, campy factor. It took me forever to finish this book, it dragged. Once I finally got to the end, I couldn't believe, I read all of that just for that ending. It was really convoluted for a lot of really nothing. It could have easily been told in 20K tops *shrugs* Not memorable in the least. 

P.S. The redhead jokes weren't cool. 

P.P.S. Meh. Eh. Meh.



For more information on Goodreads or Booklikes!

Review: The First Hello by Willa Okati

Shawn Tillerman thinks he’s losing his mind. Wary and damaged after a hard life filled with broken promises, he's been having dissociative episodes for the past few months. Flashes of different lives he didn’t live. Walking in the footsteps of men he knows he never was. In these waking dreams, he’s always with a lover, but he can't see the man’s face and doesn’t know his name. Though the episodes are becoming more frequent, he hasn’t told anyone what's happening to him. He’s too busy taking care of his twin sister and keeping her away from Oxy. If he can sell the house he’s inherited from a distant relative, he'll finally have enough money to put her in a good rehab center. He can turn their lives around.

Or not. Because Raleigh, the compelling stranger who wants to buy their house, swears that Shawn isn’t experiencing psychotic episodes, but is reliving memories. That he and Shawn have come together in life after life and time after time. That he is the man from Shawn's dreams, and has been searching everywhere for him. Even if Shawn remembers nothing, Raleigh remembers it all, and he isn’t going to give up now.

Shawn doesn’t believe Raleigh--but he’s beginning to wish he could. What if it is true, after all? What if saying goodbye to all he thought he was sure of is only the first part of hello?


Oh, this was so romantic.

Shawn has had a hard life and is just trying to survive with his sister. He's been having what seem to be flashbacks, but the only problem is there's no way he could have been a part of what he's seeing. He sees himself throughout different time periods, but in all his episodes, he's with another man.

Amongst all this, he's trying to sell the house he inherited so he can continue taking care of his sister. The man who buys the house, Raleigh, takes certain interest in Shawn and tells Shawn what his episodes really are.

I really liked how the author incorporated the flashbacks into the story. I thought they were perfectly woven in with the present story of Shawn and Raleigh. As Shawn gets to know Raleigh in this life, he sees the love they shared in the past. It really brought the characters and their love to life. They were very loving and tender together. Even though they weren't together throughout the present story, I still got a real sense of them as a couple.

Shawn is a very cynical and skeptical character. He doesn't believe in much anymore, let alone a lover from another life who's always been searching for him. Raleigh is open and loving and just wants Shawn to know him so much. I could feel how much he wanted Shawn to know who he was and how hurt he was by Shawn's initial indifference towards him. I loved both characters, but I have a soft spot for Raleigh. He had so much love for Shawn, I really adored his character and his devotion.

I would have liked for their reconciliation to happen sooner, just to get a better feel for their HEA in this lifetime. Also, more closure for what will happen in their next life would have helped. I feel like I missed something, like a big part of their cycle changed, but I'm not completely certain how.

So, the blurb. *sigh* I wish I didn't know the entire plot before I started this story. Literally. It's all there for you. Some mystery behind the episodes would have made this more interesting.

This whole idea of reincarnation is very romantic to me. I really enjoyed this and will definitely look for more from this author in the future.

A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

Find out more info on Goodreads.