Author: Mila Gray
Publisher: Pan Macmillan, (September 10th, 2015)
From: e-book, 384 pages, September 10th 2015
Format: Review E-book from Net Galley
Add to: Goodreads
Order a copy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The Book Depository, Amazon UK
Check out Jenny's Review of: Come Back To Me By: Mila Gray
NOTE: This is a "New Adult" novel. Due to mature content this title is recommended for ages 18+
Synopsis: A forbidden romance. A wounded Marine who thinks he’s beyond saving. A girl who’s determined to prove him wrong.
Didi Monroe’s waited her whole life for the type of romance you see in the movies, so when Hollywood heartthrob Zac Ridgemont sweeps her off her feet, Didi believes she might finally have met the one.
While Zac’s away filming for the summer, Didi begins her internship at a military hospital in California. There, she meets wounded Marine Noel Walker. Frustrated on the outside and broken on the inside, Walker’s a pain-in-the-ass patient who refuses all help. Yet Didi can’t help but be drawn to him, and though he’s strictly out of bounds it soon becomes impossible to ignore the sparks flying between them.
As the attraction simmers into dangerous territory, Didi finds herself falling hard for a man she knows is going to break her heart. Because Walker doesn’t believe in love or happy ever afters. So what possible future can there be? Then tragedy hits, shattering both their worlds, and Didi is forced to choose between fighting for love or merely falling for the illusion of it.
Review: 5 Stars - Review contains spoilers.
Mila Gray a.k.a. Sarah Alderson, once again writes a heart breaking, tear jerker of a romance novel.
Written in two person POV; This Is One Moment re-introduces us to Didi Monroe (who readers may have previously met in Come Back to Me) and new character Noel Walker.
I feel I should focus on Didi as she is the character Gray’s readers are already acquainted with, but I’m drawn to Walker. Noel Walker, is the youngest Lieutenant in the marines, he was engaged to be married to a beautiful woman when he was deployed to Afghanistan and that’s when his life changed.
When his team comes under ambush, Walker tries his best to save his men, but sadly only one survives. Walker’s torment is this book in heartbreaking, he blames himself for something that wasn’t his fault. He is suffering from PTSD, manifesting itself as nightmares and psychosomatic blindness. His fiancé left him after he came home injured, his parents don’t have much contact with him. He’s alone apart from the other soldiers at the centre.
Didi is interning for the summer at the Centre for Hope and Care. As the daughter of one of doctors at the centre, his reputation proceeds her, and she finds she has a lot to live up to. She wants to try and help the wounded marines but some prove to be more stubborn than others.
When Didi first meets Walker he throws her out of his room. She persists- she wants to help him, find out what’s really troubling him. Slowly building a friendship with Walker, Didi doesn’t treat him differently for being blind. She doesn’t constantly correct herself for using the wrong words, and she doesn’t try directly to get him to open up about what’s going on in his head like the other doctors do.
Didi finds she’s attracted to Walker; constantly thinking about him despite the fact she’s supposed to be dating a movie star. The question is will Didi follow the dream of a romance movie happy ending, or will she try to piece the jigsaw of a broken heart back together?
As with her previous book Come Back to Me, Gray is writing about something true to life and events numerous servicemen and women have dealt with. This book and the way the marines try to overcome their problems, opened my eyes to what horrors they might see when on the front line and it gives you a new sort of respect for them. Their war isn’t over once they leave the conflicted country.
There is a lot more to This Is One Moment than a love story, I think that’s why I loved so much and why it did affect me the way it did.
I love the characters; although at times I did find myself shouting at Didi because of who I wanted her to end up with. Walker, Sanchez and Dodds, all have a special place in my heart; Dodds probably more than the other two. Valentina and her cousin Angela make for light relief, and some of the exchanges between Sanchez and his wife had me laughing out loud.
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A mix of romance and tragedy make This Is One Moment one of my favourite reads of 2015. Another brilliant read from Mila Gray, can’t wait for more books in the future.
If you’re a fan of Becky Wicks, Nicholas Sparks and Cecelia Ahern I think this book will appeal to you.
Excerpt:
I pick up the razor and start shaving him again.
‘Um... you know’, he says, it’s better if you shave downwards.’
‘What?’
His hand comes up and circles my wrist. He covers my hand with his own and then guides the razor downwards. ‘Like this.’
‘Oh,’ I say, swallowing hard.
He still hasn’t let go of my hand. I try it myself. ‘Like this?’
He lets go. ‘Yeah. Otherwise it causes razor burn.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ I say.
He shakes his head as if to say don’t apologize.
My heart has started beating triple-time and my hand shakes as I finish off shaving his neck. I need to get a grip. When I’m done, I stand aside and let him wash his face.
‘How do I look?’ he says turning to me. There’s a sardonic smile on his face.
‘Good,’ I say. Really good. ‘Wait’ I snatch the towel from his hand and dab at a fleck of shaving foam by his ear. ‘There,’ I say.
His hand come up to take the towel and our fingers touch and stay there for a beat too long. My breathing hitches, then speeds up. I resist the urge I have to stroke my other hand down his newly shaved cheek.
There’ s a look in his eye now – confusion overlaying the sadness. His head cocks slightly to one side. I pull my hand away and just then the bathroom door swings wide open.
‘Hello?... Oh.’
I spin around. My dad is standing in the doorway. He blinks a few times and frowns as he takes in the fact that I’m standing almost pressed up against a half-naked Walker.
‘Hey, Dad.’ I say turning bright red. ‘Um, I was just helping Walker, I mean Lieutenant Walker, shave. His beard’. Oh God.
‘I can see that,’ my dad says, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips at me. ‘I just came looking for him because he missed his appointment time.’
‘Sorry,’ Walker says. ‘I didn’t know it was that late, Jose normally comes to get me’.
‘Um,’ I mumble. I’m going to go now. Bye,’ I say quickly to Walker, and then ease past my dad and rush out the door.
I know from the look on my dad’s face as he turns to watch me go that this won’t be the end of it.
About the Author:
Mila Gray is the pen name for young adult author Sarah Alderson.
Having spent most of her life in London, Sarah quit her job in the non profit sector in 2009 and took off on a round the world trip with her husband and tutu-wearing daughter on a mission to find a new place to call home.
After almost a year spent wandering around India, Singapore, Australia and the US, they settled in Bali where Sarah now spends her days writing and trying to machete open coconuts without severing a limb. She finished her first novel Hunting Lila just before they left the UK, wrote the sequel, Losing Lila, on the beach in India, and had signed a two book deal with Simon & Schuster by the time they reached Bali. Since then she has published a further four novels and several short stories.
The contemporary thriller The Sound, was published in the US in May 2014, while Out of Control, a thriller with a focus on human trafficking, was released in May ’14 in the UK and May ’15 in the US. Her first adult novel Come Back To Me was released in the summer 2014 by Pan Macmillan in the UK and became an instant bestseller. It will be released in the US in December 2015 by Simon & Schuster. Foreign rights have been sold to Brazil, Australia, US, Canada, Italy and Portugal.
Sarah is also a screenwriter. She adapted her first novel Hunting Lila for the screen (currently in pre-production) and is working on several other screenplays (multi-tasking is one of her favorite things).
Her first adult novel, Come Back To Me, was published in June 2014. The second, This One Moment, will be out in August 2015.
Sarah has co-written the Hunting Lila screenplay, which is currently in the early stages of production, and continues to blog about her life and travels.
Find Mila Online:
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
GIVEAWAY!!!
Giveaway is International and three prizes are up for grabs!
1 prize of 1 x signed copy of This is One Moment
1 prize of 1 x signed copy of This is One Moment
1 prize of a £25 Amazon Voucher
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Check out the rest of the tour here:
This is a tour wide giveaway. The winner will be contacted by the tour host to receive their prize.
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