Forever Never by Lucy Score - A Book Review
Synopsis:
You don’t fall for your brother’s high school sweetheart, your boss’s daughter, or your ex-wife’s best friend. Especially when they’re all the same woman.
Under Brick Callan’s mile-wide chest beats a loyal heart with a few cracks in it. He’s the steadfast, overprotective type. Especially when it comes to the one woman he can never have. It’s a long, complicated history punctuated by fights, friendship, family, and an attraction that strains his iron willpower.
When Remi Ford returns to Mackinac Island in the dead of winter with a secret, Brick makes it his mission to find out what put the shadows in those green eyes. Even if it means breaking down the walls he’s built between them. Even if it means falling for the one girl he’ll never get over.
The free-spirited artist just needs to lay low for a few weeks so she can figure a way out of this nightmare. She’s definitely not staying. Not when the man who broke her teenage heart into splinters keeps showing up at her parents’ dinner table. Remi doesn’t need broody, bearded Brick riding to her rescue…again. Not when it will put them both in danger, costing them much more than their hearts.
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Tropes:
- Slow Burn
- Frenemies To Lovers
- Small Town
Forever Never was my choice for the letter ‘F’ of my A-Z Reading Challenge and I have to say, I was slightly dreading embarking on this book.
I read By A Thread by Lucy Score at the start of March, my first introduction to the author and it wasn’t a story I enjoyed. I started off enjoying the story until about 70% in and I just felt like the story went down hill and began to drag with unnecessary filler. After reading By a Thread, I was apprehensive about reading other books by Lucy Score, especially since I had Forever Never and Things We Never Got Over on my A-Z Reading Challenge.
When it came to starting Forever Never, I willed myself to read it but it wasn’t without a massive struggle. Initially I thought and hoped that this book would potentially result in being the first book I enjoyed by her, that I had initially been apprehensive of. However, this was not the case…
Forever Never follows Remington Honeysuckle Ford “Remi” in her return to her childhood home of Mackinac Island after living in the city and following her dreams of being an artist.
Remi’s family is shocked at her sudden arrival home, along with a cast on her arm from a suspicious story of an accident she apparently had.
Upon returning home, she’s met with William “Brick” (nickname given by Remi that stuck because he was like talking to a brick wall) a man from her past, which she had a huge crush on, who eventually broke her heart before she left her hometown.
The story she presents alongside her broken wrist sparks concern within Brick who begins poking around her city life for answers, where he finds no accident report, like she initially revealed.
The two embark on a hate to loathe relationship, with Brick being the hero and Remi falling back into her roots of being the clumsy screwup that the small town know her for.
With the two living in such a small town and Brick’s boss being that of Remi’s mother, the two unintentionally grow closer whilst also navigating their feelings for one another. Brick denies his feelings for Remi with reasons believing that he cannot entertain the idea of them together, due to several reasons – these including: Remi’s history with Brick’s brother when she was a teenager, Bricks previous marriage to Remi’s childhood best friend, the age gap they share and the fact that Remi is Brick’s bosses daughter.
Despite laying down his rules to Remi, forbidding them from intertwining themselves, the two can’t stay away from one another – leading them to grow closer and closer.
After returning home, Remi seeks an agreement with Brick that allows her to use his basement as a creative art studio to allow her to return to her painting roots that she neglected following her accident. Brick realises this agreement would be a bad idea for him sticking to his rules, so initially sets out a plan to turn down the agreement – only once meeting with her, he agrees because he can’t say no to her. However, as the pair share Brick’s space, he becomes aware of her and constantly looking out for her safety.
The two have close run ins where Brick almost gives into temptation and pursue Remi, before quickly remembering his rules.
After the close run in, anger is sparked in Remi who is done being led on repeatedly by a man who’ll never reciprocate her feelings. The story flashes back to years ago, where it is learned that the pair shared an intense spicy moment together, which resulted in Brick to quickly leave town afterwards, leaving a teenage Remi heartbroken.
In order to protect herself, Remi begins giving Brick the cold shoulder to prevent herself from being hurt again. Only they can’t stay away from one another in such a small town.
Brick eventually learns the truth about her return to Mackinac Island, which entails her being involved in a car accident with her friend Camille in the city, after her friend attempts to leave her abusive husband who after finding out, runs them off the road as warning for his wife leaving him. Remi is left to drag Camille out of the car and when help arrives, Camille’s husband claims the role of hero and claims that Remi is drunk which led to their accident. The accident results in Remi to return to her hometown of safety where Brick is, fearing of what Camille’s husband will do to her.
Following her return home, Remi is desperate to contact Camille but is unable to find answers, until Brick uses his police connections to find out an update on Camille. Later on, Camille releases a statement alluding to Alexandra (Remi’s artist name) having an alcohol problem that ultimately lead to their crash, but did so out of fear of what her husband would do.
Whilst Brick learns of the truth about Remi’s return, the pair finally give into their feelings and embark on a relationship.
Remi was forced to stay away from Camille from her husband, as he began sending her harassment notes knowing where she was hiding.
After finding out the truth, Brick calls upon the help of his estranged father to help keep eyes on Camille and her husband in the city, whilst Brick and Remi’s mother gather evidence for Camille’a husbands political fraud.
Brick’s father unexpectedly arrives in town with Camille after witnessing her abuse and fearing for her safety. Only as Camille stays with them, they begin expecting her husband’s arrival, so they begin working with the FBI to gather further evidence of her husband’s fraud. The police department are called to a fire at the local church, which turns out to be a distraction from the arrival of Camille’a husband in town. He arrives at where Remi and Camille are staying and shoots the FBI guard and Brick’s father, before abducting Remi and Camille taking them to mainland.
As the events are unfolding, Remi’s niece Hadley observes the abduction taking place and hears where he takes them, before feeding the information back to Brick.
When on the boat, Remi instructs Camille to wear a life vest, so that when the time is right, Camille can jump into the water, escaping her husband. After Camille jumps, Remi begins knocking Camille’s husband off balance by rocking the boat, preventing him from shooting.
Brick and his team arrive to save the day, before putting an end to Camille’s husband by shooting him.
I think that’s the shortest recap of a book I’ve done and I think going forward, I need to continue to make them shorter instead of recounting the whole book.
This was a short recap because I didn’t fully read the book – I read it, but I feel like I skim read it just to have it completed. I can’t really remember the little details of the book, so I’ve stuck to the main parts.
I really struggled to read this book and I thought I might’ve eventually enjoyed it once I got into it – thought it would’ve been the underdog type of book. It took me two weeks to read this book, it was probably more like 5 days, but the other days were me finding motivation and hyping myself up to read it.
I just found this book and By A Thread so unnecessary long and the plots to be dragged out way more than they needed to be. There were parts in this book that I just thought “what was the point in that”. For example, the side storyline of Remi’s sister, Kimber having marriage trouble – what relevance did that have towards Brick and Remi’s story? None! Only for them to sort through their marriage with sex!
I had a really hard time connecting to the main characters from the very start and it never developed the more I got into the book. I think this has a big role on the time it took me to read the book. I did consider DNFing this book at around 50%, but I was worried that I would miss the point it picked up. I was 40% into the book and I was like “omg I still have 60% left”. The first warning should’ve been when I first started reading it and my kindle said 12 hours until completed – 12 hours!!!!
I felt like once I hit 50ish% I was skim reading it, purely to get to the end and I was skimming past all the detail. I even skim read the spicy chapters, which is so unlike me. I like a slow burn romance, especially when they finally get to the spice, but for this book, I just didn’t care for it, I wasn’t built up with excitement for it.
The age difference had me feeling icky at times. It was mentioned in the end chapters that Brick was lusting after/had feelings for a 16 year old Remi, when he was 24. That aspect also made it hard to get into because their age gap wasn’t explicitly stated until the end, so it sort of felt like a grey area and an in between of “I think this is inappropriate and I can’t enjoy it”.
I was slightly dreading getting to this part of the A to Z Reading Challenge because I just had a feeling I wouldn’t enjoy these books and I would be in a slump.
I was really looking forward to reading the Knockemout series by Lucy Score, which is also my letter T for the challenge, but after the two books of hers I’ve read so far, I have to say I haven’t got high hopes. I’m a bit sad about it because I really wanted to like Lucy’s books and join the TikTok hype. I suppose these two books could just be bad books to start on and the Knockemout series could be something I enjoy more – we will have to see. I think I have to read those since they are her most popular books.
Overall, March was a very slow and ‘meh’ reading month for me. I felt like none of the books I read this month had wowed me or stood out at me. I read the Mindf*ck series which I enjoyed and rated 5⭐️’s, but even that wasn’t a book that hit like other books have.
Hopefully April will be a better month and I’ll read something soon that will pull me out of this slump.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5
Georgia
♥
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