Sunday, April 10, 2016

Book Review: After the Rain by Renee Carlino

After the Rain
By Renee Carlino
Release Date: November 11, 2014
Source: Amazon
When eighteen-year-old Avelina Belo meets a charismatic cowboy the summer before her senior year of high school, she doesn’t know that accepting his invitation to dinner will lead to a whirlwind marriage three months later and an exciting new life on a Montana ranch. She also doesn’t know that, in a few short years, fate will send everything crashing down around her.

A thousand miles away and fresh out of medical school, Nate Meyers is poised to become UCLA’s next superstar heart surgeon. His laser focus is the key to his success, but it’s also his greatest liability. When a routine surgery ends in disaster, derailing his career, he’s confronted with the hard truth: there’s no one waiting for him at home, no one to help him pick up the pieces.

Regrouping on his uncle’s Montana ranch, Nate meets Avelina, a beautiful but mysterious young woman who keeps to herself and barely speaks a word. As he discovers the details of her devastating past, Avelina teaches him more about matters of the heart than he ever knew before. But can they trust each other enough to put everything on the line?




After reading my first Renee Carlino book last summer, I have been dying to pick up another one. She knows how to write a good, emotional romance and I was excited to read one that took place on a ranch with a hunky doctor and a broken girl. 

Avelina met the love of her life when she was 18 years old. She found herself dropping out of high school, marrying her cowboy, and moving to a ranch in Montana. A few years later, though, her fairy tale comes crumbling down. Across the country, Nate has worked his entire life to become a heart surgeon only to have one mistake threaten his entire career. Seeking refuge at his Uncle's farm in Montana, Nate is intrigued by the quiet, anti-social, and beautiful Avelina. Nate tries to get to know her, but Avelina doesn't know if she can ever forgive herself for her broken past. 

Right from the start, this book broke my heart. I mean, from the synopsis, I knew that Ava wasn't going to be with the guy she fell in love with at the beginning of the novel. Ughhhhhh. So I was just waiting for something tragic to happen and the waiting just made the actual moment the worst. I wanted her to be happy so badly, but I understood her guilt for even living because of what had happened. Nate was a tricky character. I wasn't a fan of how cold and work-driven he was in the beginning, but that was definitely necessary to contrast who he became when he stayed at the ranch for six weeks. I loved the growth he went through and the person he became in the end. 

What stopped me from giving this a five star rating was Ava's constant inability to let Nate in. She would be totally into him, and then run away scared, and I feel like this cycle went on a bit too many times. I get that she was scarred from her loss and guilty about what had happened, but it got a bit tiring by the end. 

In the end, this was another hit from Renee Carlino. After the Rain delivers the heart-wrenching pain of a lost love and the endearing sweetness of learning to love again.



1 comment:

  1. This looks great. I may need to get a hold of it myself.

    ReplyDelete

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