The Garden by @rosalind_abel #REVIEW

The Garden, Rosalind Able
Lavender Shores #2
Beautiful Gilbert Bryant designs jewelry for the rich and famous, and he made his escape from his gossipy little hometown of Lavender Shores. However, with so many friends and family, he keeps getting pulled back. When he attends his best friend’s engagement party, Gilbert can’t help but sample one of the new men in town. It’s just some innocent—or not so innocent—fun. Nothing that will even cross his mind once he gets back to his everyday life.
Walden Thompson dreamed about living in Lavender Shores since he visited as a child. He finally gets his chance, and he embraces the opportunity to start over, to become someone new. He leaves both hurts and dangerous habits in the past, where they belong. When Gilbert crosses his path, Walden gives in to his baser instincts. He can indulge in the carnal pleasures this once and still be okay.
Their few hours together haunt Gilbert, the two-hundred-mile buffer from home no longer shutting out the past or the sexy man he left behind. Walden is just beginning to recover from the smoldering encounter with Gilbert when they are thrust together once more. This time, neither of them can walk away, no matter how hard they try. But when their pasts crash into each other as surely as the magnetism that pulls them together, walking away may be the only option.



REVIEW:
This second installment to the Lavender Shores series was quite different from the first. These characters were both flawed and damaged in very different ways.

Gilbert is a member of one of the founding families of LS, but would prefer to never set foot in the small idyllic haven. Every time he sets foot in town he is confronted with a past he can't seem to get over.

Walden thinks of LS as his safe place. The place he came to as a child for family vacations became the one place he could be himself and escape his problems.

When the two men meet they both thinks it's a scratch an itch, one time hook up. It's only after that they realize it could be so much more if they can forgive themselves for their past mistakes.

I liked so many things about this book, I appreciated the growth and time that the author took with these two characters and that it wasn't all "fixed" by love. The chemistry is there from the beginning and it's off the charts hot but the trust took longer to come.

All the wonderful secondary characters from the first book are there and a few new ones are thrown in. I am excited to see where this series goes next because the first two stories were so different I think it could be anywhere!



BUY LINK:
AMAZON



RATING: 4 Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries. This book was given to us by the author.