Anything can happen in a.... Heartbeat by Faith Sullivan

Hi guys!

Welcome back to the place that's not afraid to breach the new frontier in reading, even if she still prefers tree books as her number one reading source...Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.

That's right!  Today, we're delving into the land of Young Adult eBooks...you know, the electronic land of bookish works?  Yeah, that place.  As many of you know, I'm a BIG tree book fan myself (*high fives to all those fellow paper book readers out there*) but there are occasions where I take a literary wander into ebook land and discover something worth noting.  Today's choice certainly falls into that category with a great big THUNK...even though I wasn't so certain when I initially reached the end.  Curious?  You should be but don't worry, I won't let you squirm TOO long.  Today's ebook of choice is...

Heartbeat

by

Faith Sullivan

About the book....

Katie and Adam are afraid of love.
She carries the scars of a first kiss gone terribly wrong.
He uproots his life to flee the stinging betrayal of an ex.
When trust is no longer an option, all romance is suspect.
As a young paramedic, Adam rescues people for a living but cannot save himself. Katie, just out of high school, struggles with a tortured home life she cannot escape.
Everything changes when Katie hops into the front seat of Adam's ambulance. Overwhelmed by what they are feeling, neither possess the confidence to make the first move. They walk away from each other, full of regret.
To find her, Adam risks his future. To be with him, Katie sacrifices her security.
Little do they know, what little time they do have, is being measured by a heartbeat that is slowly dying out.

This is one of those books that required an immediate reread of the final pages before I could really understand what had occurred....resulting in a WHAT THE MONKEY moment of exclamation, a few beats of frustration and then utter content in having been so convinced of everything the author created that I was completely drawn in for better or worse.  Oh...and it was definitely for the better.

Here we have Adam and Katie.  Two souls initially on different paths, thrown together by chance, circumstance and eventually fate.  Their destinies were intertwined from the moment they met with a finality to it all that could never be guessed.  We begin at the scene of an accident, move into missed chances of the heart and wind up in a battle royale for ownership of the same.  Adam is a lad with a past but nothing that would rock your psyche too much (in fact, it might simply shock you for the BETTER) and he's certainly pursuing a noble career path aimed at helping others.  Katie is a girl short on experience with a bad run in haunting her past that's anything but fair, a grandmother who's soon to pass from her life and a father that doesn't deserve the moniker bestowed on him by biology (he's a monster, plain and simple).  Despite it all, she's sweet, kind,  and trusting.  She gives of herself completely even when it's tough and in doing so forges relationships that may be few but bring joy into her life as well as people she can depend on.  They are a great if unexpected duo that remind us that it's not how much we have, but the love that we share that makes this life worth living.  Now back to that story...

The length of the story required things to progress quickly if they were to cover any ground, so at times, I found the advancement of things happening a little TOO fast, pushing the envelope on that which was believable.  Still, when all things are considered it worked.  The same can be said about the intensity with which the emotions were felt throughout the story.  The ending however, oh my that ending.  I'm not kidding when I say I had to reread it.  I did!  The last few pages helped me sort out exactly what occurred and what key piece of information I had read earlier that made it all make sense.  Initially, I felt cheated...hoodwinked...like the wool of a few sheep had been drawn over my eyes and I'd lost a few hours I'd never get back.  Then, I contemplated it....rolled it around my mind a bit and came back with a respect for what the author had done, the story she created and the intense yet brief relationship we had been a part of.  Well done, well done indeed.

In summary, a great read for older teens through adult readers looking to while away an afternoon.  You'll get lost in the sweetness of young love.  Thrill to the hope of catching a sideways glance,  the brush of their hand, the anticipation of that first kiss.  It's all in here and more, just remember...anything can happen in a heartbeat.

Ebook for review courtesy of author Faith Sullivan.  (THANKS!)  For more information on this title as well as her other works, be sure to stop by her blog, or follow along on Twitter.  This title is available now for an ereading device or app near you, along with book 2, Come What May....and book 3 is scheduled for later this year!  Gotta love it when the discovery of a new author introduces a slew of new reads to explore.

Until next time...happy reading!