BOOK REVIEW: 'Our Love Unhinged' by Brighton Walsh—5 Stars

The final installment of the Reluctant Hearts series, Our Love Unhinged, is out! Don’t miss this beautiful ending to a MUSTREAD series.

[For Mature Audiences; Some Spoilers]

If you’re a contemporary romance fan and you haven’t read Brighton Walsh’s Reluctant Hearts series, then we can’t be friends…

…OK, I won’t really go that far, but seriously, Brighton and her words are phenomenal and naturally bring out my need to use hyperbole.

Over the course of three books in the series (Caged in Winter, Tessa Ever After, Paige in Progress) we get to know a group of six friends and watch three couples fall in love and build lives together.

At the end of Paige in Progress, Paige and Adam are in the wedding party for two of their best friends… but who?

Earlier this month, We So Nerdy was one of 12 blogs that helped reveal Brighton’s surprise book release for Our Love Unhinged!

It turns out the mystery couple is Cade and Winter, and the novella takes us back several months to explore the journey that leads us to the matrimonial HEA.

When we first meet Winter, she is guarded and deeply suspicious of Cade’s interest. But over time, she falls in love with his kind persistence and generous spirit. As for Cade, the moment he meets Winter, he’s head-over-heels for her and determined to protect her, even from herself.

Through fights and arguments and anger and, yeah, pain, there still hasn’t been a single day without Cade putting a smile on my face at least once. When he came crashing into my life those years ago, he brought his light until it was fused into every part of me, filling up my emptiness and shadows.

With two years under their belt, Cade and Winter decide they want to make things official by walking down the aisle. However, Winter has a big reservation:

I’d like to wear his wing, too, and not just because it’d make him happy. Because it’d make me happy to see that sign of his love on my body every single day. But I can’t deny that it terrifies the ever-loving shit out of me. Does he even know what he’s doing, tying himself to me for the rest of his life?

That old feeling of inadequacy resurges… if she couldn’t compel her own mother to stay with her, what hope does she have of keeping Cade for the rest of her life?

This wedding… tying Cade to myself for the rest of our lives… It isn’t just me who could get hurt if all this does to shit—if I fail at being part of a family. And, really, what the hell do I know about that?

The fact that planning her wedding should be something shared with her mother continues to bring up the feelings of abandonment and insecurity.

In Our Love Unhinged, over the course of five months we watch Winter and Cade weather this storm together and build the foundation for their life, one that works perfectly for them.

You know, one of the best things about reading a series where you already know the main characters is that you can dive right in to the most delicious sexy times. And thank goodness for Brighton, because that is exactly what she does:

I barely have time to blink before his mouth is on me, devouring me like he hasn’t had me in days, weeks, months, when in fact it’s been mere hours. I can’t see, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but move my hands to his head, rubbing my fingers over the rough velvet of his close-cropped hair, and hold him to me, willing to go wherever he plans to take me. Always… No matter how many times we’re together, this feeling of complete and utter belonging never goes away.

But Winter also finds belonging in their group of friends, especially Tessa (Cade’s sister), who steps in and holds Winter’s hand through the wedding jitters.

And by the time we get to the big day, our hearts are so full with love and joy, not just for Winter and Cade, but their family/friends too.

Since this is the last book in the series, Brighton gives us a beautiful ending and we have certainty that these characters are living wonderful and fulfilled lives.

It’s glorious!

Our Love Unhinged is best enjoyed after reading the first three books in the Reluctant Hearts series, so make sure to add the entire series to your TBR list and grab your copies today.

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