Only Love Can Hurt Like This by Paige Toon

 

Neither of them expected to fall in love. But sometimes life has other plans.

When Wren realises her fiancé is in love with someone else, she thinks her heart will never recover.

On the other side of the world, Anders lost his wife four years ago and is still struggling to move on.

Wren hopes that spending the summer with her dad and step-family on their farm in Indiana will help her to heal. There, amid the cornfields and fireflies, she and Anders cross paths and their worlds are turned upside-down again.

But Wren doesn't know that Anders is harbouring a secret, and if he acts on any feelings he has for Wren it will have serious fall-out for everyone.

Walking away would hurt Wren more than she can imagine. But, knowing the truth, how can she possibly stay?

There is always a big buzz around the release of a new Paige Toon novel and rightly so in my opinion because she is an author who creates one flawless book after another and you can guarantee you will not be disappointed. I couldn’t wait to start her new novel, Only Love Can Hurt Like This and what a beautiful heartfelt novel this was.

 

We are welcomed into the story as our heroine Wren has just had her heartbroken by her fiancé and at the suggestion of her mum she needs some time away which is what leads her to spending some time with her father in America on his farm. Although Wren is here for healing there are still scars that are present with the relationship with her father who has lived in America with her step mother and sister but can the distraction of the Farmers sons next door help to provide the perfect distraction this Summer?

Anders is back on his parent’s farm as there are concerns for his brother but can the arrival of the neighbour’s daughter bring some light to their darkness?

I have stared at this screen for so long now as I try to compose the words to review this book without giving anything away so that the reader experiences the same gut punch that I did when I read this book having no previous expectations.  With that said my review may seem a little lacking but I am desperate to leave you in the dark but at the same time show you how much you need to read this book.

Wren and Anders are both unforgettable characters who by then end of this book feel so real that the heartache that is felt by the characters feel so personal to the reader that it hurts, be that a quivering lip or a full-blown snotty cry this storyline will touch the hearts of so many and in a way I related to this storyline too so I felt so vulnerable reading this.

The story actually begins like so many books I have loved by Paige and other authors with a broken heart but there was still a lightness to the book as there is healing and hope as Wren begins to focus on moving forward and throws herself into a new project too. I was reading along enjoying the light tone of the book with friendships blossom, an odd spot of flirting here and there, this was the author leading me into a kind of happy bliss before spinning me full circle with something so unexpected that really knocked me off my chair. This part of the book was written with such gentle care but with such brutal raw honesty too with thoughts, feelings an emotions poured out for all involved giving such a detailed insight into this circumstance and this has to be applauded.

This was an outstanding read that I know will be on my top 5 of the year already. Whenever I read a book like this I am usually so desperate for the characters to be revisited in another book but with this novel I feel like this was a story that touched my heart and now the characters need to be left in peace, the ending was tied up perfectly and here is where the storyline deserves to end. There is so much more I would love to say on both Anders and Wren but let them into your hearts and you will see what strong, beautiful, honourable and deserving characters they really are.