Just finished...and smiling so huge right now. I finally feel lighter after a few days of a heavy heart. The epilogue took the darkness away and I finally felt their happiness & peace. Simply beautiful.

This is the first KA novel that I have read where it didn’t take me to my happy place until the very end. I didn’t feel moments of glee or find myself grinning/chuckling; for me, this book was heavier than any other KA book I have read.

I am a wimpy, emotional reader. Often I find myself getting so drawn into the story that I have a hard time separating fiction from reality (silly, I know). I get so engrossed in the story and attached to the characters that it is as if their emotions start leaking into my own. Stories and characters stick with me long after I have finished an amazing and/or upsetting book. Because of this, I tend to veer away from sad, heartbreaking and/or books with dark themes. I simply can’t handle it; I prefer my HEA high over a heavy heart (so does my husband since he has to pick up the pieces when I suffer from a fiction based meltdown).

From the very beginning of Creed, I felt anxious. The intensity of the story was constant. I found myself feeling on edge each time I started the next chapter; the story gripped me to the point of needing to take breaks just to process what had been revealed (I usually whip through KA books and cannot put them down) . I woke in the middle of the night thinking of Creed & Sylvie’s painful history. The flashbacks of their past and Sylvie’s dreams left me heartbroken and breathless. The amount of cruelness Creed & Sylvie suffered and what was TAKEN from them in the most deplorable ways was devastating. As difficult as I found to read about their past and the scars they both carried with them every day, I never stopped rooting for them, loving them and felt the need to push through to the end of their emotional journey right along with them.

Because of the feelings this book evoked (even if they were mostly painful), I must give it a 5 star rating. The way KA wrote this story by weaving the past and the future together through flashbacks and dreams was brilliant. I felt like I was watching a relationship rebuild from an incredible foundation that was laid down 16 years earlier. Because of the way she pieced it together, the bond/connection Sylvie & Creed shared was so pure that they could not be anything other than soul mates…and as the reader I could never give up on them and this story. For me, in the end, Sylvie & Creed’s future finally overshadowed their painful/devastating past and I found my KA happy place.

I have now read 26 KA novels and 99% of them I have read twice (sometimes 3 or 4 times…no judging please). That said, I will not reread Creed. I will leave Creed & Sylvie on their pier in peace and not look back at the long painful journey it took for them to finally get the happiness they deserved. I will replay the beautiful epilogue in my head and remember the HEA they finally found.