I have always been a fan of Amber Nation’s Brown County series. All of the characters have been wonderful to get to know and read about. I will say this one though, captured my attention and heart and had me invested very early in the book. As with all of her books, you start out with broken people who are struggling to find a place to call home, someone to care about them and follow dreams they might not even know they have.
When Mike is working at the shop, waiting for the call that will tell him if his mother is seriously ill, his world shatters when the phone rings but it isn’t about his mom, it is about his little Princess. The news will devastate him and cause him to give up on everything in life. Anger and regret, guilt over not doing more will suck the last drop of energy from his soul and he will stay in his own vessel of grief till the next loss comes. From that moment he moves from his home town and relocates to Brown County and dedicates his life to becoming a paramedic. Later in the story we will understand why he does this, what 12 minutes means to him. To keep busy he also plays in a band and works as a part time mechanic. He has a few friends but he prefers to be isolated and never giving his heart to anyone else, but then he goes on a call and rescues Sheridan. No matter how many times he tells himself he will never love another woman, there is something about Sheridan that has his heart acting before his brain can catch up.
Sheridan is on the run from an abusive boyfriend. Having her dreams traded in for what she thought was love; she finds her life has become a nightmare instead. We find out as the story goes on just what she has lost in her life do to Pate the boyfriend and what she is still hiding from everyone, including Mike. When she struggles to understand why the paramedic that helped her after she was involved in a car accident, keeps coming to check on her in the hospital, it takes her breathe away when he offers her a place to stay. Even with a broken foot, bruised ribs and night after night of horrifying nightmares she has decided she will repay Mike for his kindness but not relent to her strong desire to be with him.
With attraction coming from both of them, they fight the urge to give in and we have a different kind of sparks flying, which I loved watching. Both of them broke my heart and resurrected my belief in mankind and the ability to start again after you have lost the most important things and people to you. Sheridan is without a doubt my favorite character so far when it comes to not playing the victim and focusing on being a survivor. She knows what she wants, she has no clue how to get it but she took the first step she knew needed to be done and then started making things happen.
The ending is powerful and intense but it isn’t a cliff hanger. We were reconnected with the characters from previous books, which if you follow my reviews you know is a huge plus for me as a reader. I can only add that with this book, I had a sense of being part of the community more than I have had with the other two books. I have always said I would love to live in this community and this story of Mike and Sheridan just made me envious of it even more. Brown County has become this mystical place that soothes the broken hearted, friends the lonely and grants acceptance and grace to even the most tortured souls. Who wouldn’t want to live there?