Another by Fiona Cole will end up on every short list for Best Romance Reads of 2019. Trust me, everyone should read Another immediately. Carina stole my heart from the first flirt and Ian Bergamo is the book boyfriend who will haunt your dreams long after you’ve read his final sweet declarations.
I read Another in one sitting, it's so damn good. It's unique and torturous. Sure, it has Cole’s signature carnal delights—hot and dirty from the first flirt, the humor singes every page. However, Cole has created something really special here. I LOVE THIS STORY.
Cole surprises with page after page of low key swoon that grows into high octane sex, building a sultry, slow burn of a story. With Another, she has a command for nuance, where in an earlier book she might have gone for the carnal erotic visual, here she lingers on the emotional flow of the relationship, on the intimate moments between people falling in love.
It's beautiful and raw. Carina and Ian have chemistry to burn, and their self-awareness of what is happening is a joy to read. The signature suspense lies not in some outside trauma, but in the anguished histories that scarred their hearts and made their first meeting possible. So clever. I can’t wait to reread.
Carina, oh my Carina. She is strong and brilliant and a fantastic heroine. But she’s complicated, not the least of all because her past and her family hold her back. She is skittish, and thank god her journey is safe in the tender hands of Ian. The ribbing between these two is so easy and pitch perfect.
Iiiaaaann! Ian Bergamo is FlockHot and we all need a man like him in our lives. He's gonna end up in the book boyfriend Hall of Fame, he's so damn incredible and REAL. Ian’s not some cookie cutter jerkhole of the week, invented to torture a good woman with low self esteem. He's a great lead with a strong moral code, and a hole in his massive bleeding heart from his own backstory. He’s written so well, just waiting for a family to devote himself to. I crushed hard.
I’m not going to spoil this fantastic story. But I wanted to call out Cole’s choice to use a light touch to write a story with massive stakes on such a subtle, nuanced scale. The major conflict derives from within Carina and Ian themselves. It’s an internal journey of the soul. And it’s a credit to her maturing writing that she escalates it so well, and she makes it look effortless.
Cole goes one step further, and doesn’t simply vilify anyone. It's a familiar storytelling trope to make the parents complete assholes, or to rely on the monster mom or the absentee dad, to explain away the hurdles to HEA.
This story is told with a subtle yet humorous hand and SUSTAINED. It's so good I was wrapt. There are no easy predictable moments here. I was drawn into every scene, and felt the moments between these two. Frankly, I didn’t even need anyone else in the story, Carina and Ian together are such a compelling couple, they twisted me up, my throat clenching for them, and I felt their internal drama and the longing, so much love and need. It’s a winner.
KC Caron
Aphrodites Reading Alphas