Review: Louder Than Love by Jessica Topper (Love & Steel #1)


"You've got all this...this love--no, it's louder than love. It's passion and beauty built up inside you that deserves to burst out," I whispered against his mouth as we came up for air.


A tragic train accident made Katrina Lewis a widow and her baby daughter fatherless. Three years have gone by since then and with the love and support of her family and friends, she's trying to create the best life possible for four-year-old Abbey and herself. She loves working as a volunteer librarian at her local public library and decides to invite the singer/songwriter of a very popular children's television show's theme song to an event. She's not sure what to make of Adrian Graves but she's quickly aware of his ability to build a rapport with the group of attending kids that happens to include Abbey. The connection between Kat and Adrian is palpable and soon, their feelings evolve into something much deeper than either anticipated. But they're burdened by secrets that could spell the end to their passionate love affair.

It's been two days since I finished reading this book and I'm still feeling quite gobsmacked by the tale of Kat Lewis and Adrian Graves. Is it possible to be smitten with a love story this unique and written in such an enticing manner and brought to life by a quirky cast of characters that you wish you could count as your friends in real life? With a book like author Jessica Topper's Louder Than Love, the series starter to Love & Steel, anything's possible, including experiencing true love twice in a lifetime and in such an improbable circumstance. Once I started reading this, everything else disappeared, swept away by the highs and lows that Kat and Adrian went through in their past and were experiencing in their present. There are moments that made me sigh in happiness and contentment, while other times I had to sigh in sadness and empathy.

Kat and Adrian are wonderfully flawed and wounded main characters, still making errors in judgment even though she's in her mid-thirties and he's in his early forties. They're human and with their life experiences, they've become wary and slow to trust even their own instincts and hearts at times. I loved Kat's group of hilariously diverse friends and her brother is a hoot as well. Adrian is somewhat of a loner and his story about how he lost his best friend and band mates is a bit heartbreaking even as it serves as an important life lesson. Abbey is a scene-stealer, preciously precocious but never to the point of grating. Everyone else is there to lend support to Kat and Adrian, who I giddily count as one of my top fictional book couples. These soulmates passed through heaven and hell and everywhere in between to be together.

I know this book was released in two years ago, give or take a day, but I'm a firm believer in the idea that it's never too late to discover and appreciate a book worthy of the time you put into it. This is by no means a quick read but I didn't even notice time ticking by as a I flipped from one page to the next. It's an absorbing and entertaining book and one that I would gladly recommend to every bookaholic out there. Jessica Topper has a true gift when it comes to storytelling and I certainly wouldn't mind a novella for Kevin Underwood, Kat's younger brother, and Liz Dooley, one of Kat's best friends and maybe a novel for Sam Summerisle to add to the Love & Steel series. But let me reiterate my adoration for Louder Than Love with a five-plus-star rating and a hope that you'll fall in love with Kat and Adrian's romance like I did. ♥

Date Read: 16 September 2015

Learn more about Jessica Topper here.

Purchase Louder Than Love on Amazon | B&N | Kobo.

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