Review: Forgetting August by J.L. Berg (Lost & Found #1)

Note: This ARC was provided by Forever (Grand Central Publishing) in exchange for an honest review.

Ryan hadn't said anything, but I knew the casual conversation he'd witnessed between August and me the night before had unnerved him.

He wasn't the only one.

It had unnerved me, too. It unraveled me and sent me to a place within my head where I didn't want to dwell.

A place where he became more than the monster I'd turned him into, and I could never allow him to be. Because if he wasn't the monster in this fucked up fairy tale, then who was?

A decade ago, they met and fell in love. She was eighteen; he was twenty-two. Forever should have been theirs, but money changed everything. Then two years ago, something happened that caused August Kincaid to slip into a coma and had Everly Adams believing she was finally free. She's re-started her life and is now happily engaged to a man who's been by her side through it all. But then she receives the phone call she's been dreading. August is awake, but having lost all his memories, he seeks to learn what kind of man he was and what kind of life he did. He could get answers from the woman he spots in a photo, their togetherness making it clear that she was quite significant to him. The last thing Everly wants is to give him an opportunity to become part of her new life, because if she does, she's afraid of history repeating itself.

Two things I want to mention straight off about Forgetting August: 1. This was my very first J.L. Berg read, though I have the boxed set of her Ready series waiting for me on my Kindle app, and 2. This ends in the kind of cliffhanger that had me frustrated because I now have no choice but to wait three months for the release of the sequel, Remembering Everly. This being my initial foray into J.L. Berg's writing, may I just say that I was impressed with her ability to tell a second chance romance that had me swinging between anxiousness and hopefulness all throughout. Is it possible to fall in love with the very same person who made life unbearable at the end of your previous relationship? The question is, did they ever fall out of love in the first place? There's anger, hurt, and despair, but amidst the angst is the fight for love.

August Kincaid and Everly Adams's relationship was the kind that they both thought would end in happily-ever-after. But it's clear from Everly's reaction to learning that August has emerged from his coma that things weren't as peachy as they once were prior to the accident that August suffered two years ago. Even with August's amnesia, Everly is distrustful of him, having difficulty in separating the man August was before she walked away from him and the August now that reminds her of the man she fell in love with wrapped in someone new. If things weren't complicated enough, there's Ryan (no last name mentioned), an absolutely kind-hearted guy who loves and accepts Everly unconditionally and with whom Everly has created a comfortable home and life. I couldn't help but feel for Ryan after August regains consciousness.

This was a fast-paced story and a creatively unconventional romance. Everly's feelings for August are complex, even after their relationship eventually unraveled and even though she loved Ryan and was now engaged to him. Their are choices that she makes that I may not have necessarily agreed with, but then I honestly wouldn't know what I would do if the man I once loved woke up from a coma, had no memories, and was a new version of himself, very different from the monster that she believed he had become before the accident. There's also a twist to their love story, once that's barely hinted at, but its revelation at the end of this first book results in a cliffhanger that, simply put, is pure evil. Yes, evil, because I'm left waiting until March 1, 2016 to find how the story is resolved and to get answers to each of my lingering questions.

I have no idea what it is I should expect going into the Remembering Everly, what with how everything ended between August and Everly and how they were acting toward each other at the end of this first book. In terms of storytelling and writing per se, I'm expecting high quality from J.L. Berg, not only because she's got a loyal fan following that's sung her praises in the past, but because I've experienced it for myself with the Lost & Found series starter. I may just choose to not have any expectations when it comes to how the rest of the story will unfold, because I sure didn't see a couple of things coming here. I may complain often about evil cliffhangers, but stories like Forgetting August--the kind that end up with me fully invested in the characters--and authors like J.L. Berg make the wait worthwhile. Five-plus stars. ♥

Release Date: 01 December 2015

Date Read: 01 December 2015

Learn more about J.L. Berg.

Purchase Forgetting August on Amazon | B&N | Kobo.