⇩⇩⇩ Link to review for book one (Cold and Broken) ⇩⇩⇩
RATING: ★★★★★
TITLE: Relentless (Titans of Founder’s Ridge, #2)
AUTHOR: Nichole Greene
RELEASE DATE: August 31, 2020
SETTING: Massachusetts, US
PUBLISHER: Independently Published
GENRE(S): New Adult Contemporary Romance, Step-Brother Romance, Friends to Lovers
Thank you to Nichole Greene and Literary Bound Tours for my advanced copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.
Blurb:
“The boy with the golden arm grew into a golden god, sent to make me atone for the sins of our past.”
The last person Ivy Bane expected to be her new stepbrother was Levi Marsh, the boy she had lost her heart and virginity to at summer camp two years before. Though she had been young, her feelings for him were real. Unfortunately, he seemed to have regretted sleeping with her and no longer wrote letters to her after that summer when she had given herself to him.
Levi had never stopped caring for Ivy. Even though he never heard from her again after the summer when they lost their virginity, he had written her incessantly. He had worked hard to get over her but seeing her again proved that had not happened. So, rather than getting over her, he decided to do everything he could to get her back, and he couldn’t have been happier than when she finally would have him again.
Dark forces in their lives though don’t want them to be happy. Ivy and Levi would lose each other again and be forced apart for years. But, when work brings them back together in adulthood, Levi sees his chance to have his Ives back. He still loves her, so why shouldn’t they try to make it work? As life tries to rip them apart time and time again, will their love for each other be enough to keep them together?
Relentless tells the story of Ivy and Levi between three different time lines. We get to see the formative years, where the two went to the same summer camp, the years in between that paralleled the previous book of Connor and Lilith, and then three years later into their collective future (which I assume the third book in the series will continue in with Griffin’s story).
For some reason, I tend to gravitate towards the second book in almost any given series. This series is no different. I adored Connor and Lilith, but there was something about Levi even in “Cold and Broken” that I was drawn to. And that was no different in this book. Levi was absolutely everything. There is just something about Nichole Greene’s male love interests/leads. She has a knack for writing the most swoon-worthy guys and truly kick ass females. There is a usual formula in this type of contemporary romance that one could easily see done time and time again. But, Greene does it so well that it seems fresh and new each time. I will actively seek her books out in the future.
All my shameless gushing aside, let’s get down to what this book was about. Ivy and Levi were destined to fail due to the fact that even though they knew each other and fell in love before their parents met, her mom and his dad still got married, leaving the two to coexist in the same house with virtually no supervision, while both of their hormones were rampant. Secrets were kept from both of them, leaving them to not stand a chance. But, they changed the whole story when their love was stronger than anything standing in their way.
Not only do we get a heavy dose of Ivy and Levi in this story, we get the welcomed embrace of Connor and Lilith from the previous books, as well as lots of Griffin and the possible romance to be had in the next book, which I cannot wait for.
feather bound books 