Catherine met the love of her life at university and was drawn into his elite circle of privileged, hedonistic friends. But one night it all falls apart and she leaves him, shattering his life forever. Or can they? When Wes’s nosiest teammate moves in upstairs, the threads of their carefully woven lie begin to unravel. With the outside world determined to take its best shot at them, can Wes and Jamie develop major-league relationship skills on the fly?

Him Series by Sarina Bowen - Goodreads

We learn that Catherine is in hospital as she is unable to speak since ‘it’ happened. Her family and best friend visit her but nothing seems to help. I was also a bit choked up when reading as both characters suffered a loss of parents. After an emotional weekend of loss, I found my dads video camera and some recordings we did and just hearing his voice again after nearly 10 years was emotional. So when you read about their losses it hit me hard. The feelings in this book are so raw and so real it is hard to imagine this not being real. The actions and reactions of each and every one of them are realistic. If I had been in any of their situations with the lifestyle and the money I probably would be the same!

Catherine doesn’t talk. She suffers from elective mutism after witnessing a traumatic event. It all has to do with “him” but the why takes a while for the reader to discover.

Him by Clare Empson | Goodreads Him by Clare Empson | Goodreads

Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions—can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend…and a big one to learn about himself. Personally, I found the characters a bit 1-dimensional: the posh kids at Bristol Uni, the love-of-my-life hero with his 'jade-coloured' eyes - for what is supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime passionate love, there's no real chemistry or heat between our protagonists so it's difficult to buy into the central relationship around which the book is built.The main character's motivation for withholding a traumatic event from said 'love of my life' just doesn't ring true to me 'she's been raped by his best friend but she doesn't tell him because... she's afraid he might commit suicide - what?? So this is a trope I think is becoming more and more popular in recent years. You've got the group of priveliged friends who come from money. You've got the one who's never fitted in.The death of Davies’s mother from leukaemia looms large, not least because we learn that her husband neglected to tell her, or their children, that her condition was terminal. Decades later, he found a letter his mum had written to his father from hospital in which she shared her frustration at her worsening symptoms. Within a fortnight, she was dead. We’re given an insight into Catherine’s thoughts and you really do feel for her and those around her.

Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover | Goodreads Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover | Goodreads

I loved the cover for Him and I have seen the cover for Clare’s next book Mine and it’s a beauty I CANNOT wait to read! It's a pity as there is something interesting at the centre of all the (melo)dramatics: questions of female shame and undeserved guilt could have been explored with more emotional intelligence - instead they get subsumed beneath a narrative that seems to be trying too hard to pull off twists and thrills. Disappointing. But there was worse to come. Davies also details the sexual abuse he endured from his father, which began when he was around eight and continued until he was 13. Roy Davies would visit his son in his bedroom when his other two children were asleep, and ask him to take off his pyjamas. It was, says Davies, “a quiet, librarial molestation”. The first time it happened, his father issued a warning. “This is our special cuddle,” he said. “You must never tell anyone about this cuddle.” I felt there was quite a bit of repetition in the book and in the end I was shouting ( in my mind ) ‘we know’ to Catherines protests of love Catherine is suffering from Elective Mutism - unable to speak, she tells us her story through her memories. Memories of a time fifteen years before when she first meets Lucian and they enter into a relationship that is all-consuming. With breathtaking prose and more than a hint of nostalgia Catherine’s recollections show us exactly what Lucian means to her and the impact this has on the very essence of who she is.A New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Elle Kennedy grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, Ontario, and holds a B.A. in English from York University. From an early age, she knew she wanted to be a writer, and actively began pursuing that dream when she was a teenager. I also have a problem with stories where everything has already happened in the past, all the characters know what's gone on and the only tension is the artificial one of withholding the past from us - too annoying. Hardly anything happens in the present storyline at all. In a world where good men fall in the shadow of bad men and fingers are often being pointed at them, Pierre focuses on changing the narrative, speaking to misunderstandings, and unmasking their hearts. The way that Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy spun the tale of these two men falling and staying in love was absolutely timeless and beautifully real."