BEFORE YOU by MARNI MANN

‘Some stories had the power to change lives forever. This story changed an entire town.’

Marni Mann wowed us again with the dark emotional romance Before You, absolutely blindsiding us with a compelling and thrilling story-line that had us guessing until the very end. It was oh so very clever and packed an incredible emotional punch. We urge you to go into this story blind so we will not be telling you anything about the actual story in this review, we’d rather tell you about how we felt on this brilliant reading journey.

‘I squeezed her as tight as I could, and I said the one thing I could promise her, “I’m not going to let go of you.”

The way in which Before You is written felt unique and was surprisingly intense, considering the way in which the chapters were outlined. Two heart-breaking and emotional romances entwined into one impactful story of love, tragedy and forgiveness. We felt like we were reading two different books, needing more as each chapter finished. The angst level was intense as was the powerful character connections. Our hearts broke over and over again throughout this story and at times we had chills on the back of our necks when the fear and emotions hit an all-time high. The romances were on one hand sweet and very soulful, and on the other side, dark and oh so sexy.

‘It hurt like hell to know, after only six months, we were already here. At the end. And the look on her face told me I’d shattered her heart.’

We cannot explain how much we loved this story, how it was written and the way in which the story developed and played out. It was literally riveting to the point that both of us read it from start to finish, in one sitting. So why not five stars? We loved the characters so much that we wholeheartedly felt their every emotion, their pain, their devastation, their hope and their love. What we did feel was missing was an epilogue. Some stories need them, some don’t, however Before You really needed one in our opinion. A very important aspect for a specific character’s story didn’t get the much-deserved closure needed, and we craved to hear the voice of this particular character. When you fall in love as deeply as we did with all the characters in Before You, you need closure for them all. We clicked to the very end, hoping there was an epilogue hiding somewhere and so wish there had been. Despite this though, we have to say that this book needs to be on your kindle because it’s so very powerful and poignant.

‘She loved him with an intensity she hadn’t known existed. A feeling that went beyond words.’