Title: All I Ever Wanted
Author: Erin Moore
Published in November 2003 by Wings e-Press
Genre: Contemporary
ISBN: 1-59088-280-6
There is at least one day in everyone’s life where they think that things can’t get any words, and yet, they do. Craig James had one of those, and things have gone from bad to worse. It started out with a phone call from someone he had never wanted to hear from or see again, and gotten worse from there. His mother was dying, she had maybe a week to live, and would Craig please come home as she wanted to see him. Oh just great. It meant seeing Amber again, and that only dredged up the discovery that he is still hurting, and the pain of her betrayal on their wedding day is still unhealed. Craig once again lived through the agony of finding her in the arms of another man, and it was not just any man. But his best friend, Brian, was the man she apparently wanted. On a day that should have been one of his happiest, their betrayal had ruined not only his life, but had violently and cruelly robbed him of all his dreams as well.
The taste of her betrayal is still bitter on his tongue even after ten years. The prospect of seeing Amber Toadvine sends chills down his spine, and they weren’t necessarily the good ones. The facts were only too clear, she hadn’t wanted him then, but he has wised up, and isn’t going to be a sucker again. If he has to put up with her for a while for his mother’s sake, he might survive, but never again would he open himself to the kind of wrenching pain she had subjected him to before. Never would she get the chance to wreak havoc with his life or his heart again. It had taken him years, and even caused the estrangement between him and his mother. Craig is not in a forgiving mood. Oh, this threat she’s faced with is very real, and not a laughing matter, and he will help her in this, but then he’s outta there and on his way home. He has a life, a career, and he wasn’t looking for Amber to be a part of it ever again. One betrayal was enough…
It was hard on her then, and it is not any easier now. He walked out on her, left her flat and she had suffered for his carelessness a long time. If it wasn’t for Ruth, Amber Toadvine might not be alive today, so she has to pull herself together and deal with Craig James. He is coming because Ruth is his mother, and it just so happens he is the man who broke her heart. It really neither mattered he didn’t know the truth, nor the consequences she paid for his desertion. She hated him with every fiber of her being, and she wasn’t going to put up with him for long. If Ruth hadn’t asked her to call him, she would gladly have left things as they were. The arrangements have been made for the funeral, Ruth had planned things out meticulously, for she knew when the cancer returned, she didn’t have much time left, and didn’t want Amber to have to worry. She is hoping that her son will come, but Amber is not at all anxious to see him. Craig and pain are an equation she wants to avoid at all costs.
When Craig shows up, Amber is totally unprepared for the effect he has on her. He is still the same man she once loved, his appearance hasn’t changed, but his demeanor has, and he is distant, aloof, and guarded. It is better to leave him alone and give him what time she can with his mother. If he wouldn’t have run away things might have been different, but its too late, and she isn’t going to worry about that now. Thank heavens he won’t be around that long, and then her life, her grievously empty life can get back to normal. The one thing that she wasn’t counting on is the promise that Ruth extracted from her, the promise to tell Craig the truth of what happened. Now she is faced with her past coming back to haunt her on more than one front. Not only is the man who broke her heart back in town, but the man who raped her has escaped from prison, and it determined to take her life…
Erin Moore’s breakout novel, All I Ever Wanted, is the story of a series of events that left two people hurting and scarred. Only the impending death of a person they both loved can draw them back together, but it is a bond that is fragile at best. Inexperienced at love, and totally unaware of the whole story, the sight of the only woman he ever loved in the arms of another man was too much for Craig James to handle. Now that ten years have passed, he found things hadn’t changed all that much. The pain and humiliation was still lurking around the corner, and slammed into him every time he sees Amber. Only the death-bed promise, made to his dying mother, would keep him in town a bit longer. All she asked was that he look for the truth.
All I Ever Wanted is an interesting story. I have read books written by “Master Storytellers” that didn’t move me as much as this book did. I didn’t know who to love, who to hate, and there were times when I wanted to shake them both. But when the final die is cast, the story draws you to the conclusion without any sense of ambivalence. You are solidly behind Craig and Amber, and really hoping that all is finally and truly forever. All I Ever Wanted is available now from Wings e-Press, and as for Ms Moore…I hope that we shall be treated to more from her. A romantic yet suspenseful story, All I Ever Wanted is a book you will read again and again.
Yours in good reading,
Rose!
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