And though she is technically ‘cured’, her demons continue to plague her.

After years of therapy, she has put herself out there for the first time since she was 16 and has fulfilled her dream of attending college and being a cheerleader. She hides behind goth make-up and shapeless clothes, putting on a cheerful front so that nobody knows the horror that she lives with, and nobody sees the real her – the girl that she loathes. Lexi’s cheery personality is a façade that she puts on to hide a deadly secret.

Sometimes, someone could stumble unannounced into the train wreck that is your life and begin to pull you out of the heavy rubble weighing down on your chest. But if you think from that book you can guess Lexi and Austin’s history, or predict how their story will play out, guess again. The timeline of this story matches up with events in Sweet Home, so Molly and Rome’s storyline is playing out in the background of everything that is happening with Lexi and Austin, so I’d recommend starting with that one first. Lexi is the quiet but perky goth girl who is friends with Molly, and Austin is the tattooed and pierced football-playing best friend of Rome. Lexi and Austin were both introduced in Sweet Home. “We all have secrets … Some people’s are bigger than others, that’s all.” She has given us a beautiful, insightful story with a heartachingly gorgeous romance that held me absolutely captivated – I read it in one sitting, unable to put it down – and I absolutely loved it.

She made me fall in love with two broken souls, both struggling with the demons of their past and desperately trying to find some happiness, and then she broke my heart, ripped it from my body and stomped all over it before putting it all back together again. Tillie Cole stunned me with the depth and emotional intensity of this book. After reading (and LOVING) Sweet Home, I was really excited to continue on with this series and thought I knew exactly what to expect.

Sweet fall tillie cole