reviews_and_ramblings | Lovers, Dreamers, and Me by Willa Okati

In a small town USA Tolliver is the manager of an antique curiosity and bookshop. The real owner is his ward, his little sister Sarah, the one he became responsible for when he was only 18 years old; six years later, Sarah is a troubled teenager who had to give in adoption her daughter. Tolliver tried to do his best, but still he was only a teenager himself, and he was not ready to be a parent. He is now scared to let Sarah go, he is like a mother hen and when he is not worried for his sister, he has only in mind the shop he needs to maintain for her.

Then in their life enters Noble, tall and mysterious. He is searching for some old tarot cards, but what he finds is Tolliver, a man who has never lived, where instead Noble has lived, and seen, too much. Tolliver is a surly type and blind to the world outside, but he is not a bad guy: he faces the world in the only way he knows. But when he sees Noble, for the first time in his life something stirs inside him, a desire he never knew: at 24 years old, Tolliver is a virgin, not only to sex but also to life.

It was Sarah who set his brother up with Noble, but now she is jealous, for the first time she fears to have to share the unconditionally love of Tolliver for her with someone else. I like that Tolliver doesn't react to her fears in the usual way, letting Noble go to satisfy the selfish behavior of his sister (don't get me wrong, Sarah is not a bad girl, she is only very young and scared). It's not Sarah's fears that come between Tolliver and Noble, but Noble's past.

Noble is a strange character; he is a seer, he sees things, but this is not at all a paranormal romance. What Noble sees are like flash of possible future, something he can change if he wants. So when he sees Tolliver, he knows that they can have something good together, and he is willing and ready to catch it. As another character in the story said, Noble didn't ask to Tolliver, he forced him to accept him in his life: if he had to wait for Tolliver to realize that he was there, he would wait forever. Tolliver has around him a thick shell, a protective shield from the world that too many time wounded him, and now to reach him, a man has to break through that shell, since from inside Tolliver is no more able to see outside.

I think this is one of the best book I read by Willa Okati, since it maintains the fairy atmosphere that I always like in her books, but it's also enough long to make me feel for the characters, and enough real to let the reader identifies with them. It's also a good mix between story and sex, and when it arrives to sex, it's good and tender and naughty, all at the same time; I noticed that, in the main sex scenes, Tolliver always ends on his back on the bed, waiting for Noble to come to him... it's very right for the story, since, as I said, Noble takes what he wants from Tolliver, almost forcing Tolliver to admit that he wants that and he wants Noble.

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Amazon Kindle: Lovers, Dreamers, and Me

Amazon: Lovers, Dreamers, and Me

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