✜ M. O'Keefe ✜ The Heart of it ✜ #excerpt ✜

©  ✰ Bianca  ✰ Janeane  ✰

M. O'KEEFE
THE HEART OF IT

• a short novella previously published in the Summer Rain Anthology

• Release Date: 29 February 2016

★★★★★

4.5 Stars

On the outside rich and successful Gabe Paterson has everything.

No one would guess the ghosts from his past are tearing him apart.

Desperate, he reaches out to Elena – a resilient call girl, with her own childhood scars – for help.

In their moments of honesty, the two forge the most surprising relationship of their lives.

But will they be brave enough to make it into something more?

How to start a summary about such a short story without spoiling anything? ☺
It was a dark and rainy night in Toronto ☺

Gabe enters this bar on one of upper floors of a Hotel....hoping to meet her.



Elena.
He must've seen her before in there, but we don't know what's between them, or if he's just a bit of a stalker.

They talk - he tells her some truths, some lies....
But through it all he's scared, afraid this won't work.
Why he is afraid we don't know yet.

We only know that they end up in Elena's room...
But what happens in that room....I won't tell you.
But it's probably not what you think ....

What's with Gabe & Elena?
Do they know each other?
What happened in their pasts?
Will there be a HEA?
Will everybody die at the end?

I'm not telling you that of course ☺

 _____________________________________________________

This was a really interesting little thing.
I literally had NO idea what was happening during the first 20% of the story ☺☺☺
But I immediately liked Gabe - with all his fears and weaknesses and whatnot.
Bad things happened in his past and in Elena's too....
Both have suffered in the past and baring their souls now in front of each other might be the perfect way to start healing....

I really liked the story - I liked Simon a lot too and you can easily imagine a happy little ever after with them as a family!

I might have had some tears in my eyes here and there ☺



I think I would've loved the story even more with another 200 pages added to it! There's sooo much story to be told about both of them....

THE HEART OF IT was a really interesting and moving little novella about two lonely and broken souls who might've finally found their other half☺

ARC received for an honest review.

OK, I am not going to lie. As I started reading this, I had no idea what was happening.  Were they strangers?  Were they a married couple trying to spice things up a little?

But I instantly liked Gabe and Elena.  Gabe was like a little boy in a big man's body.  The hurts from the past are still affecting him.  Elena could be just the perfect person for him.

Baring their souls to each other is the best form of therapy, allowing each of them to start to move forward - but are they moving on together or alone.

The little scene stealer in this quick read is Simon. He was just too adorable for words!

It is hard with such a short story to no have things feel rushed.  But that was not an issue at all with The Heart Of It.  Although I would like to know more about Elena, Gabe and Simon.

Maybe, Ms O'Keefe, we could get more in the future?

 

EXCERPT

“The fuck, Elena? Get out of the way and let the poor man go.

But she couldn’t. Her feet were nailed to the floor by the scent of his fear, the power of his desperation.

And because it had been four damn weeks of this. All this bravery and all this fear.

He’s a fucked up person in a world of fucked up people. Do not get all hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold over this.

But he was just so damn sweet. And sad.

“Please,” he breathed. “Let’s just forget this.”

Oh, fat chance, buddy.”

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 Molly O'Keefe has always known she wanted to be a writer (except when she wanted to be a florist or a chef and the brief period of time when she considered being a cowgirl). And once she got her hands on some romances, she knew exactly what she wanted to write.

She published her first Harlequin romance at age 25 and hasn't looked back. She loves exploring every character's road towards happily ever after.

Originally from a small town outside of Chicago, she went to university in St. Louis where she met and fell in love with the editor of her school newspaper. They followed each other around the world for several years and finally got married and settled down in Toronto, Ontario. They welcomed their son into their family in 2006, and their daughter in 2008. When she's not at the park or cleaning up the toy room, Molly is working hard on her next novel, trying to exercise, stalking Tina Fey on the internet and dreaming of the day she can finish a cup of coffee without interruption.