Review: Full Measures by Rebecca Yarros
Full Measures
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Imprint: Entangled Embrace
Genre: New Adult | Contemporary Romance | Military Romance
Pages: 374
Characters: Ember Howard & Josh Walker
Release Date: February 10th 2014
Find it at: Goodreads | Publisher
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes | Audible
Summary
Three knocks can change everything…
“She knew. That’s why Mom hadn’t opened the door. She knew he was dead.”
Twenty years as an army brat and Ember Howard knew, too. The soldiers at the door meant her dad was never coming home. What she didn’t know was how she would find the strength to singlehandedly care for her crumbling family when her mom falls apart.
Then Josh Walker enters her life. Hockey star, her new next-door neighbor, and not to mention the most delicious hands that insist on saving her over and over again. He has a way of erasing the pain with a single look, a single touch. As much as she wants to turn off her feelings and endure the heartache on her own, she can’t deny their intense attraction.
Until Josh’s secret shatters their world. And Ember must decide if he’s worth the risk that comes with loving a man who could strip her bare.
My Thoughts
First Impression: Excellent and Heart-wrenching
I’m a sucker for angst. I freely admit it. If an author can make me care about the characters and put them through the emotional ringer throughout the book’s pages, chances are it’s a book I’ll fall in love with in a real and major way. Full Measures is just such a book.
From the start, my heart went out to Ember Howard. Her entire world changes in a blink, but instead of being allowed to fall apart and grieve the way she needs, she finds herself becoming the rock that holds things together for her mom and her family. It’s not an easy job, but someone has to do it and the fact that she had enough internal strength to step up to the plate made me love her character so much more than I might have otherwise.
Yes, I would’ve felt and understood where Ember was coming from the other way, too, if she fell apart and got to truly grieve, but the strength she showed in standing up and staying strong made her a young woman worthy of so much admiration and respect. It just made me love her and want to root for her that much more. She’s a truly dynamic character and because she’s so easy to like and relate to, I knew her hero would have to be a man as strong and brave as she is, maybe even more so. Lucky for both of us, Josh Walker stepped up to the plate.
Josh is the kind of man any woman would love to meet. Sure, he’s popular with women and has a reputation to prove it, but he’s so much more than that, too. He’s the kind of guy that would drop everything to be where he was needed, doing whatever needed to be done. He’s loyal, passionate, hardworking, and steadfast, much more so than others give him credit for. And thankfully, it’s easy for Ember to see that in him, just as it’s easy for her to fear it, too.
Ember and Josh find each other at the worst possible time in Ember’s life. She’s got so much on her plate, she’s not ready for a relationship with a guy like Josh. But she needs it. She needs him, and despite how hard she tries to fight her growing feelings for him, she finds herself drawn to him more and more as the story progresses.
This is such a fantastic tale of heartbreak and hope. It brought me to tears more than once with its beautiful passages and life and character insights. This book is a journey, and its one I am completely prepared to go on again and again. I absolutely loved it.
Rating: 5 Stars
About the Author
Rebecca Yarros is a hopeless romantic and a lover of all things coffee, chocolate, and Paleo. She is the author of the Flight & Glory series, including Full Measures, the award-winning Eyes Turned Skyward, and Beyond What is Given. She loves military heroes, and has been blissfully married to hers for fourteen years.
When she’s not writing, she’s tying hockey skates for her four sons, sneaking in some guitar time, or watching brat-pack movies with her two daughters. She lives in Colorado with the hottest Apache pilot ever, their rambunctious gaggle of kids, an English bulldog who is more stubborn than sweet, and a bunny named General Fluffy Pants who torments the aforementioned bulldog. They recently adopted their youngest daughter from the foster system, and Rebecca is passionate about helping others do the same.
Rebecca is represented by Louise Fury of the Bent Agency.