Book Review: In this Moment by Autumn Doughton

Author: Autumn Doughton
Title: In this Moment
Genre: Contemporary Romance (NA)
Released: August 12th 2013

~Get it at Amazon~

Every moment possesses its own kind of magic...Aimee Spencer learned the hard way that for some moments, there are no take-backs, no rewinds, no do-overs. A year ago her world imploded and Aimee has been running ever since. She doesn't want to feel. She doesn't want to remember. To bury the ghosts that haunt her, she is living a life that has become unrecognizable.

Cole Everly is a golden boy with a cocky smile and an attitude to match. He's grown accustomed to girls throwing themselves at his feet, but when Aimee trips and literally lands in his lap one afternoon, she's not at all what he expects. Difficult, damaged, closed-off. If Cole needed to make a list of qualities to avoid in a girl, Aimee would probably match up with every single one of them. He knows that he should stay away but he's drawn to her in a way that he can't exactly explain.

In this honest and absorbing story, Aimee and Cole struggle to sort out the thin spaces between loss and love. Ultimately, they will need to learn how to navigate through the pieces of the past if they want to hold on to the future and each other.

~o~

I got to Beta Read this beautiful story and I've been dying for release day so you could read it to. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, Autumn's writing style is just so freakin poetic. Everything she writes is gold and I will forever read anything that has her name on it.
Her stories are so real. The circumstances, the relationship development, the characters, the story--everything just jumps right off of the page and makes itself right at home in your heart.

Let's start with my favorite part: Cole Everly.

Cole Everly (I mean, seriously, how hot is that name?) is 100% swoonworthy. I adored him completely.

“Aimee. I let the name roll around in my head, making room for the idea of her.”

You just swooned a little, amIright? I know. It's okay, I did too.

“…but my mind is still elsewhere—a few miles away with a girl that I know isn’t thinking of me."

Seriously. Don't you just want to hug him?

”She could reach into my chest and rip my heart out of my body because it already belongs to her.”

Cole Everly, you could totally claim my heart as your own. For reals.

Now don't get this Cole-Love-Fest wrong, I really liked Aimee too.  Autumn writes such vivid, believable characters. 

Aimee is a broken girl--her pain is real and completely justified. In fact, though I won't tell you WHAT happened to her, I will tell you that what Aimee suffered through is one of my BIGGEST fears. As I was reading and starting to put the pieces together I even emailed Autumn to tell her so. She told me that it happened to some people when she was a kid and it just sort of stuck with her. TERRIFYING I tell you. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up. I could completely relate to everything Aimee thought and felt and I feel like I would've reacted the same way.

“The world doesn’t want to be forced to look at my scars.”

Autumn writes her steamy scenes in an abstract sort of way that makes you feel all of the tension without the graphic-ness that's pretty popular right now. 

“All it takes is one second, one brush of a finger to feel that…possibility.”

You remember what that's like right? When the faintest touch makes your insides turn to to slush?

 “It’s a kiss so deep and hungry that it drenches me—soaking every pore of my body, weighing me down, making me go soft in the knees.”

But it's not all swooning and steam. There are some ridiculously funny parts mixed in there as well. For example, pretty much any scene that Jodi is in cracked me up. I also love the fake book title game and the whole discussion about if you don't want to attend Hogwarts you're a douchebag (True story).

I loved every single page of it and highly recommend it anyone who loves romance with just the right amount of every-single-kind-of-emotion humanly possibly to feel. It's there.  Every single bit of it.

Read it. Love it. Then shoot me a message so we can talk about how wonderful it is.
 

PS Autumn is doing something interesting with her pricing that is going to benefit early readers. For the first week it's going to be priced at .99 then the next week it will go up to $1.99 and after that will remain at $2.99. 

PPS And don't forget if you read it and love it leave her a review! Authors like those. :)