About BEFORE YOU
Some say love is deadly. Some say love is beautiful. I say it is both.
Faith Watters spent her junior year traveling the world, studying in exquisite places, before returning to Oviedo High School. From the outside her life is picture-perfect. Captain of the dance team. Popular. Happy. Too bad it’s all a lie.
It will haunt me. It will claim me. It will shatter me. And I don’t care.
Eighteen-year-old Diego Alvarez hates his new life in the States, but staying in Cuba is not an option. Covered in tattoos and scars, Diego doesn’t stand a chance of fitting in. Nor does he want to. His only concern is staying hidden from his past—a past, which if it were to surface, would cost him everything. Including his life.
At Oviedo High School, it seems that Faith Watters and Diego Alvarez do not belong together. But fate is as tricky as it is lovely. Freedom with no restraint is what they long for. What they get is something different entirely.
Love—it will ruin you and save you, both.
Prepare yourself before you read this!! My heart has been broken repaired and broken again after reading this!
We follow the lives of Faith and Diego in this twisting tale of love and prejudice. Faith is trying hard in all parts of her life to maintain a good girl persona to help maintain the image of her father, the local preacher. It isn’t who she is and she is also hiding her true self from everyone. Is she happy?
Diego then walks into her life as a transfer student from Cuba. Faith can tell he has had a hard life and he is definitely hiding from someone or something. But one thing is for sure the two of them have an instant attraction!
Something different for me in this book was the real life gritty representation of life that you see at times as well as the strong theme of racial prejudice that is more than hinted at through the story. I loved the character development and although the two main characters are damaged in some way, neither are too over the top with their angst or overly annoying.
I love the dual perspective of the storytelling and the side characters (Particularly Javiar and Melissa who I cannot wait to read about in the next book!) are all well represented. Faith and her father have an interesting relationship and I loved how that developed and how her father involved himself, especially towards the end of the book! I won’t say any more!
I will honestly recommend you read this with a big man-sized pack of tissues and be prepared for the ending to rival most endings! This is a pretty steady love story for the bulk of the book then BAM the ending hits you – well the final couple of chapters are the most heart wrenching things I’ve read in a while!
Roll on Javiar and Melissa’s story!
Five fab stars from me!
Links for BEFORE YOU
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About Amber Hart
Amber Hart grew up in Orlando, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia. She now resides on the Florida coastline with family. When unable to find a book, she can be found writing, daydreaming, or with her toes in the sand. She’s the author of BEFORE YOU, AFTER US, UNTIL YOU FIND ME, and sequel to UNTIL YOU FIND ME (untitled as of yet). Represented by Beth Miller of Writers House.
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