Till Next Time by Cora Brent
From bestselling author Cora Brent comes a scorching second chance romance that will give you more than one reason to laugh, more than one reason to cry, and more than one reason to blush.
I met Colt Malene when I was fourteen years old.
And I’ve never recovered.
He became the headstrong star quarterback in a town that idolized high school football titles.
Meanwhile, I was the coach’s dutiful perfectionist daughter, never daring to step out of line.
We should have stayed far away from each other but we didn’t.
And the volatile fallout was unbearable.
More than a decade has passed and now my father is dying.
He wants to make amends.
He wants to be forgiven for the role he played in Colt’s ruinous downfall and my painful heartbreak.
To give a dying man some peace, Colt and I agree to a plan.
While Colt is here in town, we pretend to date.
We pretend to like each other.
We pretend that the past is buried and forgotten.
But with one reckless, passionate act we carve a new future.
Leading to a fate we never suspected.
In the middle of a storm we never saw coming.
And an ending no one could have predicted…
TILL NEXT TIME is a 112,000 word stand alone. Two extreme opposites resist a blistering attraction, make a fake dating pact, shock their small town, and ultimately fight for their second chance at a happy ending.
- File Name:till-next-time-by-cora-brent.epub
- Original Title:TILL NEXT TIME
- Creator:Brent , Cora
- Language:en
- Identifier:3983838465
- Date:2021-12-13
- File Size:415.160 KB
Table of Content
- 1. Title Page
- 2. Contents
- 3. Copyright
- 4. Also By Cora Brent:
- 5. Keep in touch!
- 6. TILL NEXT TIME
- 7. Prologue
- 8. ONE YEAR EARLIER….
- 9. 1. Susanna
- 10. 2. Colt
- 11. 3. Susanna
- 12. 4. Colt, Age 14
- 13. 5. Susanna
- 14. 6. Colt
- 15. 7. Susanna, Age 15
- 16. 8. Colt
- 17. 9. Susanna
- 18. 10. Colt, Age 16
- 19. 11. Susanna
- 20. 12. Colt
- 21. 13. Susanna
- 22. 14. Susanna, Age 16
- 23. 15. Colt
- 24. 16. Susanna
- 25. 17. Susanna, Age 17
- 26. 18. Colt
- 27. 19. Susanna
- 28. 20. Colt
- 29. 21. Susanna
- 30. 22. Colt, Age 17
- 31. 23. Colt
- 32. 24. Susanna
- 33. 25. Colt
- 34. 26. Susanna
- 35. 27. Colt
- 36. 28. Susanna
- 37. 29. Colt
- 38. 30. Susanna
- 39. Epilogue
- 40. Dear Reader:
- 41. Also By Cora Brent:
Cora Brent
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**This should be read AFTER "Till It Hurts", as it should be considered Book 2 of a duet. It follows the relationship of Tori's brother with his high school sweetheart. This book WILL have spoilers for "Till It Hurts".
Till Next Time was about 27-year-old Colt Malene, a jack-of-all-trades who didn't stay in one place for long, and 27-year-old Susanna Toledo, a chemical engineer.
The prologue opened with the tornado sirens going off and Colt beginning to panic because he wasn't at home with a very pregnant Susanna. They'd fought and he'd left to "go for a drive". His drive had taken him to Tori and Jace's home. Then Chapter 1 jumped back to a year in the past and picked up several months after Till It Hurts ended, with the wedding of Jace and Tori. Susanna was the newest character out of them all, not having been in the first book other than being mentioned a time or two as someone Colt had been interested in.
Like the couple in the previous book, Colt and Susanna were (somewhat) high school sweethearts until things went horribly wrong and her father intervened. Colt left town without finishing high school, and Susanna left for college soon after graduating. She didn't return often, and Colt stayed gone for ten years.
Susanna had quit her job and returned home to help her father, the former high school football coach, who was dying from cancer. He didn't have much time left. Colt had returned to help his sister through a rough spot in the previous book, but he left for months at a time to do jobs in various states.
As this book started, Colt was back in town for his sister's wedding to his BFF. He would stay long enough to watch their dog while they were away on an extended honeymoon. During that time, he made a deal with Susanna to spend time with her to "ease her father's mind", because he knew the older man felt guilty about his part in breaking the two of them up in high school. At the end of the three weeks he was dogsitting, Colt left again for a several-month work trip to Montanna. He had told Susanna he wasn't the kind of man who stayed in one place, thus letting her know up front that they would never be together. Yet, while he was gone, all he could do was regret leaving her behind. But he returned in time to be there for her when Susanna's father passed away. It wasn't until after the funeral that Colt and Susanna finally hit the one spicy scene that took her V-card. Two days later, he left town again, with no plans to return. But three months later, a phone call from Jace had Colt going back home to confront Susanna about the pregnancy, which later led to them getting married. The relationship was rocky from that point on, and the story finally caught up to the prologue...and the tornado that was about to change everything.
Unlike the book before, this story had an OTT of angst, drama, and even more spicy scenes. The emotional rollercoaster had more than its fair share of twists and turns. The push/pull between the two main characters took up 90% of the storyline, as did all of the flashbacks. Most of the book's focus was on the past, which took away from the charm of the story.
Like its predecessor, this book had too much introspection and dialogue and insufficient interaction between the two main characters...or any of the characters. Unfortunately, it made the story drag on longer than was necessary, as did the constant flashbacks. The play-by-play moments weren't fun either. "I lifted the cup. I drank it down. I wiped my mouth...yada yada yada...". They served no other purpose and could have been left out. Most of it was irrelevant because it took the focus off the present circumstances that could have focused on the relationship and the storm.
The author had a unique opportunity to make this book stand out by using the storm as the main focal point, but unfortunately, that was an untapped resource. She made the past the targeted area which left very little time to build the present up into something that would have made this story pop. This also left a lot of unresolved issues at the end of the book.
The two main characters, while fully developed, were a bit stunted in their growth due to being held hostage to their past treatment by their parent(s) and/or each other. Because of the way the book focused on the past, and the fact that the present was so rushed, there wasn't any true growth for any of the characters. However, it was nice to read a story where the characters didn't all hate each other and had very few enemies. That's a rarity in this type of story.
I could only give this a 3.5-star rating, rounded up to 4, due to the way the storyline was written. It just didn't have a free flow, and that just made it a bit disjointed. All-in-all, it was a good story. It just needed to be edited more to have been better.
I read the first book and enjoyed it, but this from the beginning, just made me crazy. I got through the first few chapters, but just couldn't finish.
Ok, so decided to give the book another chance, and although I did skim through more than half of the book, it did start to get a little interesting at the end. I was glad they did get a HEA.