Review: The Morning After – Sally Clements

The Morning After by Sally Clements
Series:
Release Date:  February 6, 2012
Publisher:   Sally Clements
Page Count:  187
Source:  Book Rooster
Buy the book at: Amazon 

One photo changes everything…
A mortifying incident in her youth has shaken sense into Cara Byrne. No more bad-boys. No more getting arrested. Instead, hard work and good behaviour has earned her a job teaching at the local Boys Secondary School, and a proposal from a worthy man. So what if he doesn’t exactly light her fire – surely passion is overrated?
When her friend since childhood, Ethan Quinn, storms back into the small Irish village he left to pursue a career as a Hollywood action hero, she’s stunned to discover she’s as susceptible to his lethal charm as every woman in the world. And when a compromising photograph floods the media of them in a clinch, her almost fiancé reveals his true colours, CarEthan starts trending on twitter, and she loses her job, could anyone blame her if she accepts his invitation to hide out at his Malibu beach house?
Ethan loves women, but never lets his girlfriends into his heart. He’s failed at being there in the past, and won’t put his heart on the line for anyone, ever again. But Cara’s a different matter – and when passionate attraction is added to his friendship with the one person he’s always confided in, he’s thrown for a loop. Cara’s lost everything, and like it or not, he’s responsible. There’s no fighting the attraction that blazes between them – but when the month long affair is over, will he ever be able to let her go?

This was one of those books that when you read the blurb you think “I’ll give it a try” and hope for the best.  I’m glad I tried it.

Ethan and Cara have been best friends forever.  They’ve seen each other through thick and thin.  And while the Atlantic Ocean separates them most of the time, they are still there for each.  So when Ethan spies Cara’s boyfriend being overly friendly with a woman in a local bar in Ireland, he takes it upon himself to punch said boyfriend and make sure the boyfriend knew he was going to be an ex very soon.  Ethan is then on a mission to find Cara to make sure she knew that the man who proposed to her was out cheating on her.  When he finds her, she’s stuck in a Winnie-the-Pooh costume in nothing but her underwear.  As he helps her out, a photog snaps a couple of shots of them in a compromising position.  It’s one of those photos that changes everything for Ethan and Cara.

The change from best friends to lovers played out exactly like I’d imagine the scenario playing out.  They both have these feelings they aren’t sure the other one is feeling as well.  They both decide to throw caution to the wind and move the relationship forward.  And finally they both realize they feel much more than friendship for the other but can’t read how the other is feeling and are scared to find out what they feel isn’t reciprocated.  And while there wasn’t any surprise to how the story evolved, the characters were very down to earth and likeable that you hoped the path to get to their HEA was an easy one.