Book Tour Review; Harder by Robin York

Summary:
Caroline still dreams about West. His warm skin, his taut muscles, his hand sliding down her stomach. Then she wakes up and she’s back to reality: West is gone. Before he left, he broke her heart.

Then, out of the blue, West calls in crisis. A tragedy has hit his family-a family that’s already a fractured mess. Caroline knows what she has to do. Without discussion, without stopping to think, she’s on a plane, flying to his side to support him in any way he needs.

Though they are together once more, things are totally different. West looks edgy, angry at the world. Caroline doesn’t fit in. She should be back in Iowa, finalizing her civil suit against the ex-boyfriend who posted their explicit pictures on a revenge porn website. But here she is. Deeply into West, wrapped up in him, in love with him. Still.

They fought the odds once. Losing each other was hard. But finding their way back to each other couldn’t be harder.

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When Only

Deeper, the first book in this series is a book that blew me away. It was intense, powerful, and I just couldn’t help but fall in love with every aspect of the book. Thus, when I heard that Harder was being released, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and once again dive into the world of Caroline and West. In a way this worried me in case it just wasn’t as good as the first one but I needn’t have worried because Harder is an exceptional book that I fell head over heels for and couldn’t get enough of! Once more Robin York has shown how talented a writer she is and has just managed to pull you into this story so deeply. I really struggled to put this book down.

You Stand

What makes this book so intriguing is that the plot is never simple. There isn’t just one factor or one plotline pulling you through the story but instead there are multiple strands, lots of subplots being pushed together all at once. It may be Caroline and West’s story but what that really means is that these two characters both bring their whole lives to the table. And their lives aren’t clean, they’re messy and they have baggage and it all comes to light. Their lives are real and that, essentially, is why I completely love these books. Their relationship isn’t unicorns and rainbows, it’s real issues to work past, real love to conquer, and real complications to deal with. It just makes the book very compelling. I thought everything that happened in Harder was intense, and I just loved the journey that both Caroline and West took.

In Your Way

Caroline is a strong character. She’s stubborn, set in her ways, and has a strong ability to go for whatever she wants. She wasn’t always that way. But events transpired in her life that made her need to step up and take charge and take control. I loved her character. I loved how willing she was to do what she needed to do. She has her flaws, she’s still human, but she when she knows what she wants, she does her best to go for it and that is such an inspiring thing to read about. West, on the other hand, has never known how to take on what he wants. His life has told him that if you want something, there will always be something in the way to stop you from getting it, even if that something is you. But throughout the book he learns that it doesn’t have to be that way and I loved the transition he took. While Deeper was Caroline’s story, Harder is very much West’s story and I loved it. By the end of the book, West is a very strong character and I just loved his enthusiasm for life so much! Another character worth mentioning is Frankie. She also went on a hell of a journey in this book and I just love her so much!

How Do You

I can’t pin down exactly how she does it, but Robin York has an ability to truly suck the reader into the story. Her writing style is powerful and intense and it is impossible to just read a few pages of her book in a light matter. Instead, every word drags your whole body into a new world, and makes you really feel that Caroline and West are real people in a real world. Robin’s writing is absolutely amazing and I cannot wait to read whatever she writes next. She creates amazing characters that are completely real, creates plots and subplots that bring complications all over the place and just has a style that is easy to read and yet completely immerses you in the world at the same time. She is incredibly talented.

Fight Back

Harder is a book that I completely enjoyed. I was, once again, blown away by the plot and felt everything in the story so deeply. At one point I put the book down and didn’t want to pick it up again simply because I was so mad at West. I didn’t want to continue reading his story when he had acted like that. But that just made the book so much better for me because Robin had made me truly feel for the characters. She’d made me connect with them so much that their flaws caused me pain. Of course, I eventually continued and fell in love with West all over again. This book is stunning. I truly cannot wait to read whatever Robin writes next, even if it isn’t within Caroline and West’s world. With that in mind, if you’ve read Deeper, you should definitely read Harder! If you haven’t read Deeper, you need to get on that as soon as possible. However, please bear in mind both of these books are New Adult books and do encompass mature themes and may not be suitable for younger readers. But if you like contemporary books that deal with real life issues, then you’re likely to love these books!