Title: Defying Our Forever
Author: Claudia Burgoa
Series: The Baker’s Creek Billionaire Brothers #3
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary romance, Small town romance
Pace: Slow
Format: eBook, Novel
Year: 2020

After reading A Moment Like You, I couldn’t wait to get into Leyla and Pierce’s story. There is so much set up and hints of what they are to each other, and it made it impossible not to dive straight into this when I got my grubby little e-hands on it. However, I didn’t expect quite so much history to their story. I thought we’d dive right into the rest of the Baker’s Creek timeline, but instead, about a third of this book covered their history and their mistakes. At first I found it a bit frustrating and wanted to charge forwards. But, as mistake after misunderstanding piled on top of one another, I realised that their story was just that much better for having their history so thoroughly included as well.

From the start of this series, you know that all of the boys have a fairly horrific father (although, I’m convinced that there will be a bit of a redemptive arc for him throughout). Yet, finding out more about the matriarchal side of Pierce’s family is somehow even worse. His family truly and deeply sucks and their manipulations of him from the very beginning are just cringeworthy. It just shows that no matter how strong and intelligent a person is, they are able to be manipulated by those in their lives. Particularly the “family” that has been around since the beginning – abuse and conformity become the new norm. Yet, I love that, in removing him from his family’s influence, the evil deceased father is able to remove their influence and finally let Pierce (who is very arguably a victim of abuse) to see the depths of their depravity and move away from that nonsense.

Leyla has one of the most tragic pasts I’ve read in a romance in a long time. Honestly, it almost bought tears to my eyes it was just that dang sad. And then, on top of her tragic backstory, she manages to fall for a man who is just too stubborn to realise that he’s broken and damaged too. I mean, just one of those things alone would be a tragedy, but both of them together? There are moments when I had to put the book down just because of the amount of emotional angst. Yet, I still found myself hoping for the couple to figure out their drama. Even in the multitude of moments when Pierce demonstrated his own trauma and inability to negotiate. Luckily, this tragic background for Leyla gave a huge amount of character growth (it did for Pierce too, but I liked Leyla’s more). I love that this is actually based a little on the backstory of a real person, and Burgoa just wanted to give her the happily ever after that she deserved…

Defying Our Forever was a love story filled with abuse and tragic histories, with breaking the mold and finding a happily ever after through forced proximity (yay for the evil Baker’s Creek father) and a willingness to change. I love that Leyla and Pierce are eventually able to find their way back to one another, even in the most difficult of circumstances. And that, eventually they are able to actually find an ending that is healthy and suited. There was a lot of emotional turmoil, but man did it make the reward at the end worth it. Now the plot continues to thicken, and I can’t wait to dive into more of Burgoa’s books.

<- A Moment Like You

Call You Mine ->

Image source: Kobo