Guest Review: Loving Emily – Anne Pfeffer

Any other night, Ryan Mills would have driven his best friend, Michael, to Emily’s sweet sixteen party at the Breakers Club. Instead, determined to win over the birthday girl, he goes to the party early and alone, setting off a chain of events that ends with a car accident in which Michael dies.
Ryan blames himself for what happened to Michael. As far as he’s concerned, he doesn’t deserve to have love or ever be happy again. Then he learns Michael left a secret behind. Ryan feels compelled to take on his friend’s unfinished business, and in the process, changes his life forever and becomes a man.

Series:
Release Date:  October 2011
Publisher:  Anne Pfeffer
Source:  Book Rooster
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Reviewer’s Thoughts:

I’m going to be straight with you- I loved everything about this book and kept wondering why — wasn’t Anne Pfeffer with a mainstream publisher.  This is one of the most well written books I’ve read and it’s self-published.  I love finding gems and this is one.

The characters are engaging, the language flows naturally and most importantly there is a strong story to hold it all together. Where to start? Ryan decides to drive to a birthday party solo so he can finally talk to and hopefully make a move on his crush– Emily.  Going solo means leaving his best friend Michael to find his own way to the party. That doesn’t seem like a big deal until his friend gets into an accident and dies.  Throughout the book Ryan deals with his own guilt and fallout from that one might.  The night that the best and worst things happen to him: he gains a girlfriend and loses a best friend.

Pfeffer really gets it when writing about two people who are falling in love.  She puts in just the right amount of tension between the happy parts and the pain that comes from doubting yourself and the person you’re with.  I didn’t just read about Ryan’s struggle for balance I felt like I was experiencing it with him. He wants desperately to throw himself into his new romance but keeps wondering if he’s betraying his friend’s memory.  The whole time I was rooting him on, hoping that he would make the right decisions.  And sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t.  That was  what was so amazing about him as a character Ryan was believable.

This book was released in 2011 and re-released in June 2012 with a new title- Any Other Night.  The only change is the title the text remains the same.

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