It Ends With Us

2012

fiction, romance, contemporary, life change events
triangles (interpersonal relations)
man-woman relationships
neurosurgeons
first loves
businesswomen
fiction
contemporary women
fiction, romance, contemporary
man-woman relationships, fiction

The story

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan—her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. With this bold and deeply personal novel, It Ends With Us is a heart-wrenching story and an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price.

What it’s like

Conversational first-person prose that moves quickly, with short chapters and cliffhanger endings, and a Boston setting of brick streets, hospital corridors, and small flower-shop and boutique interiors that feel warm and lived-in. The mood swings between giddy, flirtatious early romance and a heavier undertow of dread that tightens as the story goes on. Its vibe is swoony and aching, the kind of book that makes you want to text a friend mid-chapter. It suits a rainy weekend afternoon, a late-night read you can't put down, or a good cry on the couch. Pacing is brisk and propulsive, and the emotional arc follows a woman weighing a fresh, exciting love against the pull of an older history, and the lingering effects of a painful childhood. Intensity is significant: domestic abuse is depicted in graphic, distressing scenes, and there are frank sexual scenes and some violence, all of which land heavily and emotionally rather than as spectacle. It is not gentle. It is written for readers who want an intense romance that takes its emotional stakes seriously and doesn't flinch from hard subjects.

More books like It Ends With Us

People love It Ends With Us for its raw look at abuse inside a glamorous romance, its fast, emotionally direct first-person voice, and the way Lily's choices feel painfully real and hard to walk away from.

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