Angie Dressen’s goal in life is simple. She wants her son, Oliver, to have the childhood she never had. She remembers coming in second to the never-ending stream of girlfriends her father brought home, and she wants Oliver to know he comes first. Besides, between working full time as a waitress, struggling to finish her degree one class at a time, and raising her son, Angie doesn’t have time for love. Or so she thinks.
Luna Rinaldi is the wild-haired, leather-wearing embodiment of all Angie’s relationship fears. She’s a well-respected tattoo artist with a long list of past lovers and a reputation for leaving in the middle of the night. She’s also kind, thoughtful, and adventurous, with a serious soft spot for Angie and Oliver.
The two enter into a tenuous relationship, one that leaves Luna wanting more and Angie resisting the promise in Luna’s eyes. When they are together, though, Angie wants to believe in love, trust, and the possibility of forever.
“The tension, mostly sexual throughout, is one of the strongest points of the narrative, with descriptive and candid language that I consider appropriate for its modern setting. It can be very tempting to ramp up the purple prose during the more sexual moments for the sake of immersion, but in this case, any sort of heavy-handed language would have taken away from the tension and taken the reader out of the moment of these two characters’ passion for one another.”