most of all you book review

Where Love Meets Destiny #2

Most of all you, mia sheridan.

352 pages, ebook

First published October 17, 2017

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Choice is such a loaded word, isn’t it? Choices, though our own, were so weighted down with all the things that had come before, so stained with the messes of our past.

And, maybe, I thought, that was what love was supposed to do—peel your layers back and uncover all your tender spots so they, too, could be healed.

“You can’t fix me, you know.”
 “No, I can only love you.”

“I liked her. I liked the way she looked at me, the way she teased, the flash of keen intelligence behind her eyes, her quick wit, the way she seems so hard, and yet was somehow soft at the same time. I did, I liked her…”

To Gabriel, finder of beauty, rescuer of souls.

“If she’s amazing, she won’t be easy. If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing. If she’s worth it, you won’t give up. If you give up, you’re not worth it. Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”

“It’s my belief that the wisest and most sensitive souls are those who have been broken themselves and found a way to put their pieces back together. For who can know the true meaning of light unless they’ve been immersed in darkness? Who else can say, “I’ve been there, and I promise you — I promise you — there is life after this. Yes, even this.” Who else can determine with love and wisdom who’s worth suffering for? … MOST OF ALL YOU is a story about the power of love such as this. Love that comes from a place of light, of hope, of knowing. Love that says you are worth suffering for, but even more so, love that promises: Your heart will heal — it was what it was made to do.”

“I’d known a few handsome men in my time. Each one had a mean streak three miles wide. Handsome got you a big fat nowhere in the end… No, it was something more than that. I twas his eyes. His eyes held some sort of innocence I hadn’t seen before. Gentleness I certainly wasn’t used to. HIs expression was hopeful, but not desperate, and I didn’t detect lust in his eyes. He looked… sincere.”

“Because of my history, which it sounds like you know a little about, I, uh, find it difficult to tolerate… closeness.” … “Okay, what is it I can do for you?” … “You can help me practice being touched by a woman.”

“I can teach you what I do when someone gets close to me. I remove myself completely, and it makes it bearable.” She bit her lip, her brow furrowing as if considering something. “I think I can teach you how to do that.” My body stilled as I stared at her. Her words caused my heart to ache. Oh God. “That’s not what I want, though. I know how to remove myself. I know how to do that. I want to stay present. That’s what I need you to help me with. Staying.”

“I’m not giving up on you. I’m coming back.” She shrugged one delicate shoulder. “It’s a free country. You do whatever you want. But I suggest you get out of here and go find the right girl.” “What if I still think you’re the right girl?” “Then you’re wrong.” She turned and walked away. Fuck!

A stripper. God, what was I doing? What about you, Gabriel? How would people describe you if they were only going by the few things they knew? If they only met you once, only read the newspaper articles, what would you be called? Damaged. Ruined. Victim.

“I’d never try to control you.” Oh God. His voice. I could hear the pain. I wanted to turn away, but I didn’t. He paused, even deeper torment skating over his expression. “Someone did that to me, and I’d never do it to someone else. I only want to help you. If there’s somewhere you’d rather be where you’ll be safe and cared for, tell me and I’ll drive you there myself. I’ll make sure you get here no matter how far away it is. I don’t ever want you to feel like I’m trying to take away your will. I couldn’t live with that.”

I loved the expression on her face — cautious awe — as if she wasn’t sure she should allow herself to fall in love with anything beautiful, even the sunrise. Sometimes it hurt me to watch her, hurt me to see that she was so lonely inside, so sure that the whole world was a dangerous place for her. I longed to show her that it didn’t have to be, but for now, I offered her the sunrise and a safe place to watch it. I prayed that someday soon she would trust that she deserved this beauty.

I don’t create beauty, I just reveal what’s already there.

I was spellbound, caught once again in his gaze. No one had ever looked at me the way Gabriel was right then, not in all my life.

And you, most of all, you. You get my heart. You. And, God, I hope you want it. But if you don’t, I still won’t regret giving it to you. Even then, I won’t regret loving you because it means I win.”

I’ve always pretended I was made of stone, but the truth is, I feel more like I was formed from sand, as if I might crumble at any second.”

” I’m sorry for leaving without telling you. I just… I’m good at running, I guess.” “I don’t mind chasing you, Ellie. Let me just catch you once in a while”

” you can’t fix me, you know.” “No, I can only love you”

” you have hands for creating beauty,” “ I don’t create beauty, Eloise, i just reveal what’s already there.”

“His breath against my neck was a calming wind, his smile the sunshine, his touch was a thousand rainbows dancing on my skin, and I loved him so much I thought my heart would burst.”

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I’ve started an oddly weird tradition of gorging on a Mia Sheridan book for Mother’s Day. Back in 2014, it was her Archer’s Voice that had me ignoring my family in order to flip pages. This year, it was her 2017 title Most of All You: A Love Story (picked up via AAR’s Steals and Deals!) that captured my attention. What are the odds?

Eloise ‘Crystal’ Cates has had a rough life. At the age of seven, her dying mother dumped her on the doorstep of her biological father, a man who wanted nothing to do with the child he’d believed to have been properly aborted years ago. Growing up unwanted, unloved, abused and beaten down in every way possible, it’s no wonder she’s made a career for herself twirling naked around a stripper’s pole. She believes that all men only want one thing, that she’s only good for that one thing, and that the mistreatment she constantly gets is par for the course. Until she meets Gabriel Dalton.

Gabriel has also had it rough, although he managed to come out the other side of absolute horror with his soul intact. When he was nine years old, Gabe was abducted by a paedophile and held prisoner in a dank basement for six long years. He escaped only to learn that his parents had perished in a car accident, and the trauma has left him unable to endure any kind of physical closeness with anyone.

As a form of self-help, Gabe wanders down to the Platinum Pearl to seek out the kind of woman who would probably be willing to accept cash to help him overcome his aversion to touch. Crystal immediately captures his attention, and, at first, she agrees to help Gabe with his ‘therapy’. However, when it becomes clear that Gabriel is not like the other men she’s known and that he has the ability to crack through the miles-thick wall she’s built around herself, Crystal turns him away in a cruel, hurtful act.

Feeling guilty but glad to be rid of someone who makes her actually feel things, Crystal becomes the victim of a brutal attack that leaves her virtually helpless. With absolutely no-one to help and no way of taking care of herself, she must take Gabe up on his generous offer to live in his home so that he can care for her while she recovers. As the two spend time together, Crystal’s tough exterior begins to weaken, and she finds that she's letting Gabe in a little bit at a time. Gabe discovers that being needed is just the thing necessary to get him over that last hurdle for complete healing, and that his initial belief that Crystal is something special was not wrong.

This book was great, and only a couple of things kept it from being a DIK for me. Ellie (‘Crystal’ becomes Ellie once she tells Gabe her real name) and Gabe are truly damaged characters with seriously traumatic backstories to explain their current states. It’s easy to believe that Gabe would hate physical touch and that Ellie would have deep trust issues given what they endured as children.

While it is heavily implied that Gabe suffered sexual abuse while he was a captive, Sheridan avoids all descriptions of that, and we have to assume that he received therapy to help him work through the trauma. Because he’s still unable to handle any physical contact, he’s a virginal hero, however his sexual awakening is never a focus beyond the fact that Ellie gives him his first kiss. Honestly, other than the motive for him to seek out Ellie, his aversion to touch doesn’t pose too much of an obstacle between them. Indeed, Gabe is a remarkably well-adjusted man given what he went through. I found that the way that he coped during his captivity, the way that he maintained his sanity during what amounted to six years of complete isolation, to be very creative and touching.

I appreciated that Sheridan avoids a few Big Misunderstandings between Ellie and Gabe by having them actually talk about things and letting the other explain situations that might look bad. That said, I did become frustrated by Ellie’s inability to accept that Gabe truly had feelings for her, despite that fact that he confesses it openly and often once they reached that point in their relationship. One of my biggest pet-peeves is the character who believes – despite hundreds of reassurances – that he or she is no good for their love interest and that, in order to ‘save’ the one they love from making a tragic mistake, they must make the ultimate sacrifice and walk away. Ellie falls into this trap, and I kind of wanted to shake her. This couple had enough emotional baggage without her adding a Martyr Complex to the mix. Sheridan skirts very close to this sad cliché, just managing to save the situation when Ellie has the epiphany that Gabe can’t truly save her, but she must save herself.

Unfortunately, this led to my sense of déjà vu towards the last quarter of the book, when Ellie and Gabe’s trajectory begins to read a lot like Archer and Bree’s story from Archer’s Voice . Ellie realizes that Gabe’s love can only heal her so far and that she must find her own strength, the same way that Archer came to see that he couldn’t rely on Bree to save him. I never worried, however, that Gabe and Ellie wouldn’t find their way back to each other, so the whole exercise felt somewhat perfunctory. Too, a lot of things fall magically into place and Ellie’s self-discovery without the aid of professional help comes off as a bit too fairy-tale.

My other issue is so nit-picky I hesitate to bring it up. Ellie’s real name – Eloise – was a hard one for me to wrap my brain around. It’s not only old-fashioned but far from sexy, so every time Gabe called her ‘Eloise’, I winced. Sticking with just ‘Ellie’ would have been fine, but he doesn’t. And there is a far-fetched coincidence with Ellie’s name that I won’t spoil that did cause me a bit of eye-rolling. Still, this name hang-up is probably just me, so no harm, no foul.

In the end, I can highly recommend Most of All You to anyone looking for a love-heals-all story with two genuinely damaged leads. It is well written with engaging characters, and Mia Sheridan is quickly becoming one of my auto-buy authors. Even better than breakfast in bed, she’s now my Mother’s Day treat!

Buy it at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo

Sensuality:  Subtle

Publication Date:  10/2017

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A broken woman . . .

Crystal learned long ago that love brings only pain. Feeling nothing at all is far better than being hurt again. She guards her wounded heart behind a hard exterior and carries within her a deep mistrust of men, who, in her experience, have only ever used and taken.

A man in need of help . . .

Then Gabriel Dalton walks into her life. Despite the terrible darkness of his past, there’s an undeniable goodness in him. And even though she knows the cost, Crystal finds herself drawn to Gabriel. His quiet strength is wearing down her defenses and his gentle patience is causing her to question everything she thought she knew.

Only love can mend a shattered heart . . .

Crystal and Gabriel never imagined that the world, which had stolen everything from them, would bring them a deep love like this. Except fate will only take them so far, and now the choice is theirs: Harden their hearts once again or find the courage to shed their painful pasts.

BOOK REVIEW: Most of All You

Mia sheridan.

Book Series:  Where Love Meets Destiny

His breath against my neck was a calming wind, his smile the sunshine, his touch was a thousand rainbows dancing on my skin, and I loved him so much I thought my heart would burst.

There hasn’t been a book of Mia Sheridan’s that I have not loved with all my heart, her breathtaking stories brimming with so much emotion and intensity, that I never quite know how to move on from all they’ve made me feel. I often end up re-reading chapters, time and time again, desperate to stay in that story for as long as I can, but never before have I been affected in such a way that four subsequent reads couldn’t distract me from the one I so badly wished to return to. Exquisitely written and utterly unique, this is the touching tale of two broken people—a young man who refuses to forget what love felt like, and a young woman who forces herself not to remember—and their journey of healing. Their story stole my heart, even ripped it out of my chest a time or two, yet I knew from the very first page that this would become one the most devastatingly romantic books I’d ever read. And it quickly became my new favourite from this author.

“You can help me practice being touched by a woman. Getting comfortable with someone in my personal space.”

The horrors that Gabriel Dalton had been forced to endure as a child left him feeling damaged and ruined, and while he’s spent the last twelve years of his life proving to himself that his past doesn’t have to define his future, he’s never managed to overcome his fear of being touched. Determined to be free of that last shackle from his past, Gabriel walks into a local strip club in a desperate attempt to find a way to become more comfortable with physical contact, only to recognise his own broken pieces in the lonely eyes of the stripper dancing onstage. He wastes no time making her an offer any other woman in her position wouldn’t hesitate to accept, but it soon becomes clear to them both that nothing about their arrangement would be easy on either of them.

“I want to stay present. That’s what I need you to help me with. Staying.”

A lifetime of hurt and disappointment has taught Eloise ‘Ellie’ Cates to hide her heart behind a steely façade of detachment and indifference, never showing her true self to anyone and always expecting the worst in people. From the moment she lays eyes on Gabriel, however, his very presence makes her feel exposed and confused, and all the more determined to push him away at all costs. But when an unexpected turn of events forces them to spend a great deal of time together, they slowly discover that maybe their painful pasts are the very reason life led them to one another.

His unrelenting presence made me hope for things I’d given up on long ago, and the reminder of my own forgotten dreams had hurt in a way nothing had hurt in a very long time.

While their physical closeness takes time to develop, their emotional attachment grows very quickly, yet only one of them lets himself love the other freely and openly. Ellie remains wary and guarded with her heart even when all it really desires is to love and be loved in return. Life has taught her that love never lasts and that happiness is fleeting, but she never expected to meet someone like Gabriel—a man who bears a past even more painful than hers, but refuses to lose hope in love.

“I love you, Eloise. That won’t change. Why does that scare you so much?” “Because…because I’m afraid you’ll take it away.” “Do I strike you as a man who loves carelessly or recklessly?”

A tender romance begins to bloom between them, slowly healing those last parts of Gabriel’s soul that still felt broken, but for Ellie love has only ever been a source of loss and disillusionment, and no matter how desperately her heart yearns for Gabriel, her fear of losing him drives her into believing the worst about herself.

He needed someone warm and caring, someone who would nurture him and piece together the broken parts, someone who would look in his eyes and be his calming spirit. I was not that girl. I couldn’t even begin to piece together all my broken parts as I’d lost most of them long ago.

A truly beautiful tale of love and healing, and superbly told in Mia Sheridan’s trademark prose that never fails to reach deep enough to touch our hearts, this extraordinary story shows that no amount of love can teach a person how to love themselves, and that we are the only builders of our own self-esteems in the end. I felt utterly ruined by this book, in the best possible way, and have not stopped gushing about it ever since.

“I don’t mind chasing you, Ellie. Just let me catch you once in a while.”

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Looking forward to reading.

What a beautiful review!

Awww!!! Thank you, honey!! It’s a splendid book, just like you said. :)

Can’t wait to read this one! Thank you for the amazing giveaway chance. You rock!

I needed this book so baad! Love your review. The struggle of waiting! Thank you Natasha for the opportunity

This sounds so good. I can’t wait to read it. <3

Great review!!! Sound really good book. I would love to read

Can’t wait to read it! Thanks for the chance! :)

Fabulous review. I love me some Mia Sheridan and can not wait to get my eyes on this one!

I am excited about reading your book. It sounds great. The review touched my heart. Thank you

Grazie per l opportunità ???? thanks for opportunità..

I love this so much. Can’t wait for this book!

I want to read this book so bad!!! Great review. Thanks

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REVIEW: Most of All You by Mia Sheridan

by Kristie J | Nov 9, 2017 | Review |

Mia Sheridan is an auto-buy author – you know, the kind that you don’t have to read what the book is about before you buy it.  She’s written some dang good emotional books and Most of All You is an addition to the list.

Crystal, our heroine, is quite easy to dislike at first.  She’s a stripper, and when Gabriel Dalton, our hero, sees her and wants to hire her, not for her dancing or “other” abilities,” she is rude and even cruel to him.  And right from the get-go the reader knows Gabriel is a special kind of hero.  He had been kidnapped years ago, and while the book never comes out and mentions it, we get the sense that he was abused by a sexual predator during that time.  He escaped, but ever since he’s been uncomfortable with touching of any kind.  When he sees Crystal, he senses that she might be able to help him.  She rejects his offer and is quite nasty to him when he tries again.  She finally reluctantly agrees when she is strapped for money.  When she is badly beaten, Gabriel takes her in while she heals.

This is just the very barest of bones of a poignant story of two broken, lost people who find, need, and love each other.  Despite her coldness to him, Gabriel can see past that and into her soul and to the very damaged young woman she is.  He slowly gets to know the real Crystal, or Eloise or Ellie, her real name.  Crystal is a façade she hides behind.  She has been hurt so very badly that she has had to erect some very strong walls to protect herself, and the more the reader sees this, the more the reader forgives her and begins caring very deeply for this wounded young woman who doesn’t believe anyone could possibly love her.  That is why she is so rough on Gabriel.  She can’t believe someone so truly good could care for someone as bad as her.

The story is really about Ellie, with Gabriel’s love and patience, beginning to see that maybe she is worth loving after all.  It’s a tough journey for her, but Gabriel is unwavering in his devotion.

And what a patient, devoted, and caring hero Gabriel is.  He comes from a very dark place in his younger, informative years, but rather than focusing on it, he sees beauty and purpose in life and is exactly the kind of man Crystal needs.  Because he’s had to take a journey from the darkest of place into the light himself, he knows, more than anyone else, the kind of pain Ellie is in and not once does he waver.  He’s truly her knight in shining armor and it’s so easy for us to love him too.

This is a slow-building book, and, considering the trauma of both hero and heroine, it’s a very wise decision by the author in writing it this way.  If you’ve never tried a book by Mia Sheridan and you like an emotional story that will make you cry and then makes you happy, with a wonderful Beta-type hero who rescues the damsel in distress, then you simply must give this one a read.

A broken woman . . . Crystal learned long ago that love brings only pain. Feeling nothing at all is far better than being hurt again. She guards her wounded heart behind a hard exterior and carries within her a deep mistrust of men, who, in her experience, have only ever used and taken. A man in need of help . . . Then Gabriel Dalton walks into her life. Despite the terrible darkness of his past, there’s an undeniable goodness in him. And even though she knows the cost, Crystal finds herself drawn to Gabriel. His quiet strength is wearing down her defenses and his gentle patience is causing her to question everything she thought she knew. Only love can mend a shattered heart . . . Crystal and Gabriel never imagined that the world, which had stolen everything from them, would bring them a deep love like this. Except fate will only take them so far, and now the choice is theirs: Harden their hearts once again or find the courage to shed their painful pasts.

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Review – most of all you by mia sheridan.

A broken woman . . .

Crystal learned long ago that love brings only pain. Feeling nothing at all is far better than being hurt again. She guards her wounded heart behind a hard exterior, and carries within her a deep mistrust of men who, in her experience, have only ever used and taken.

A man in need of help . . .

Then Gabriel Dalton walks into her life. Despite the terrible darkness of his past, there’s an undeniable goodness about him. And even though she knows the cost, Crystal finds herself drawn to Gabriel. His quiet strength is wearing down her defenses and his gentle patience is causing her to question everything she thought she knew.

Only love can mend a shattered heart . . .

Crystal and Gabriel never imagined that the world that had stolen everything from them would bring them a deep love like this. Except fate will only take them so far and now the choice is theirs: Harden their hearts once again or find the courage to shed their painful pasts.

*****Mel’s Review*****

5 My Angel Stars! 

-You can find hope in the strangest of places, in the darkest of corners. Clutch it close, my darling. It’s yours and no one else’s. -Lemon Fair, the Queen of Meringue

Eloise Cates is a woman from Vermont that has lived a life full of pain & suffering. She’s grown up feeling unloved and unwanted. Her spirit is broken, & lately, she just feels tired and alone. All she has in this life is herself. She’s on her own & doesn’t need anyone. She’s learned over time she can’t trust men. She keeps up her steely facade, & the walls around her heart so she won’t ever be hurt again.

Gabriel Dalton is a man with a dark past he’s trying to move on from. He considers himself a work in progress, & chooses happiness. He’s at a place in his life where he wants to step out of his comfort zone & put himself out there. He meets a beautiful woman with a haunted look in her eyes. She’s a mystery, but he feels a strong pull towards her. He wants to get to know her & never wavers in his pursuit of her.

Ellie locks eyes with a beautiful, kind looking man named Gabriel, & the connection she feels frightens her. Something about his presence left her feeling shaken & vulnerable. As she gets to know him better he doesn’t seem scared off by her cynical, hard attitude. Her world seemed to always be falling apart, & he was so steady and solid. He soothes her with his gentleness & made her feel off balance with one look.

-His eyes held some sort of innocence I hadn’t seen before. Gentleness I certainly wasn’t used to.

-I was spellbound, caught once again in his gaze. No one has ever looked at me the way Gabriel was right then, not in all my life.

-A sense of sudden belonging washed through me, dancing in my veins. When was the last time I’d felt as if I belonged anywhere?

-I liked her. I liked the way she looked at me.

-She had intrigued me, caught my attention, and hadn’t let go. Something about her… called to me.

Gabriel saw things in Ellie she didn’t see in herself. He helped her to believe in herself & brought a sense of peace and calm to her life. He made her feel safe. He pushed her boundaries & eventually she let her guard down. He made her feel like she was someone truly special. Cherished & cared for like she’d never experienced. He began to breathe joy into the sadness that lived inside of her. Made her want to dream of possibilities, & hope for things she’d long ago given up on. She was taught to have a hard exterior, so nobody could ever hurt her. That you don’t get attached, because everyone eventually leaves, but suddenly she realizes she needs Gabriel as much as her next breath. This handsome, sincere, sweet man with a pure heart spoke to her soul, & helped her discover there was beauty in the missing pieces.

I really loved this book! It’s about two people who had a difficult past that has shaped who they are today. They still both carry around broken pieces, & have their own struggles. The book is also about loving & believing in yourself. Sometimes we need to learn to love ourselves before we can fully love another. This book dealt with some serious subject matter but was beautifully written. This stunning man was breathtaking with his love & his pure heart. I couldn’t get enough of Gabe. Mia Sheridan yet again wrote a book that touched my heart!

-“You’re so beautiful, Eloise. Every part of you.”

-My love for Ellie felt like a breath of life inside of me.

-I wanted to touch every part of him, to know his body the way I’d come to know his heart.

-The longer she’d touched me, the more a yearning rose in my soul, so strong it took my breath.

-Every part of his body held a place that felt as if it had been made just for mine.

-He was everything to me.

-Whatever you do, do it with your whole heart. -Lemon Fair, the Queen of Meringue

-“It’s not the things you do with love and good intentions that you end up regretting. It’s the things you don’t do that you have to live with.”

*****Patty’s Review*****

*****FIVE STARS***** {ARC Generously Provided by Author}

We touched and kissed with loving hands and open hearts, and I’d been right to think I’d never experienced anything like this before. It was tender and generous, and it was everything. Everything I’d never known.

MOST OF ALL YOU  is a hauntingly beautiful love story that grabbed a hold of my heart from the start. I have been a long time fan of Mia Sheridan and this book solidifies why she is one truly gifted author. I found it hard not to highlight quotes from almost every page! Her writing is absolutely stunning! Not only is this a captivating love story but it’s filled with so much raw sadness. The Hero and Heroine may have come from different worlds but they share in common unimaginable abuse and devastating loss. Their tragic pasts have molded them into two people who are merely a fraction of the individuals they should have become because they’ve let their fears paralyze and control their lives.

I don’t want to give too much of the story away because I do think this is a story that’s best to go in to completely blind. I will say that I fell in love instantly with Gabriel Dalton. His sweet and gentle demeanor and his ability to find beauty in everyday things that we take for granted really touched me deeply. He is my second favorite Hero created by Mia. I mean he comes so very close to being as awesome as Archer!

In the beginning, I struggled with my feelings for the Heroine. She’s not an easy character to love because of the person she has become but once the author brings you to the heart of her story, I guarantee you will be falling in love with her just as I have. I actually think I ended up loving her a little more than the Hero. I saw a little bit of my younger self in her and hoped that she would find her way back to the person she was always meant to become.

There is definitely incredibly chemistry between Dalton and Ellie but honestly, if there weren’t any steamy scenes, I would still give this book  Five Stars  because it was the story and the characters that I fell completely in love with. This is one of those books that doesn’t need the schmexy to make it entertaining. Although I did enjoy those bits too!

Here are my overall ratings on the book:

Hero:   5 Heroine:   5 Plot:   5 Angst:   5 Steam:   4 Chemistry Between Hero & Heroine:   5

MOST OF ALL YOU  is currently available. It’s an absolute must-read!!

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Most of All You by Mia Sheridan (Review by Sarah Wreford)

My Rating: 4/5*

I have avoided the romance genre throughout my entire life. Two people falling madly in love and having a perfect life – could life really be so magical?

However, something about “Most of All You” by Mia Sheridan drew me in. After constantly seeing it on the shelves of Chapters and after seeing the incredible reviews on Goodreads, I decided to give it a try. Plus, this story didn’t seem like the usual fairy tale romance that one might read.

For Crystal, the main character in “Most of All You”, life has been hard. She regards love as “only bringing her pain.” After losing her Mom at a young age and after living through abuse and rape, Crystal doesn’t love herself or even know how to love.

When Gabriel meets Crystal, he has his own baggage because he was tortured as a young man. Unlike Crystal, Gabriel can love someone but is often triggered in a negative way when someone touches him. Gabriel’s body won’t allow him to forget the physical and emotional pain he has endured.

“Most of All You” begins with a predictable plotline but then there is a twist. It is no longer a formulaic boy-meets-girl, boy-and-girl-fall-in-love-and-are-happy-together, romantic story. The characters of Crystal and Gabriel feel very authentic because they deal with really difficult situations from their pasts. They constantly have to ask themselves whether they can love and be loved because of their previous emotional history.

What really captured my attention in Mia Sheridan’s novel was how she made the reader aware that neither Gabriel or Crystal could “fix” one another. It was refreshing to read that love can be extremely difficult and that one must be in a certain place to accept love.

Have my views on the romance genre changed? The answer is yes. Thank you, Mia Sheridan, for opening up my eyes to a whole new genre and for writing a love story that is not cheesy or predictable. Well done!

Review by Sarah Wreford

Most of All You: A Love Story

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Most of All You

A Love Story

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By Mia Sheridan

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• Contemporary
• "If you loved Archer's Voice , you will love Most of All You ...The writing was truly beautiful and just sweeps you away into the story." Aestas Book Blog
• "Exquisitely written and utterly unique, this is the touching tale of two broken people...and their journey of healing." Natasha is a Book Junkie
• "This is a story that will no doubt own you --- a tale of love, determination, hope and healing brought to life by that intangible magic we've come to expect from Mia Sheridan." Vilma Iris
• MOST OF ALL YOU received the rare and coveted 5 Star Gold Pick review from RT Book Reviews ! "Heartbreaking...inspiring, uplifting and raw..." RT Book Reviews
• "What ensues is the magnificent story of two kindred, shattered spirits finding hope and partnership and eventually love." Washington Post's Romance Column
• "Mia Sheridan has outdone herself with this beautiful, uplifting story of two broken souls finding themselves and each other. I savored each word of Most of All You . This story will stay with me forever." Corinne Michaels, New York Times bestselling author
• "Once again, Sheridan proves why she's an automatic purchase. With heart and finesse, she paints a romance in Most of All You that will captivate you, heal you, and make you believe that love can conquer all. An absolute five star must read." K. Bromberg, New York Times bestselling author
• "I love the men Mia writes. She's able to create sensitive real men with insane sex appeal. " Renee Carlino, USA Today bestselling author
• "Utterly mesmerizing. An exquisite, beautifully written romance." Samantha Young, New York Times bestselling author
• "PHENOMENAL. This is Mia Sheridan at her very best - my favorite read of the year!" A.L. Jackson, New York Times bestselling author
• "Easily my favorite book of 2017, MOST OF ALL YOU combines into one story everything I love most: complicated, multi-dimensional characters and an emotionally-driven narrative, complete with Sheridan's lyric prose and signature, sparkling dialogue." Katy Regnery, New York Times bestselling author
• "Mia takes the gritty pieces of two broken people and eloquently weaves a soulful story about the healing power of compassion and unconditional love." JB Salsbury, New York Times bestselling author

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Mia Sheridan

About the author.

Mia Sheridan is a New York Times , USA Today , and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Her passion is weaving true love stories about people destined to be together. Mia lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband. They have four children here on earth and one in heaven.

Learn more about this author

Where Love Meets Destiny

• Chandler McKnight
• Jun 10, 2023

Most of All You by Mia Sheridan Review

Most of All You by Mia Sheridan is the type of book that rips your heart out and then puts it back together again. This is my second book by Sheridan and I enjoyed it even more than Archer’s Voice . Both books had similar themes, but Most Of All You stood out more to me.

Crystal spends her evenings working at a strip club, barely making enough to get by. She has no money, and her trauma-filled past has left her with no ambition and a clouded future. One day at work she is approached by Gabriel Dalton.

Gabriel was abducted as a child and kept in a basement for six years. He was able to break free from his captor, but has to work everyday to escape the demons that followed him out. His PTSD does not allow him to get close to anyone, but he is hoping to find someone to help him learn how to be touched and to touch again. When he approaches Crystal, she agrees, but after one session, decides she is unable to help him.

One evening, Crystal is leaving the strip club when she is attacked by three men who were giving her a hard time in the club. They beat her up so badly that she will need months to recover. When she’s found, she is clutching a phone number in her hand: Gabriel’s phone number. Gabriel is called to come get her as her contact at the hospital. With a broken leg, Crystal is unsure how she is going to get up and down three flights of stairs at her apartment. Gabriel offers to take Crystal back to his house so he can help her while she heals.

After much hesitation, she agrees to let Gabriel take care of her. As the weeks go by, they start to slowly turn back the layers of each other, learning about the horrors that have turned them into the people they are today. As Crystal heals physically and emotionally, she realizes she depends on Gabriel more than she expected to. She knows that in order to become who she is meant to be, she needs to let Gabriel go,

When I started reading this book, I had a hard time getting into it. Not because it was boring, but because the trauma was hard to take in. The idea of a child being abducted, and the trauma that Crystal endured, was overwhelming

However, this is such a beautiful story about healing and it pulls at every single emotion.

I loved Gabriel. His kindness and patience with Crystal was so beautiful. He saw the world through a different lens. His own personal tragedy didn’t cloud his ability to see the happiness in life. Instead, it allowed him to appreciate the little things more. His ability to look towards the future and heal from his past really showed his amazing character traits. Crystal was also a great character and showed tremendous growth.

The one thing I wasn’t a huge fan of was Gabriel's brother, Domonic. I understand why his storyline was put into the book, but he was let off the hook a little too easily for the decisions he made, even though they were later explained.

The ending of Most of All Yo u was beautiful, but felt rushed. The last few chapters had a lot packed into them. I wish the storyline had slowed down a little to really emphasize the beautiful ending.

Title: First of all You

Author: Mia Sheirdan

Genre 📖: Contemporary Romance

Star Rating : ⭐ ⭐⭐⭐/5

Read if you enjoy: Colleen Hoover, Ari Wright, Lucy Score

Good Reads Rating: 4.02

Tropes: Slow burn, Mental Health Representation

Trigger Warnings: Childhood abuse

Edited by: Lindsey Sanford

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Most Of All You

From the  New York Times  bestselling author of  Archer’s Voice , Mia Sheridan delivers a heartwrenching new standalone contemporary romance.

A broken woman . . .

Crystal learned long ago that love brings only pain. Feeling nothing at all is far better than being hurt again. She guards her wounded heart behind a hard exterior and carries within her a deep mistrust of men, who, in her experience, have only ever used and taken.

A man in need of help . . .

Then Gabriel Dalton walks into her life. Despite the terrible darkness of his past, there’s an undeniable goodness in him. And even though she knows the cost, Crystal finds herself drawn to Gabriel. His quiet strength is wearing down her defenses and his gentle patience is causing her to question everything she thought she knew.

Only love can mend a shattered heart . . .

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‘The Idea of You’ review: My daughter went to Coachella and all I got was this hunky pop star

J ust now, my fingers accidentally typed “The Idea of You” as “The Ikea of You,” and there is indeed a follow-the-directions-very-carefully feeling to the movie premiering on Prime Video May 2.

Anne Hathaway basically saves it from itself. Just when you may be drifting out of interest range watching director/co-writer Michael Showalter’s adaptation of the 2017 Robinne Lee novel, script co-written by Jennifer Westfeldt, along comes the Big Monologue delivered by Los Angeles art gallery owner Solène Marchand, handled so well by Hathaway you forget — for a while — about why you drifted out in the first place.

Three years divorced from her oily, cheating husband, Solène’s at home with her young lover-to-be, the British pop star Hayes Campbell played by Nicholas Galitzine. They share some dicey personal history after sharing a sandwich in her perfect bungalow, away from the paparazzi Hayes attracts everywhere his cheekbones go.

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Here’s the setup. By accident, while accompanying daughter Izzy and her friends to the Coachella music festival, Solène bumps into Hayes in his personal trailer, which she mistakes for a weirdly spacious port-a-potty. Boom, smitten! Mutually! At first he’s ready to act on it; she’s not, because A.) He’s 24, she’s 40, and B.) What would her daughter think? But Hayes shows up at Solène’s Silver Lake gallery, causing a fuss and promptly buying its entire contents. One sandwich and heart-to-heart later, the affair is off and running, in secret at first, lest the tabloids and Izzy get wind of it, which they do.

“The Idea of You” does everything it can, and a lot more than it should, to repackage a popular bestseller with lots of sex for a touchier mainstream audience. The ages have been changed to protect the nervous: Instead of a 39-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man/boy, the movie adjusts it out of teenager adjacency, settling for 40 and 24.

More unfortunate, I think, the key characters are no longer people of color. And, thanks to the state of Georgia’s industry-best tax credits, this highly L.A.-specific storyline makes do with a handful of second-unit shots of the actual, hilly, now insanely expensive Silver Lake neighborhood, while most of the filming makes do with Atlanta and Savannah.

No one wants documentary realism with something like this; they just want romantic fantasy. But the movie’s version of Solène feels less like a motivated woman throwing caution to the wind, and more like two different characters, one fighting against the other, sharing one person’s head-space and storyline. This struggle continues all the way to an ending that upends the ending of the book, in hopes of sending people home (wait, sorry, it’s on Prime Video, they’re already home) happy all the way. The right ending is right there, in the second-to-last ending: a nicely judged shot of Solène nonverbally reflecting on the past few weeks, in a simple, compelling close-up.

Director Showalter has made a lot of enjoyable small- and large-screen work, notably in finessing the comic and dramatic strands of “The Big Sick” (2017), which found a large and gratified audience. With “The Idea of You,” the adaptation favors warm, fuzzy and easygoing, with a little sex in nice hotels. It’s probably enough for folks to like it, although ardent fans of the novel may balk at the changes. Either way, if it weren’t for the actress above the title, these pretty-people-problems wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

'THE IDEA OF YOU'

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for some language and sexual content)

Running time: 1:55

How to watch: On Prime Video May 2

©2024 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Everything is Predictable: How Bayes’ Remarkable Theorem Explains the World review: Why life is a poker game

Tom chivers believes elements of maths can explain human behaviour and the workings of nature.

Thomas Bayes: His theorem is the subject of a book by Tom Chivers

Humans are predication machines. Every second of every day, we are trying to navigate the world based on our predictions. We are making predictions when we book a holiday, based on our prior knowledge and beliefs, that our destination will still exist when we travel there next summer and that an airplane will still exist that is capable of flying us there safely.

We are constantly assessing our prior knowledge and beliefs and testing that against any new data that comes into us via our senses. This neatly describes how our brain works and is also the basis of a remarkable mathematical theorem called Bayes theorem, devised by Thomas Bayes, an obscure 19th-century English Presbyterian minister.

Bayes theorem can, according to the author (a science writer and twice winner of the Royal Statistical Society’s award for statistical excellence in journalism), be used to explain all human behaviour and perception and the workings of the natural world around us.

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It can even explain depression, the author argues, by identifying the cause as being inappropriately strong prior beliefs about perceived negative aspects of the self – such as “I am a bad person”. When such “priors”, as the author calls them, are strong in an individual, they cannot be shifted no matter how much new evidence comes along to disprove them.

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It also explains why, the author argues, some people hold so strongly to the belief that vaccines cause autism. The evidence to the contrary is not enough to shift their prior belief that mainstream medicine is lying to us.

Based on our priors, we believe that an apple falls down from a tree when ripe, not up. Yet, if we saw an apple that fell upwards, we would have to update the likelihood of the next apple falling from a tree – our prior belief would shift to accommodate what we have seen.

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The constant updating of data about the world through our senses, and testing it against our belief system, is how our brains work. It is also how artificial intelligence works.

It is possible to predict the future, he says, with greater or lesser confidence depending on how close our priors match up with the new data we are constantly receiving.

Life is a poker game, the author says, where we are all trying to make the best decisions we can based on the limited amount of information we have. This book is about an equation, devised in 1763, which describes – mathematically – how we do that.

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A writer explores the complexities of her interracial relationship

Nina Sharma contemplates the power of Black and Brown love in her essay collection “The Way You Make Me Feel.”

Shortly after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, The Washington Post ran a news story about interracial families attempting to explain his death to their children. “ A man was unjustly killed here ,” a White father recalls solemnly telling his biracial Black child.

But there was a gap in the coverage: “There are no interracial couples without a white partner” featured in The Post’s article, Nina Sharma observes in her new essay collection, “ The Way You Make Me Feel: Love in Black and Brown .” Drawing variously on personal reflections, pop culture and history, Sharma makes it her project to decenter Whiteness and highlight a love that has long been relegated to the shadows: that of Black and Brown couples.

Sharma, who is Indian American, is married to Quincy Scott Jones, a Black American educator and poet whom she met at a Fourth of July barbecue, as she recollects in the anthology’s title essay. They had, she writes, grown up just one hour from each other: Jones in a majority-Black suburb of New Jersey, Sharma in Edison, N.J., a town that’s now home to one of the largest concentrations of Indian Americans in the country.

In 16 essays spanning 300 pages, Sharma chronicles her relationship and places it in conversation with other Afro-Asian love stories. Among them are that of the Black-Indian couple at the center of Mira Nair’s 1991 film, “Mississippi Masala,” and the story of Vice President Harris’s parents. (Sharma refers to Harris as her “time-traveling daughter” while contemplating having children of her own.)

The sweeping but focused collection demonstrates Sharma’s commitment to exploring Afro-Asian intimacy in all its beauty and complexity. In one essay, she probes Donald Trump’s indictment of racial others and grapples with her immigrant father’s complicated adulation of the former president. Using “Mad Men” as a launchpad, Sharma incisively considers the “nothingness of whiteness”: the luxury White people are accorded to make “something out of nothing,” while Black and Brown stories are always expected to make a statement.

In the book’s standout essay, “Sacrifice,” Sharma meditates on her parents’ suggestion that Quincy shave off his dreadlocks before their wedding. She compares the sanctity of a Hindu head-shaving practice, called mundan, with the violence of shaving the hair of enslaved people. “Head shaving was one of the first acts of enslavement,” Sharma writes, recounting the history of Europeans and slave traders shaving heads as a way of “cutting from enslaved Africans all ties to their place and people, all known markers of identity.”

But Sharma doesn’t simply dismiss the sacrosanct Hindu practice of tonsuring; instead, she treads carefully to highlight its nuances and considers the opposing valences that head-shaving carries in Indian and Black communities. She extends her exploration of hair to Black women’s wigs and weaves, which sometimes source hair from India and China, often selling it to consumers as “true Indian hair.” In the essay’s conclusion, Sharma refuses to comfort readers; instead, she recalls her wedding, when her older sister complimented a Black guest’s hair. “I love your hair,” her sister said. “Well, you should,” the guest replied. “It’s yours.”

As such moments prove, Sharma’s debut is remarkable for its daring, how unafraid it is to eschew rosy visions of racial solidarity. She interrogates the ongoing anti-Blackness of her family, even after her marriage to Quincy, refusing to glaze the collection with the banal optimism that assumes all people of color have joined forces to avenge racism. As a case in point, Sharma reminds us of the complicity of the Palestinian American owner of the corner market outside which George Floyd was murdered, and that of the Hmong American police officer who stood watching.

Sharma brings the same candor to her own life and its unglamorous details: her multiple mental health hospitalizations, her persistent cheating on a college boyfriend, her struggle to quit smoking cigarettes. The prose is lush, if occasionally clichéd, such as when she describes a peck on the lips as an “unbearable lightness” and concludes the book by ruminating on the undefined nature of dividing zero by zero while approaching Exit 0 on a New Jersey highway.

Although that metaphor feels strained, its nod to life’s precarity is apt: “The Way You Make Me Feel” affirms that Black and Brown existence in America comes with no guarantee of collective solidarity, no innate promise of racial equality. The path to justice is uncertain, Sharma reminds us, and we must each work hard — and be bold enough to sacrifice our own comfort — to actualize it.

Meena Venkataramanan writes stories on identity, culture and Asian American communities for The Post.

The Way You Make Me Feel

Love in Black and Brown

By Nina Sharma

Penguin. 323 pp. $27

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