Sunny Shelly’s Review: Dane, by Leddy Harper

I’m recovering from surgery, and read Dane over the course of yesterday, and I still am not sure I’ve gathered myself enough to write this review. Dane is a gut-wrenching, soul-crushing, heartbreaking read about selfishness, self-protection, selflessness… and being caught in a morally gray area. There are definite triggers in this book — I do not think that the description indicates that at all, so reader beware. I LOVE that this book was told solely through Dane’s POV (with the exception of an awesome epilogue) because it really is HIS story. The reader gets to experience all of his emotions, heartbreak, heartache, guilt, happiness, loyalty, confusion and elation in a way that I don’t think would come across in a dual POV book.

I’m going to try my best to review this without giving away spoilers, so here we go. Dane is a wealthy businessman, but his personal life is a bit of a mess. He’s not living life, but merely existing, due to his situation at home. But he doesn’t even realize that until a chance encounter with Eden and the subsequent times that their paths continue to cross.

Because everything happens for a reason.

Good or bad, everything happens for a reason. You may not know why. You may not ever understand why. But everything happens for a reason.

Eden opens up Dane’s eyes in a way that he never could have imagined, forcing him to face just how miserable his honorable intentions have made him. She teaches him to laugh again, live again, experience joy again… And that just increases Dane’s guilt tenfold because of his situation with Gabi. Gabi, who Dane has always put first, ahead of himself. And for the first time ever in his life, Dane finds someone who makes him the priority through his friendship with Eden.

“Anyone looking at me would never know the loneliness that lived inside. The desperation that had carved itself a spot and made a permanent home where my heart used to lay.”

“I hadn’t realized how lonely I was until she stopped paying attention to me and then abruptly stopped. Now I was truly miserable.”

This isn’t a traditional love triangle, and while there are some elements of an emotional affair, I wouldn’t consider what happens between Dane and Eden to be cheating. There is so much tragedy involved for all three characters, but Gabi most of all. My heart just broke for her.

There is so much turmoil before the HEA. But once the characters all get there — and they all get a HEA — it is amazingly perfect.

I received an advanced copy and voluntarily left a review.