Sunny Shelly’s Review: The Reality Of Everything, by Rebecca Yarros

THE REALITY OF EVERYTHING (Flight & Glory #5) by Rebecca Yarros

Release Date: August 24th

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Blurb:

Two years after the man she loved was killed in Afghanistan, Morgan Bartley is trying to put the pieces of her life back together. The reno on her dilapidated beach house in the Outer Banks might be just the distraction she needs to keep her debilitating anxiety attacks at bay and begin to heal her heart…if she can ignore the ridiculously handsome guy next door.

At twenty-eight, single-dad Jackson Montgomery’s life revolves around his five-year-old daughter and his job as a search-and-rescue pilot for the coast guard. He’s no stranger to saving a damsel in distress, and though his gorgeous new neighbor is clearly in distress, she’s no damsel. She’s stubborn as hell with walls a mile thick, and the dog tags hanging from her rearview mirror give him a pretty good clue as to why.

It doesn’t matter that their attraction is undeniable—she swore she’d never fall for another pilot, let alone a military man. There are some wounds time can’t heal, and some fears too consuming to conquer.

She’s a barely breathing heartbreak on the edge of recovery.

He’s a crash waiting to happen.

Together they could have it all…if they can endure the coming storm.

Sunny Shelly’s Review: 5 Stars

I read The Reality of Everything while I was vacationing on the Outer Banks, so even though some locations were made up for the story, I felt like I was immersed in Jackson and Morgan’s story.

A lot of what Morgan deals with was hard to read. It’s been two years since Morgan’s quasi-boyfriend, Will, was killed in action in Afghanistan. She’s suffering from complex grief, major anxiety and is just a broken shell of a woman when she buys a dilapidated house on the beach. The house is a quite fitting metaphor for her personal life, and as she tries to rebuild herself as she renovates it. The last thing Morgan wants is to get caught up with the sexy single dad who lives next door. Especially after she learns that Jackson is a Coast Guard search and rescue pilot. But Morgan can’t help but fall deep into like with Jackson and his sweet daughter Finley.

All along, Morgan is stuck in her past and her pseudo relationship with Will. It’s definitely a ghost that is part of her relationship with Jackson. And the guy is a saint — he is so patient and understanding as Morgan tries to move past the pain and loss of Will’s death. For a while, things between them are great until Jackson finds out that he is going to be deployed, and Morgan decides that she can’t go through that pain and fear of losing another man again. But is Morgan willing to let the love she feels for Will win out over her fear of being left behind once again? In the end, Morgan realizes that the reality is that Jackson has become her everything.

So…. what I didn’t like… This book is #5 in a series and is technically a standalone. But it’s part of a bigger series and I felt a little lost because I hadn’t read any of the other Flyboy books before. There is a lot of history between the couples and friends and who Will was to the rest of the group and I wasn’t aware of those details. I think the big blowout between Morgan and Paisley would have had a bigger impact on me had I read those other books.

But despite that, I still give this book 5 stars. Morgan’s through-line is beautiful. She comes such a far way from the woman she is at the beginning who can barely even look at Will’s old pickup truck to the woman at the end, who risks her own life in that very same truck to save Jackson’s daughter. The metaphor of the hurricane that hits the Outer Banks fits this story perfectly — not just the actual story, but Morgan’s journey as well.

I received an advanced copy and voluntarily left a review.

About the Author:

Rebecca is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of over fifteen novels, and is always ready to bring on the emotions. She’s also the recipient of the Colorado Romance Writer’s Award of Excellence for Eyes Turned Skyward from her Flight and Glory series.

She loves military heroes and has been blissfully married to hers for eighteen years. She’s the mother of six children, ranging from kindergarten to law school, and is currently surviving the teenage years with two of her four hockey-playing sons. When she’s not writing, you can find her at the hockey rink or sneaking in some guitar time. She lives in Colorado with her family, their stubborn English bulldog, and a feisty chinchilla. Having fostered then adopted their youngest daughter, Rebecca is passionate about helping children in the foster system through her nonprofit, One October.