Cover Image: Ever After Always

Ever After Always

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Member Reviews

I received an arc via Netgalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is the 3rd book in the Bergman Brothers series. I have not read the first 2 books, but I could definitely read this book as a stand - alone.

The book features Aiden and Freya, a couple just about to celebrate their 10 year anniversary... if they make it that far. With their relationship in the skids, Aiden & Freya spend the week in Hawaii together with Freya's family. Not wanting to spoil their parent's special week, they agree to be cordial to each other.

Most of the time when characters can't/don't communicate with their partners, it is very frustrating as a reader. This was done is such a way that it made sense why they didn't want to communicate, and how time is needed to heal even after communication starts.

I look forward to reading the first books in this series, and the upcoming Bergman Brother's books when they are released.

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I gotta tell you guys that I forgot to review this one but I didnt forget how much I loved it.
Marriage is hard yo, and sometimes you go through awful and sometimes you go through bliss and these 2 just made me heart pit pat pit pat.
Loved book 1, book 2 was meh but book 3 I loved.

Mare~Slitsread

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I’m now caught up on the Bergman Brothers series and my decision is definitely made, I want to live with the family! Anyone else?

This one is the third in the series and is the first one to be from one of the sisters and most of it takes place in Hawaii.

I’ve read a few reviews people saying they didn’t like this one as much as it was a marriage in crisis story. But I think it was more emotional as it was a second chance romance even though they’ve been married for 10 years.

I loved the parts where Aidan & Freya were finding new parts about themselves and each other but still knowing each other, which sounds weird but makes sense.

I also like how Chloe writes the characters with disabilities and not perfectly created characters some authors write about!

I can’t wait to read Axel & Rooney’s book next, as I loved Rooney’s character in the first book.

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As much as I love Chloe Liese's books, this one just wasn't for me. This is an unconventional romance, a re-romance if you will, and it just felt like I was wading through so many relationship issues and emotions that it stifled the enjoyment of the read. A much more realistic romance than I am used to but I think a lot of readers will connect to it though I missed the humour and shenanigans from Liese's other books. Depictions of anxiety were very well represented.

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This book is so good! I didn't read the other books and the series and I didn't feel any loss because of it! This reminds me of Tessa Bailey's fix her up series. This is exactly what I needed

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This is my favorite of three. It has a married couple as its focus, which is totally different from the first two books, which have MCs trying to find love (or avoid it completely) as singles. This book opens with a marriage in trouble, and its alternating perspectives on what is going on within their marriage will have you wanting to scream at them to open up their communication lines and tell one another how they’re feeling! The husband has an anxiety disorder, and once again – the author handles this so well. This was gut wrenching, but also hopeful and sweet. I absolutely adored it.

Chloe Liese, I am sorry I’m late to the party, but I’m here to stay!

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Ever After Always tells the story of Aidan and Freya, who have hit rocky waters after ten years of marriage. I felt like their marital problems were very realistic but the resolution was very fast, something I find with all marriage on the rocks romance. This book is third in a series, and it did take me a while to get to know Freya's large and colorful family. Sometimes they were fun, and sometimes I felt they detracted from the story. I think the author crammed a lot into the book, but I still was cheering them on to the end.

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There aren’t many smartly written romance novels about married people. So let’s all give it up for Chloe Liese for bringing this gem to the table. I want to be a part of the wild and crazy and loving Bergman family. Aiden and Freya’s story was full of real life issues that normal people face and you just don’t see that very much in the romance genre. Highly recommend if you are looking for a spicy, messy, real world romance.

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I will always want to read Chloe Liese's next book! I couldn't put the first two in the series down, and although I enjoyed "Ever After Always" I wasn't as pulled in here. Maybe that's because Aiden annoyed me so much in the first book (he's something of a Chaotic Good character, always in other people's business. It is very realistic and very hard to root for). Still, Liese knows how to create layered relationships full of warmth, tenderness, and steaminess.

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This contemporary romance series is definitely one of the best I've read in years - the characters are interesting and diverse, the chemistry between the characters is well written and swoony, and I'm just a sucker for a series about a wonderful family :)

Freya and Aiden are mentioned quite a bit in the first two books and we know they are having some difficulties in their marriage - this plot point is explored deeply in this book. Ever After Always was such a realistic glance at what marriage is, how it evolves over time, and how mental health and outside stressors can impact even those who want to commit to a happy marriage and love their spouse deeply. This book was beautiful, quotable, and funny at times too! I smiled a lot, enjoyed the minor escape it afforded me in the form of a trip to Hawaii in the book :) I absolutely appreciated the research that goes into these books - Aiden has a generalized anxiety disorder and the representation of his mental health was so real.

I loved this book and can't recommend this series enough!

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I received an ARC of the book to read through NetGalley. Ever After Always by Chloe Liese is the third book in her delightful Bergman Brothers series. I think you will enjoy this book more if you have read the first two books in the series. This book does an excellent job of showing how anxiety and depression can create a vicious circle that can fracture a relationship even when both people deeply love each other. When Freya Bergman asks her husband Aiden MacCormack to leave, he realizes that the methods he’s been using to cope with his anxiety have created a wall between him and Freya. Unless he can find a new way forward, he may lose the relationship that means everything to him. This is a steamy slow-burn second chance at love story that had me turning the pages with tears streaming down my cheeks. I highly recommend this book as much for the romance as for the other family relationships in the book. Steam Level: Medium. Publishing Date: January 12, 2021. #EverAfterAlways #ChloeLiese #VictoryEditing #ContemporaryRomance #RomanceSeries #BergmanBrothersSeries #bookstagram #bookstagrammer

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Twice I attempted to get into this story and I just couldn’t.
I wanted to like this one, but I could barely make it past chapter 3.
Not the book for me.
DNF.

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I loved the first two books in this series, so I was so excited to get approved for this title. Ever After Always did not disappoint. This one is different as the couple is already married and having to find their way back to each other. I loved seeing the characters from the first two books. It's always a good time with them.

Highly recommend this series!

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Most romance stories end with the happily ever after and the reader is left with a warm glow of contentment. Few tackle the reality of life past the HEA to keeping the marriage alive along with the trials and hardships of everyday life. I loved how the author incorporated mental and physical challenges into her characters. And that she gave them real life hurdles to overcome. I loved how involved the Bergman family was, in their own bumbling way, with trying to help Freya and Aiden’s relationship. There were some laugh out loud moments but have some tissues handy as there were some teary eyed moments too. Even the Acknowledgements was powerful.
The only setback for me was the number of characters involved as Freya’s family feature heavily in this story. The fact that she has 6 siblings plus some partners thrown in means there’s a lot of names to keep track of. But pick up this book and read it. You will be adding this author to your favorites list too.

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Thank you Net Galley for an ARC of Ever After Always. I adore this series!! Chloe Liese is an expert at character building. I highly recommend this series!

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I'm super torn between 4 and 5. I loved this married couple, infidelity free romance about a curvy girl and an anxiety ridden dude. I did not like their marriage counselor with her Twister game, but she's a very small part of the story.

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Heat Factor: There’s some pining and petting in the middle and some sex at the end
Character Chemistry: These guys love each other so much they lie by omission to protect the other party. Like, a lot.
Plot: Aiden and Freya are having a tough time. But they also really want to fix what’s going on, so they put in the hard work to make their marriage stronger.
Overall: I really wanted to like this book. Everything sounds great on paper. But I didn’t get that serotonin boost that I’m looking for when I get to the HEA.

When you list the attributes of this book out in bullet points, I am all in:
Seducing my spouse!
Characters go to counseling together!
Everyone reads romance novels - and even quote Kleypas to each other!
Thoughtful portrayal of anxiety!

But when I actually read it, I was frankly kinda bored. It took me ages to get through. After thinking it over a bit, I’ve decided that my disconnect stems from three sources, one that is entirely personal to me, one that stems from this book being part of a series, and one that I think is a little more about craft and the way the book is written.

Let’s start with the personal gripe. Reading a romance about people with utterly relatable and mundane problems was just too real. I don’t want to read about a marriage growing apart because she thinks he works too much and doesn’t have time for the family. I read romance for fun and escapism - if I wanted dreary real-world problems, I would read literary fiction. When I finished the book I texted Erin asking for some mafia romance recommendations (WHY HOLLY WHY) because I needed a bonkers plot. (Instead of mafia romance, because seriously, that is not actually my jam at all, I followed this with a chaser of Lush Money, which is exactly the amount of bonkers I needed right now.)

Problem number two: Ever After Always is the third book in a series about a family with a ton of kids. Yes, each story stands alone, but there are a million secondary characters with weird Nordic names and I was at least a third of the way through the book before I had figured out who everyone was.

But the biggest shortcoming of the book is that I’m not sure that Freya has much personality. I know that she’s athletic and likes to sing. Other characters - mostly Aiden - tell the reader that Freya is super empathetic and feels others’ emotions really strongly (hence him not telling her when he starts struggling), but I don’t recall seeing much evidence of this on the page in either her thoughts or her actions. Aiden was an extremely well-developed character - I got a really good sense of what he was struggling with and what motivated him - but after finishing the book, I couldn’t tell you much about what was going on with Freya except that she felt dissatisfied with her marriage and didn’t tell Aiden until she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

This review is also available at The Smut Report.

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REVIEW {gifted} Oh @chloe_liese you’ve done it again. #EverAfterAlways is the third instalment in the Bergman Brothers series, which is quickly becoming one of my favourite romance series. This one follows Freya, the eldest Bergman sibling, and her husband, Aiden, who have reached an impasse in their marriage. Aiden’s anxiety has reached an all-time high and he’s become distant and unreachable, and Freya can’t bear the growing distance of their marriage any longer. But as if weathering marriage counselling isn’t enough, they’re thrown together for a tropical family holiday to celebrate Freya’s parents’ perfect marriage while theirs is on the brink of collapse. Despite some meddling siblings and a week in each other’s constant company, the trip somehow gets them working through the trouble in paradise. But when they leave paradise and return to the real world, will trouble find them again?

I adore this series. The Bergman siblings and their assorted partners are just SO. MUCH. FUN. There are hijinks galore in this book, which had me snorting out loud and cackling late into the night. But the magic that is Chloe Liese is that the fun and steam (and oh boy is there steam) is complimented so beautifully with heartfelt emotion, and some absolutely glorious character growth. As someone who has been married for quite a while, I loved reading about two people in a long term, committed relationship, and the struggles that Aiden and Freya were going through, the emotions they were feeling and the obstacles they chose to overcome all felt so real to me. I LOVED the fact that this book wasn’t another run-of-the-mill story about a 20-something, very attractive, very successful couple who fall in love after no time at all and then live happily ever after, but rather about a pair of flawed individuals who choose to put in the time and effort that it takes to make a relationship work. I laughed and I cried (often on the same page) and I adored every minute

I loved loved loved this one! Very highly recommend!

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Aiden and Freya have been married for 10 years, and those ten years were blissful until recently. Aiden has become distant and secretive, and it's affecting Freya so much that she doesn't even hum or sing around the house anymore. Thankfully, with meddling Bergman brothers, a couple's therapist, and a Hawaiian vacation, these two are able to figure out their problems and get back to their HEA.

When I started reading Ever After Always and realized it was about a couple that has been married for ten years, I worried I wasn't going to like it. However, Liese's characterizations really made this book for pop for me. I also appreciated the portrayal of anxiety and the importance of therapy. The final three or so chapters were a bit overly dramatic and seemed to be drama just for the sake of drama, but, thankfully, they were over quickly. Overall, if you need a romance with great mental health (especially anxiety) destigmatization, Ever After Always will fill your cup.

Mental health:
- Aiden has anxiety, and it plays a rather large part in the story. He also has panic attacks.

On the chaste-to-steamy scale, it's a 7.

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Ever After Always is the third book in the Bergman Brothers Series. It can be read as a stand-alone as I did however I am very much looking forward to reading the others in this series.

The story follows Aiden and Freya who have been together for 12 years. Due to pressures at work, Aiden’s anxiety disorder has become effected and due to this they have a break down in communication.

For Freya’s parents anniversary her family have organised a trip to Hawaii which forces Freya and Aiden to spend time with each other and confront everything they’ve been dealing with.

It was emotional, steamy and at times had me laughing out loud. I feel like it was such a wonderful representation of a realistic marriage relationship.

I finally understand why everyone is raving about Chloe Liese. What an incredible writer. She has definitely made a fan out of me and whilst this is not normally my favourite genre I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to reading all her other books.

I want to thank Netgalley and Chloe Liese for generously providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.

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