Attention second chance girlies! I think I found your new favorite book. Heathen and Honeysuckle is book 1 in the Pacific Shores series by @sarahabaileyauthor. 💚

This book follows Darby and Leo’s love story in both past and present. Dual timelines and dual POV. Honestly what could be better than watching a beautiful love story unfold not once, but twice?

Definitely check your triggers before reading this one because it definitely hits on a lot of touchy subjects. We have religions trauma, family trauma, mentions of family death, miscarriages, SA, etc.

Also miss Sarah knows how to write a 🌶️ scene, good god. 4 words, mirror, shower, car, phone. Yeah, I had to take a lap after some of those.

Leo might just be the best, most cinnamon roll, walking green flag, king of healthy communication and emotionally intelligent man to ever be written. I would say that he rivals Noah Riley in Say You Swear, and that is a feat let me tell you! Darby was precious and sweet, I couldn’t help but to root for her through all of her struggles.

This book also has some of the best found family and supporting characters! It sets up future books in the series perfectly!

This book just felt incredibly nostalgic to me. It perfectly depicts the feeling of falling in love for the first time and the thrills of a young summer romance. There were so many perfect parallels between the past and present story lines.

I have never wanted to characters to have a happy ending so badly. I felt such an emotional attachment to them I just wanted them to break the tragic cycles of their life and finally be happy. I’m extremely satisfied with the ending of their story and can’t wait to get cameos of them in the rest of the series!

This book put me through the wringer! Such an emotional, beautiful second chance story. Darby and Leo never moved on from each other, and were drawn together right after reuniting. Even though they had to work through and move on from their past, their love never wavered and they still cared so deeply for each other. From the growth, the pining, the forgiveness, and even the spice, it was the most powerful and beautifully heartfelt book.

Oh my poor heart, this was a master piece of first love. I was so emotional, as their story unfolded with the past and present taking turns to tell a beautiful story.

I hugged my kindle, i needed to hug Leo and Darby. I felt this one in my heart, all of it. You can feel every single feeling burning through the pages. It was raw with their souls bare. It was like if finding home was a person rather than a place. This was felt down to the very bones of me.

Thank you, NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for sending me an ARC of this book.

This book was so beautiful!! I could read it 1000 times over and feel all of the same emotions I felt the first time around. This was my first introduction to the author and I’m looking for more!! I can’t wait to continue this series because the first one honestly just set the bar so high, but I think the other two books in the series can reach that height as well. I adored Darby (Honeysuckle) and Leo (Heathen), they were precious. Like my babies!! I love how the story is told in the past and the present and with the past, it will start giving you information to how we got to the present. Darby and Leo met each other one time in the summer when Darby went to live with her grandma and they obviously made really great memories, some stuff happened and then she had to abruptly leave Leo. She didn’t give him a goodbye. They lost contact. It was very tragic. In present time she’s about to get married to this man that she doesn’t want to, but she feels obligated to because of her father and her sister sent this letter she wrote to Leo…he comes on her wedding day to save her!! Then they kind of go on this journey together as Darby is running away from her wedding, her and Leo have some talks about what happened in the past, what was going on between them and I absolutely loved it. It was so beautiful. The epilogue was amazing and I could read more about the two of them!!

4.75 ⭐️

This book was EVERYTHING. Literally stole my heart, broke it and put it back together.
I was so addicted to Leo & Darbys romance that I could not put it down.
Seriously the perfect summer read

Read if you enjoy

Second chance
Dual timeline
Surfer boy
Emotional

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This was a sweet, endearing, and emotional story of first love, heartbreak, and beautiful second chances. Leo and Darby are the quintessential star crossed lovers that are torn apart by familial expectations and outside factors. Even with 10 years apart, their love never fades. I tore through this book in a day and couldn't put it down.

This book was sooooooo good!!! Sarah’s writing is unmatched! She makes you feel so many emotions and literally rips your heart out but she always makes sure to put it back together!! I am a sucker for second chance and this one is top tier!! Thank you for the ARC!