Faith, Love, and Devotion: Book One

Reeling from the recent death of his wife, police officer Evan Cerelli looks at his four children and can only see how he fails them. His loving wife was the caretaker and nurturer, and now the single father feels himself being crushed by the pain of loss and the heavy responsibility of raising his kids.

At the urging of his partner, Evan celebrates a coworker’s retirement and meets disgraced former cop turned security consultant Matt Haight. A friendship born out of loneliness and the solace of the bottle turns out to be exactly what they both need.

The past year has been a slow death for Matt Haight. Ostracized from his beloved police force, facing middle age and perpetual loneliness, Matt sees only a black hole where his future should be. When he discovers another lost soul in Evan, some of the pieces he thought he lost start to fall back in place. Their friendship turns into something deeper, but love is the last thing either man expected, and both of them struggle to reconcile their new and overwhelming feelings for one another.

Review

Evan and Matt. This is a book that is a favorite of many people. I can see why.

I was crying in the first chapter which is a testimony to great writing. It is a stunning depiction of grief. 

These are two broken men and the friendship that grows between them. And we can see them fall in love. 

I am not a huge fan of the lack of awareness both men have around their sexuality and the gay for you theme. I wrinkle my nose a bit. 

Also, while I enjoy the reality of Evan's dealing with his childern given his level of bereavement, I think there needs to be more of a healing from that where instead I think he shifts the care taking to Matt.

I love the writing, like the romance, but don't adore the leaning into the next book on with this same couple that means while we do get HEA that too much is left dangling.

But I am glad I read it.

Reeling from the recent death of his wife, police officer Evan Cerelli looks at his four children and can only see how he fails them. His loving wife was the caretaker and nurturer, and now the single father feels himself being crushed by the pain of loss and the heavy responsibility of raising his kids.

At the urging of his partner, Evan celebrates a coworker's retirement and meets disgraced former cop turned security consultant Matt Haight. A friendship born out of loneliness and the solace of the bottle turns out to be exactly what they both need.

The past year has been a slow death for Matt Haight. Ostracized from his beloved police force, facing middle age and perpetual loneliness, Matt sees only a black hole where his future should be. When he discovers another lost soul in Evan, some of the pieces he thought he lost start to fall back in place. Their friendship turns into something deeper, but love is the last thing either man expected, and both of them struggle to reconcile their new and overwhelming feelings for one another.

and that's what it felt like reading these stories. Even though it's been 4 years since this series wrapped up and 3 years since i read the final book it was so effortless to slip back into the lives of Evan, Matt, Jim and Griffin along with all their families and friends.

For the most part I'm not a fan of anthologies or collected stories...usually. But I will always makes an exception and happily so when it's something that leaves me smiling and just simply delighted with every word that I've read.

I'm not going to bother with rating each story or going into the details of each story but what I will say is if you haven't read the series than probably best to skip this book until you do. Most of these stories are set around the Christmas season There's not messing with anyone's HEA and there's no big storyline. This is more a case of the author sharing their HEA with us.

Everyone has a different vision of what happily ever after holds and for Evan, Matt, Jim and Griffin happily ever after isn't about fame and fortune but family and love and in 'Forever & Ever' the author takes us through the lives of these men sharing with the reader the good times and yes the bad...but often it's the bad that defines the good and reminds us that we need to appreciate and treasure them and during the worst of times it's their memory that give us the strength to get through the bad. But this time we are treated to the best of the good times...family time, births, weddings, love at it's sweetest and the bad thankfully is the kind of bad that happens to people and often times at the end of it all we realize that rather than the bad it's more of life's way of reminding is to treasure, love and appreciate all the good that we've been given.

There were far more times that made me laugh and smile with delight while shedding tears of happiness than there were moments of tension and truthfully I had no tearful, sad moments.

I think my only regret about this one was that I didn't have the time to re-read the original series and I know that when time permits I'd love to curl up and re-read the original series before once again enjoying the collected stories contained in 'Forever & Ever'.

In 'Truth & Tenderness', book #6 of Tere Michaels' 'Faith, Love & Devotion' series, we said good-bye to this series but here in 'Forever & Ever' it feels more like the characters of 'Faith, Love & Devotion' have come to say good-bye to us and share with us a bit of the 'happy ever after' that they fought so hard to get and for me it was simply perfect and so comforting to know that while the series may have ended these men didn't they lived on and got to enjoy their happily ever after.

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An ARC of 'Forever & Ever': A Collection of Stories'. was graciously provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Ok, I have to admit to the sin of skimming.  My punishment was the fact that I missed a semi-major plot line (or at least I think I did).  This book seemed to have aspirations of a serial killer detective novel, but not quite the ambition.  What I did like was the everyday family and career issues that the couples deal with, and that is what kept me going.  I'm glad I saw this to the end and I'm glad to move on to other things.

Wow!!! Just WOW!!! I loved this one. For me it was as close to perfect as it gets. Issues were resolved, questions were answered, problems solved and at the end of it all things were good really, really good.

From things I've seen posted here and there this is it. Sadly this is the end for this series. With Truth & Tenderness we get a final glimpse at Matt & Evan as they struggle to regain their balance following Evan's promotion to Captain and the additional job pressure and public exposure that this garners and the revelation once again appearances can be deceiving, we catch up with Jim & Griffin as they continue to plan their future while dealing with trouble from the past and supporting their friends in times of need, Shane & Helena are happily married and comfortable with their life together as they offer support to their friends in times of need, Daisy & Bennett happy with a new baby until a mistake tears them apart and pulls their friends into the aftermath. Meanwhile unknown to everyone something darker and more dangerous is circling waiting to seek revenge and strike at the heart of Griffin & Jim's happiness regardless of who gets in the way.

if you haven't read these books and plan on it then you might want to skip this next part but for some of my friends this is something that I know is a hard line and they don't like to encounter it in their books so spoiler time...I'm not using spoiler tags because this does not involve any of the MCs but there is cheating in this story.

This was not a story lacking in events. But it was also not a story containing too much to deliver. Most of what happened was connected and so events moved from one plotline to the next with each step moving us towards an inevitable conclusion.

Start to finish I could not quit reading this story even when I needed to do other things I found myself opening my e-reader for just one more page...just one more...until there was none and my questions were answered and there really was nothing more left to find out. I have so loved reading this series and while I might wish it had taken less time for it to be released at the end of it all was a story well worth waiting for.  Tere Michaels has created a series worth reading and one that will comfortable reside on my list of favorites and I will remain hopeful that even though things could easily be left here there are also distinct possibilities for things to be revisited in the future and I for one would enjoy that.