Forever In My Heart

By Aleya Michelle

Forever In My Heart is the final book in the My Heart trilogy and continues on with Kade and Roxy’s story. These books are not stand-alones and must be read in order. Kade and Roxy’s relationship is maturing quite nicely and things are finally starting to settle down. Kade now realises how vital Roxy is to him and wants her with him for the rest of his life. But as the saying goes, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. A drunken one-night-stand from when they were on a break comes back to potentially throw their relationship into turmoil.

For me, this plot point was very predictable and I could see it coming a mile away as soon as Kade woke up in Stacey’s bed in book 2. I really liked how well Kade and Roxy dealt with the baby news between the two of them. Despite being upset with the possibility of Kade getting another girl pregnant, Roxy understood that they were not dating at the time and didn’t take her anger out on him and I thought this was really mature of her. However, I didn’t like how she and everyone else treated Stacey. Everyone was so rude when talking to or about Stacey, I was actually left disgusted. Everyone forgave Kade, but poor Stacey was constantly labelled a slut just because she got pregnant. I was disappointed with this double standard and the fact that everyone seemed to forget that it takes two to tango. I also felt really bad for Stacey during the reading of the paternity test results. She clearly wanted Kade to be the father given her other choice, but Kade’s reaction and words at hearing the results was childish and hurtful.

After the results are handed down, Kade and Roxy’s relationship moves forward very quickly. Kade is ready and desperate to tie Roxy to him in every way. I don’t think I’ll be spoiling anything when I say the book ends with a wedding, given the fact the cover kind of gives that away. And being honest, I think the proposal was the best part of the entire book. It was so sweet and romantic and totally swoon worthy. And the song choice for Roxy’s walk down the aisle was absolutely perfect.

I was hoping the concerns I had with book 2 would be corrected, but unfortunately they weren’t. We still have issues with character names. Ebony’s husband was called John in book 1, called Dave in book 2, and alternated between John and Dave in book 3. Also, there is still that feeling that the timeline just isn’t quite right, in this case mainly relating to Stacey’s baby. I won’t go into the details too heavily, but given the events between Kade’s one-night-stand and Stacey saying she’s 10 weeks pregnant, I guestimate about 14-16 weeks have passed.

I was also very confused as to why Dylan needed to make a reappearance. I felt like he was just thrown in for the sake of creating drama and suspense, but his return was so brief I was left wondering what was the point.

I have struggled for several days on what I should say in this review and what rating I should give it. Aleya is an Aussie author new to the market and I was really wanting to give her great reviews. I enjoyed book 1 but was disappointed in book 2. I was hoping book 3 would redeem the series, but sadly I felt it didn’t. I really really really hate having to give a not-so-stellar review.

Obviously I am just one person and opinions can differ greatly from person to person. While I felt let down by this book, I know others will fall in love with it. Aleya’s first and second books in this series have some fantastic reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, with the average rating being no less than 4.3.

Date of review: February 20th, 2015.

My Rating: