Publisher's synopsis: They say first loves are oftentimes the end of one’s innocence.Those words couldn’t ring truer for Everlynne Lawson, whose first brush with romance came with a heartbreak…and the thing that seems to follow her everywhere she goes. Death.
After a great tragedy, Everlynne loses all she cares about—her dreams, her family, and her soulmate, Joe.
Guilt-ridden, Everlynne decides to isolate herself in Salem, Massachusetts. A shell of the woman she once was, she takes her days one at a time, careful not to allow herself the joy she believes others in her life were robbed of. But when the mysterious, handsome Dominic storms into her life, it becomes more difficult to stay in solitude. Dominic is different: adventurous, joyous, with lust for life and a passion to make her his.
Everlynne is on the cusp of reinventing herself once again when the old wounds of her past are resurrected, rawer than ever. There is nothing worse than being in love with two men.
Especially when one of them hates you.
My thoughts: Beautiful Graves ended up being a solid 3.5 stars for me. Shen packed a lot into this one, and I found myself focusing more on character portrayals and development than I did the actual plot.
There was a lot to unpack in terms of these characters. Of the three main characters, none of them were static and all of them had so many layers. Everlynne has to come to terms with loss and learn to process her guilt and her grief. She also finds herself at a crossroads between the love of her past and the love who could give her a brighter future. I absolutely loved Joe and Dom as characters. Neither one turned out to be anything like they were when we were first introduced to them, and I simultaneously found myself wanting to know more about the person they became while also missing the person we first grew to love.
Everlynne is, at times, quite a mess. She's burned a lot of bridges in her past, and getting back to her former self wasn't an easy or clean journey. I loved that Ever was emotionally raw when she needed to be, rather than just constantly closed up.
As much as I loved these characters and their journeys, I found the writing to just be okay. I wasn't pulled into the writing like I wanted to be; this ended up being a great book for me to read on my lunch break, because I never truly got lost in the story and it was easy for me to put down when I needed to.
Overall, I really liked these characters and the depths of their dimensions, but I just wasn't drawn into the narrative like I would've liked.
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Release date: 10/4/22
Format: ebook
ebook obtained via: Kindle Unlimited
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