Book Talk Review; Cohesion

 A lot of book, a lot of feelings

Five men, one love story.

None of them knew how many pieces they were missing until they all slot into place.

Jericho thinks his life is complete and that he doesn’t need anyone else. Quinn is sure he can never get back what he’d lost. Will wants to be a piece of someone’s heart, the hero of their story. Peyton fights his nightmares alone, struggling against the tide, his own dark thoughts an anchor. Sebastian’s hardened heart keeps him from letting anyone else in, too afraid to be hurt again.

Now real happiness, together, is within their grasp. Everything might be perfect, if it wasn’t for the man who wants all of their heads and won’t stop until he has them. It will take everything the five have to reach for their happily ever after.

When the worst happens and their precarious foundations crumble around them, is the love they weren’t prepared for going to be enough to keep them together… and alive?

Cohesion is the third and final book in the Chain Reaction trilogy, an MMMMM romantic suspense series. It is not a standalone, and follows the same five men and their relationship. It ends in a satisfying HEA.

It contains adult situations, gun use, suspense themes, a character with on-page PTSD, and more. The full list can be found inside the book.

*

I don’t know what to say about this book. It’s the final in the Chain Reaction series, one of my all-time favorite series and it’s a bit bittersweet. I don’t want to let these characters go, but I know they deserve the hard-fought HEA they end up with. 

Aurora Crane is truly a beautifully talented author. She knows how to tell a story, and does it well. Not only that, she knows how to write about love. The love this author has for these characters is palpable throughout the series, but especially in this book. The love the characters have for one another leaps off the pages and it leaves you breathless. 

I don’t know how to explain this book without giving spoilers. It’s such a…lovely book, told with a lot of heart. There’s danger, suspense, and heart-in-your-throat moments, but the core of it is a love story between five men who maybe shouldn’t work together, but somehow find their way to one another. It’s a labor of love and one that makes my heart soar with the amount of FEELINGS in it. 

First, we have Peyton, sweet Peyton, who’s been to hell and back. He’s an ex-spec ops sniper and the things he saw and did in combat hurt him. He thinks he’s beyond repair, beyond saving, when in truth, he just needs love and understanding and for someone to see him. Not only that, he needs to take a chance on himself and prove that he is more than what he was turned into. It’s a deep dive into the psyche of someone who’s been in the military and it’s done so beautifully. It forces us to confront the way we perceive ourselves. It cut me deep in many places, because while I may have never stood in Peyton’s shoes, the PTSD he experienced is real and raw and I felt it down to my very soul. 

Jericho is another character we get to take a deeper look into over the course of the book. We haven’t spent as much time with him as we have with the other characters, but that’s understandable. We’ve only just met him in Reactant, and there was enough going on in that book that diving deep into who Jericho is wasn’t the priority. That’s not the case in this book. Jericho does many things that scare him in order to show not only the four men he’s falling so hard and fast for, but himself, that he is in this. He’s my favorite character in this book. Sebastian is my favorite of the five, but in this book Jericho owns my heart. He’s the ultimate chameleon, and maybe that makes some people nervous, but it allows him to adapt and take in a situation and figure out how to be what and who each of the other MCs needs at that time. It’s an impressive skill and shows that Jericho isn’t here just because the author wanted it, but because he’s needed. He fits with the other four so perfectly. 

Will is a pure ray of sunshine and he both has and hasn’t changed from the beginning. He’s always been the breath of fresh air that the others need, but that isn’t to say he didn’t change and grow at the same time. His need to love and be loved is strong and my heart broke over and over for him in the previous books when he worried he wasn’t enough, that he was just some consolation prize. Here, we get to see Will have love and be loved in all the ways he deserves. It’s beautiful and touching and I loved it. Not only that, we get to see him being a BAMF and THAT is something I needed to see. Because Will is soft and amazing but he can also kick butt which is hot. 

Sebastian is my salty baby and I love him. In this book we see him go through a lot. He’s still sarcastic and drinks way too much coffee than is probably healthy, but he’s also surrounded by the one thing he needs the most: Family. Seb is almost the catalyst to this entire group as he’s Quinn’s second chance, Will and Peyton picked him up at a bar, and Jericho was tasked to guard him, but he’s so much more than that. He’s a man who needs love like he needs air to breathe, he’s just so afraid of being let down once more that it’s hard for him to trust he deserves it. He breaks my heart in so many ways and there’s a reason he’s my favorite. Watching him love and accept love was just…beautiful. 

Quinn broke my heart in this book. He’s such a pillar of strength, has the patience of a saint, and is…perfect. He’s not of course, he’s human and there’s enough human fallacies in this book to show how not-perfect and actual human he is. He is…perfect because his flaws and cracks are shown. The author did a brilliant job bringing out the emotions and I sobbed during a certain part because Quinn just broke my heart in the most visceral of ways. 

This book is one big book of feelings. Yes, the suspense is there and it kills me for a bit because the author knows how to set the scene and make your heart quiver, but there’s a lot of feeling, too. It’s soft in all the right places and so freaking intimate. Is it as sex heavy as we’re used to from this author? No. But that’s what makes it perfect. I love the sex, I love the way the author is able to turn the dial up to a hundred and have us sweating with how into each other the characters are, but I also love the way she turned the tables and made this book so…I think quiet is the correct word. It’s sexy and intimate in a quiet and vulnerable way none of these characters have ever had before and it’s so freaking beautiful. It should be illegal to make me cry as much as this book did. 

When you pick this series up, you think you know what you’re getting into. You don’t. This is a journey of love and the five men who go through hell and back in order to defy all expectations so they can live and love on their terms. And I don’t think any other series can measure up to the explosion of emotion we get, not only from this book but all three. There’s an evolution from one book to the next, showing just how hard the author worked to tell this story from start to finish. I’ve read all but one of the books this author currently has published, and I can easily say this is the BEST book she has written. If there’s the perfect way to end a series, this author found it. 

*Quote- 

“He felt alive and free and himself when Jericho was around, because Jericho didn’t shy away from any parts of him, took every dark corner of Peyton in stride.”

“They clashed like lightning in a storm, a perfect clarity of beauty as they came together.”

“He was nothing but a vessel, filled with all of them and the emotions they evoked in him. Want, need, care, love that was too much and not enough all at the same time. An ever-growing desperation to have them with him always.”

 “‘I thought I’d been whole before you, but you all found parts of me that were empty and now I’m complete and I can’t do this anymore without any of you.’”