Unforgivable

Unexpected Love Series, Book 3

By: Isabel Love

Narrated by: Vanessa Edwin, Teddy Hamilton

Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

There are certain things that are unforgivable....

Falling for your brother's best friend is one of them.   

That isn't the worst thing I've ever done, though.   

Not even close.  

Shame and guilt follow me everywhere.   

Except when I'm with him.   

With him, I can breathe again.  

Smile again. Love again.   

But he doesn't know what I've done....

Contains mature themes.

©2018 Isabel Love (P)2018 Tantor

Emotional and beautiful

Unforgivable is the third book I've read by Isabel Love. Each book I read by this author is better than the last, and this is my favorite one by far! I love books that hit me right in the feels, and Unforgivable did just that. An emotional story of love, friendship, growth, and forgiveness- this one hit all my love buttons!

Anna and Wes meet when they're just kids in middle school. Wes quickly becomes best friends with Anna's brother, and he and Anna become close friends as well. Anna quickly starts to fall for Wes, but Wes's life is complicated. He doesn't have the easiest childhood and that factors into the decisions he makes and the things that he does. One of my favorite things about this book was seeing into Wes and Anna's past. I loved watching their interactions growing up. As they get older though, they change. Things change between them, but they always stay close.

This book made me think about choices, about mistakes, and about forgiveness. Is there anything you can think of that you consider unforgivable? Any mistake you could make that truly cannot be forgiven? Anna has made a mistake that is that big in her eyes. No matter what, she can't move past it and she can't forgive herself. Wes isn't perfect, either. He's made mistakes in his past as well. As tough as these two are on themselves, I loved that they never held each others past mistakes against one another.

Wes and Anna had the most delicious slow burn romance. I am used to hot and sexy from Love, but this book was just... more. It was so much more that that. The story was real, raw, and had depth. Of course there were some sexy scenes, but the build up was the best part! Anna and Wes had a love story that was beautiful, unconditional, and a bit forbidden, as Wes is her brother's best friend. Their connection was just there from the very start. I felt it. This story captivated me. It broke my heart at times, but also managed to uplift me. Wes and Anna are both amazing characters. Wes was seriously the sweetest, and I found Anna to be truly lovable and completely relateable in a lot of ways. I loved Anna's entire family and friends as well.

Unforgivable is a story of healing, first loves, mistakes, forgiveness, and learning to let go and move on from your mistakes. It brought me to tears more than once, but in the end, it made my heart so happy! For all my friends who love brother's best friend books, emotional books, and slow-burn romances, I can't recommend this story to you enough! I give it 5 stars, and I can't wait to see what Isabel Love has in store for us next!!

Extremely enjoyable

Great narration first of all, good story line and amazingly swoon worthy hero! Score. And ya I may have shed a tear or two. My heart broke for Wesley.. and ya I wanted to marry that man! Lmao ❤️🥰

different than the others, beautifully broken

I really loved this book. I have loved the other 2 books in this series as well, but this story is unrelated to the other two so far. Great romance. Has its dirty sexy parts later on in book, but it gave the characters a chance to grow and develop rather than being thrown straight into it.

Wonderful, Amazing and Fantastic!!!❤❤

Just when I thought I wasn't capable of tears from listening to books, this book did it. It wasn't a lot, but they were there a few times. This is one of the best books i've ever listened to and I can't imagine what the actual paperback book was like.

This book has so much emotion, bought out so many feelings that I am still feeling the words.. I love books that make you feel the emotions like this one did. I'd bet money this book was on someone's book club reading list it was so good. The characters were deep and had a lot to deal with and overcome. But the love between Anna and Wesley was true love. and going thru their journey with them was wonderful. Yes, I'm a hopeless romantic.

Vanessa Edwin was fantastic in her narration. And Teddy Hamilton is the reason I selected this book. I love Teddy Hamilton and he and Vanessa were just AWESOME!!!!

I'll be looking for other books narrated by Vanessa and Teddy again. And let's not forget the author. Thank you Isabel Love for an awesomely written book. One of the best.

Couldn’t stop listening

I love this story. It is so real!! I couldn’t stop listening bc I wanted to know what was going to happen next and I hate that it ended!!!

Wow!!!

I LOVED this book! It touched so many different life struggles. I felt a range of emotions with this one. The ending was perfect! The narrators did a fantastic job as they always do

story description doesn't do it justice!

Such a beautiful story that is so much more than brother's best friend. Also great narration especially female!.
Vanessa Edwin amazes me with her ability to transform her voice according to the nature of the characters, from sexy to emotional to fragile. Every story is so much better with her as narrator.

Love after tragic circumstances

This story covers some difficult subject matter, but I found it to be well written and beautifully performed by Teddy & Vanessa! Anna is a fierce character in the beginning who stands up for the boy who was thrown away by everyone else. I loved that aspect of the story! The friendship between Anna, John, and Wes represented everything good about standing up for others and being that person who literally saves a life in so many ways. I loved that aspect of the book! The love story is sweet and heartbreaking and beautiful and healing, all rolled into one. Both Anna and Wes are thrown into EXTREMELY difficult circumstances at a young age when they are not equipped to make the best decisions. Unfortunately, those decisions have lasting repercussions. My heart broke for them in their struggle. I'll admit that in the 2nd book I formed a negative opinion about Anna. I didn't like her based on Charlie's experience. I knew that reading this book would give me the other side of the story, but I was blown away by Anna's experience. I love how they eventually are able to heal and come together, but it was not predictable. I love how the community and family pull together, and how Anna and John's parents stick by Wes. Narration was top notch and I would definitely recommend this series, and this book! Outstanding performances!

IT HAS EVERYTHING!

This series has a well thought out storyline, well developed characters, and great steamy romance! Narrators performed admirably (although the male narrator's ability to play female voice wasn't my favorite).

excellent

it has been a while that i have read such a good book, well written, narration excellent, character building for these two was amazing from 12 years old to 28 years old. love love i wish there were more like this.

Tragedy to love

Anna has always loved Wesley despite his difficult circumstances but when she believes he doesn't love her things become stilted. Wes does love Anna but after a threat is issued to harm her he stays away. Tragedy befalls them both and 10 years pass before they get together. I LOVE this book and cried huge tears while listening to this. The narrators did a great job and I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Absolutely beautiful.

You'll enjoy it!

Couldn't stop listening to it. The story was sweet and well written. Both narrators were great. Totally recommended

Loved

I downloaded this book because of the narrators this was a new to me author so I wasn't sure what to expect I'm so glad that I took a chance on it I loved this book the story was beautiful and I could really relate to it in a lot of ways I loved the characters and the narrators were perfect

This was tricky to rate

While I loved pretty much everything about this book, from the pacing to the structure, to the devotion between the two MCs to the steam.. there was one big sticking point that rubbed me wrong for about half the book—to explain, beware of a major spoiler below, sorry.

I’m a strong believer that the consumption of sex-positive romance is quintessentially feminist. I’m also a strong believer that a person has the right to choose and control their own body, particularly people who can become pregnant. For whatever reason though HEA romance and abortion always seem mutually exclusive. Like it’s a taboo thing for a heroine to have had an abortion.. what’s that all about? In fact, only recently did I read a book (shout out to Kate Canterbary’s “In A Jam”) where the FMC had had an abortion and it wasn’t some horrifying, traumatic, “mistake” of an event.

Here, in Unforgivable, this is probably the first time I’ve read a romance (having read 1000+ in the past few years) where an abortion 1) happens and 2) is a huge part of the story. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any woman’s feelings towards abortion, especially how they deal with it (from feeling no stigma, to internalized stigma, to sadness, to relief) but Anna’s is especially traumatic. Not because she had a bad experience but that she viewed it as a horrible mistake where she kills her kid. And everyone around her who eventually finds out, aside from Wes—bless his heart, never supports her decision (as riddled with issues as it was) they kind of all just say sorry. The lack of support kind of rubbed me wrong. Then listening to the constant support of Charlie’s POV (especially in his book) gave me some pretty intense “Isabel Love Judges The Crap Out Of Women Who Choose To End Pregnancies” and that sat really weird with me. Why write a book centering around forgiving “mistakes” when you don’t really want to give the heroine forgiveness in the first place? I don’t get it. Maybe it’s just me and I’m highly sensitive to this? Maybe I’m reading too much into it? But I got heavy stigma vibes, and in this day an age we don’t need more stigmatization of a woman’s choice.

It’s a shame because I really loved this otherwise. It’s a beautiful story of devotion more than anything. Wes and Anna loved each other most of their lives and it’s only external happenings that keep them apart for so long. It’s extremely well written and thought through… it’s just got some stuff in it that rubbed me wrong.

Ah well! Onto the next one.