Twenty-three year old Maura is still coping with her parents' sudden death two years ago. She recently graduated from college and now has her own catering business. A best friend-roommate who has been there through it all and helps make life manageable.
Until first love Pierson Hammer comes walking back into her life.
Pierson has demons of his own, after serving in the military for five years. Tormented from his past and present. he comes home hoping to make amends with Maura.
Can Maura forgive Pierson for leaving her all those years ago? Can she trust him with her future? Will she open herself up completely?
To Purchase:
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Back-You-Book-ebook/dp/B00E4Q99HG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1375833693&sr=1-1&keywords=coming+back+to+you
My Review: 5 stars *****
CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!
This is a pretty intense book. It actually talks about a subject most other books just scratch the surface of. PTSD. A disease that is widely known but not yet fully understood.
The story starts with Maura and Ruby who have been best friends since 9th grade go to a the new night club that just opened in their small town. Out with girlfriends, drinking and dancing, Maura swears she sees someone who left her five years prior. Trying to see again, he was gone, so her and Ruby decide to go dance. As they are dancing Ruby sees him as well and says something to Maura. They both book it out of the club so hopefully he doesn't spot them. Turns out the man they are running from was Maura's one and true love from high school, the man who gave her all her firsts, Pierson Hammer.
Back Story:
After high school, Pierson joined the Marines like his father did. Before he left for basic he broke it off with Maura cause he didn't want to take away any college experiences she would normally enjoy. Not giving her a choice in the matter and completely breaking her heart. For five years, Pierson never contacts Maura or even comes home, Or so she was led to believe.
With the sudden death of her parents and only Ruby and Pierson's mom helping her through the grief, Maura finishes college and starts her own catering business.
Present Day:
So Pierson comes home after being medically discharged from the U.S. Marines. He goes after his Maura, for him there is no one but her. He was walking down the street and looked into the window of the catering business and saw Maura alone. He decides to go in and say hello. Just a quick little hi, how are ya, kinda thing. That night at the club yet again, as Maura starts dancing with a friend of Ruby's guy, Pierson shows up and pulls Maura to him and away from the other man. That starts a scene of how Maura isn't to be dancing with anyone else but him. Pissing her off she says some mean things and pushes him away and leaves the club. The next day at his welcome home party was close to her house, he sees her sitting on her front porch watching from a distance. He decides to walk over and talk to her. He apologizes for the night before and after she says a few more things that surprises him, he asks her to dinner... she says fine. They have their first date and she keeps wanting to know what he wants since he hasn't so much as looked her way in 5yrs... why now?
After a few days, Ruby and Maura go through her parents storage unit. As they are sorting stuff out, Ruby finds a stack of letters from Pierson addressed to Maura starting about nine months after he left. Maura had never known he wrote. Her parents weren't huge fans of Pierson's and they hid them from her. After calling it a day, Maura and Ruby head home to read the letters. After finding out that he never stopped loving her, that he missed her like crazy, used her photo for inspiration to make it home safe, she and Ruby cried. Realizing she spent a good amount of time reading the letters and crying she almost forgot her date that night with Pierson to celebrate getting his new job and house.
Over dinner she lets it out that her parents hid the letters and she had never seen or heard about them until that very afternoon. Pierson makes it known that he meant everything he said in those letters and it all still rings true for him to that very day.
Maura and Pierson pick up their relationship as if they have been together all along. One night after having intimate relations, they fell asleep. Pierson, having PTSD, has nightmares on occasions and on this night in particular, Maura woke up with hands around her neck choking her. She opens her eyes to see who wants to take her life and as she looks up it chills her to the bone to see Pierson looking at her. Only he wasn't really looking at her, he was having a nightmare and he was in a trance like sleep. Maura bucked him off and it woke him up. She rolled outta the bed freaking out. Yelling at him and making him feel more like shit than he already did, she storms outta the house and walks home. Once there, she falls to pieces. The next day she ignores all texts and phone calls from him. She was pissed. She explains it all to Ruby who swears she is gonna kill him. After a few days of ignoring all things Pierson (which pissed me way the hell off. To me this chick needed to get her head outta her ass and realize he needed help not to be treated like she was treating him!!!) she finally decided to talk to him.
They decided to take the relationship slow, Pierson was seeing a counselor and taking meds for his depression. Turns out his nightmares were a tragic memory that he was repressing. After he fully remembers his dream about how it shoulda been him and not his battle buddy that died, he worked and worked to make things right.
After a couple weeks go by, Maura moves in and they keep working on his treatment to make him better. After about another week or so, Pierson proposes and she says YES! That weekend, they have an Engagement party where they celebrate with close friends and family. We also learn that Ruby is pregnant by Trevor, the guy from the club at the beginning of the book, they have been dating ever since the beginning. They try sleeping together again and no more choking. He still has nightmares, but not as vivid as they used to be. After two months go by, Pierson goes by the cemetery to visit his father and Maura's parents. As he realizes he was there for a long time and Maura should be home, he didn't want to worry her so he leaves. He comes to a red light and tapping his hand on the wheel urging the light to turn green. Once it does, he goes... not paying attention, he gets slammed from the side by a driver who ran the red light and then again from the behind. As he was in the hospital, Maura found out two people died in that accident. Maura makes the decision to hold it back from Pierson because of his PTSD. Not wanting to upset him. All was OK with him and was released in a few days...
Then we get to the wedding where it is described beautifully. They all finally get their happy ending.
This book was really good. It did piss me off in the beginning when she acted so rudely to him after being choked. I get the situation she was in but come on, you know he is sick, have some compassion and understanding versus treating the man you love like a leper. Other than that, book was phenomenal. This is a cause near and dear to me as I am going to school to be a Psychiatrist and specialize in PTSD/Trauma. I'm glad someone is talking about this issue vs. just scratching the surface. Devon really did her homework on this and it shows. Beautifully written. I really like the fact at the end of the book she has the link for the wounded warrior project. As someone who donates to them it is a breath of fresh air to see other people caring about our soldiers! Even though this book did piss me off in the beginning I still gave it 5 stars because she did the disease justice and really brought it some spotlight. Besides that one part, this book was truly phenomenal! Hope y'all enjoy!
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