Just a Heartbeat Away (The Forever Yours Novels Book 1)

Buy this book! Via and Seb's story is so beautiful, full of tenderness and longing, without shying away from reality. I read it in under 24 hours and immediately bought the other two books in the series.

Schöne Slow-Burn Romanze. Daumen nach oben. :-)

Once I finished Just a Heartbeat Away, with tears still in my eyes, I moved this book to my “Comfort Reads” Folder. Because that’s exactly what it is. A comfort read. A hug for my heart. Seb and Via are just… everything. This was a beautiful story of Seb, a widower dad, and how he starts to fall for someone from the worst time in his life, his son’s former teacher. Via helped him dig out of the grief from his wife’s death and put Seb on the path to being a better dad for his son, Matty. When they met again, Via is the new school counselor at Matty’s school and Seb is the lunch dad. This puts them into close contact as they circle around each other, both falling but having their own reasons for waiting to take the final leap. This book is a slow burn but in the best way possible. When they do finally get together, you as the reader are just so invested and in love with the characters that you absolutely believe in their relationship.I mean, this quote from Seb just warms my heart!"I don’t expect you to be issue-free. And I definitely don’t expect our love for each other to just magically dissolve our respective hang-ups. All I want is to keep growing. To keep growing alongside someone I can lean on and who leans on me. And to argue and hold each other accountable and celebrate the good stuff with and make love to and come home to."Just a Heartbeat Away by Cara Bastone, Chapter 23And the flirting! I didn’t realize how little flirting I see in romances lately until this book. It was so well crafted and lovely as they just circled closer and closer to each other. Neither Via and Seb have had a pain free past. They are both scarred by their past and they both learn to work through those scars. I honestly loved everything in this book, from Via and Seb to adorable Matty and a funny dog and lovely friends and even Seb’s supportive yet stern in-laws. This book is honestly like a hug for my soul.

3.5 StarsJust a Heartbeat Away is a great single dad and age gap romance. I really enjoyed it mainly because of the characters. I absolutely adored Via, Sebastian and Matty.The forty two year old Sebastian is a widow and tries to get back to a normal life with his six year old son Matty. His son’s former teacher twenty seven year old Via shows back up in Sebastian’s life and no matter how hard he tries a crush slowly develops.It’s a cute slow burn with some hilarious dialogue. I enjoyed Sebastian and Via’s growth throughout the story. It became a little repetitive after the halfway mark because I just needed them to communicate and tell each other how they felt. Sebastian was hung up over the age difference and used that as a reason not to start anything with Via.There’s some wonderful side characters especially Sebastian and Via’s friends Tyler and Serafine. They share some great chemistry. Also Sadie was a hoot.I’ll keep reading the series cause the author has created some amazing characters and laid a strong foundation for the upcoming books. I’m excited about Tyler and Serafine.3.5 Stars

Wow, this one caught me by surprise! It's an age gap, single father/widower, sloooow burn, with so much mutual pining. I passed on reading this several times because the cover kind of led me to believe it would be too hallmark-y for my taste, but I was so happy to be wrong about that. It definitely was quite a slow burn, but the feelings and situations here weren't cheesey but very real. There's a lot of dealing with the grief of loss and navigating being in a relationship when there's a kid involved. The friends of the MCs were fantastic secondary characters, and the friend relationships really added to the story rather than being fill-in. I really don't usually like single parent romances, but Sebastian's journey in parenthood was so touching. Everyone in this story is so good and decent and can use their grown up words with each other. There's no artificial angst or drama. And the relationship between Via and Seb grew so naturally, that I didn't mind the painfully slow burn. I'm excited to dive into the next one, which is again not my normal trope jam but after reading this one, I totally trust Cara Bastone to make me a believer.