Blurb:

Neither of them expected to fall in love. But sometimes life has other plans.

When Wren realises her fiancé is in love with someone else, she thinks her heart will never recover.

On the other side of the world, Anders lost his wife four years ago and is still struggling to move on.

Wren hopes that spending the summer with her dad and step-family on their farm in Indiana will help her to heal. There, amid the cornfields and fireflies, she and Anders cross paths and their worlds are turned upside-down again.

But Wren does not know that Anders is harbouring a secret, and if he acts on any feelings he has for Wren it will have serious fall-out for everyone.

Walking away would hurt Wren more than she can imagine. But, knowing the truth, how can she possibly stay?

Review:

I’ve never read anything by Paige Toon before, and I don’t read a lot of romance novels, but Only Love Can Hurt Like This was recommended to me by a very well respected blogger so I was keen to step outside my comfort zone, and I’m really glad I did. It’s a novel that stands out from others in the genre, mostly because of its emotional impact on me, and it is testament to Paige Toon’s talent as a writer that she is able to create a novel that is romantic at its heart, but subverts a few traditions of the genre without feeling in any way disrespectful to it.

The protagonist of Only Love Can Hurt Like This is Wren. I absolutely loved getting to know her – she is very kind and compassionate but she has a sense of fun which bounces off the page. Wren feels like a particularly well rounded character, and I loved the chapters that explored her childhood and subsequent relationships with members of her family, as this introduced the reader to her vulnerabilities, which felt genuine and relatable. Her relationship with Anders also feels like the real deal and I loved seeing the sparks fly right off the page!

I found Only Love Can Hurt Like This to be slightly slow burning, but as the plot unravelled, I found myself becoming more invested in the characters and their story. Paige Toon writes about some incredibly sensitive subjects in the novel, and she does this with such kindness and understanding that it really touched my heart. I wasn’t expecting to be in tears by the end, but alas, that is what happened.

I am definitely looking forward to reading more by this author.

Only Love Can Hurt Like This is available from Amazon.