Once best friends, now strangers: Second chances don’t come along often. Indulge in heat, ink, and romance in the third book of the NYT Bestselling Montgomery Ink Series.
Meghan Montgomery-Warren thought she knew what love was when she’d married young and had two children. After years of being emotionally beaten down, her husband has finally left her and now she’s forced to find her way once … once again. Somehow she needs to find the person she used to be and figure that the strength she’d thought she’d lost was always there.
Luc Dodd left Denver and his best friend Meghan when he was forced to watch her walk down the aisle with another man. He might have only been her best friend, but he held his true emotions close to the vest. Now he’s back in town and in Meghan’s life. Only he needs to decide if that’s enough for him…and her.
Their journey from friends to lovers is a slow burn of seduction and pain. When Meghan’s past comes back to haunt them both, the two of them will have to stand closer together or be torn apart by their own misgivings forever.
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While the Montgomery Ink books can all be read as stand alone, it you read them in order then you will know the characters a little better as well as some things that have gone on with them. In this one Meghan is working hard to not depend on anyone after her marriage implodes. That includes the man she used to call her best friend. Luc left town years ago instead of watching Meghan marry another man. Now that he is back home he wants to show Meghan that she can be independent but still lean on her family for help, and him as well. Meghan has grown so much since the first book, it was nice to see her finally come into her own.
I listened to the audio book, and I am wondering if I would have like it better if I had read it. The narration didn’t do much for me. It sounded like the narrator was reading a book out loud without much emotion. The voices would change, but I didn’t get a sense of feeling at any point in the book. Even after the big scene toward the end. I take that back. The only time I did pick up the emotion was during the scenes of hostility from Luc’s sister and Meghan’s ex husband.
The storyline was not bad, but there was way too much of the internal dialogue going on. I almost stopped listening, but felt I needed to see this through to the end.
Between the narration and internal dialogue, I have to decide if I’m going to read or listen to Griffin’s book, or Alex’s book. I may give the audio version one more chance.
I was glad Meghan was able to stand up to her craptastic ex, but would have really enjoyed this book if they had more toe to toe encounters where she came out on top. It would have also been nice if that final big scene hadn’t felt so rushed and I could have learned about the final consequences.
The alpha male scenes (especially the ones leading up to the sexual encounters) sounded kind of wussy. I didn’t think of Luc like that when reading the book description, or at the very beginning of the book. I tried to separate the dialogue from the narration, but I couldn’t.
I hate to judge the book by the narration, but since I listened to it, that is an integral part of the review. this was approx. an 8 hour listen that took me almost a week to finish. I had to stop, take a break, and listen to/read other books, and go back to this one. Harder than Words would be 2.5 stars for me.
Love this series.
Full of family and fun, with a few tear jerker moments.
Can’t recommend it enough
One of my Favorites of the series
I think this has to be my favorite Montgomery Ink book to date! Carrie Ann Ryan OH MY WORD you had me in tears! Finally Finally Finally I got what I have been wanting for so long. I can not say in my review what I wanted, nor what happened; because I am not one of those reviewers who gives away the story line. I will say this…. wherever you are reading Harder Than Words you need to make sure you have a box of Kleenex handy. This book touches all the bases for me. Oh WOW! This could not have been an easy book to write by any mean for our author but she not only did it with grace, she did it wonderfully,
I knew when it showed up on my kindle because my screen lite up. My husband woke me up to tell me that my kindle beeped. (I’m deaf) He knew I was expecting 2 books from my favorite authors today and I could not choose which to read first, He said whichever BEEPED in first he would wake me up and I could read it.
“Harder Than Words” hit my kindle at 5am Texas time and was a wonderful wake up call from Carrie Ann Ryan,
Grab a copy and Get to know Luc Dodd and Meghan Montgomery-Warren and her beautiful kids Cliff and Sasha. Come see how a real family leans on each other even when someone has a hard head and puts up walls. If you have not read the other books in the series grab them and read them. Each book is a stand alone but it will help you understand the family dynamics if you read ALL of the books.
Harder than Words is the 3rd book in the Montgomery Ink series and it tells the story of two lifelong friends Meghan and Luc, falling in love. The Characters in Ryan’s books feel so genuine and it’s easy to form a connection with each one. Meghan is a woman who spent almost a decade being emotionally abused and eventually abandoned by her husband Richard. Luc is a caring man who never could find the courage to tell the one woman he loved how he felt. Throughout this book we can see the changes and challenges these two have to endure.
I loved how strong Meghan was for holding her family together the best she could while dealing with feelings of unworthiness. She could have easily given up but she held her head up and did her best to take care of her babies. After being away for almost a decade Luc returns and finds that his feels have not altered. Now he is back and will not risk losing Meghan again. The constant conflicts that were at every corner for this couple kept my eyes glued to my kindle. The ending was something I did not see coming but I was glad to see they finally found their happily ever after amongst the chaos.
One of the things I enjoy most about Ryan’s writing style is how she executes giving her readers a captivating story while dropping subtle hints to excite the readers for the next story to come in the series. I am also amazed at how she includes glimpses into the rest of the Montgomery family and shows the readers an update of their lives. It was nice to be able to continue the journey of the characters we fell in love with from previous books while learning about new ones. I definitely am a big fan of the Montgomery Series and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Griffin.