Holding on to Forever

Adam and Emily will take you on their emotional journey as they navigate life and fight their demons. This is no fairy tale. Choices have consequences, but together they can accomplish anything.

Adam is in college playing football on scholarship and pursuing his dream of reaching the NFL. He’s not your typical skirt chasing quarterback. Nothing is more important to him than his mother and little sister, who suffers from a debilitating disease.

When life throws Adam’s family a curve ball, he’s forced to make a difficult choice to support them. Now his entire future is on the line if anyone finds out. Selling drugs gives him the money he needs, but at what cost?

Emily is the girl that catches his eye. Once he sees her, he just can’t get her out of his head. The only problem is, she’s become a client and she’s totally off-limits because she’s his coach’s daughter.

Emily and Adam have a connection immediately and it’s undeniable. Emily has been spiraling for awhile. Her past is catching up with her, as well as her present. To escape she’s spending more time high than sober. She’s risking everything, including Adam, to catch that next high.

This story is angsty and emotional. It tackles some difficult topics and struggles. Emily’s story is tragic, yet thankfully she finally finds someone who loves and supports her. Adam is good. He has to make some terrible choices out of necessity. Both will be forced to face their past. Together they are strong enough to battle and come out better. The road will be tough, but their love makes them strong enough to come out on top.

Holding on to Forever is not a pretty love story. It is tragic at its core, but is grounded in hope. Adam Miller is a student athlete who doesn’t fit the stereotype of a star quarterback. He’s a dedicated family man and his mother and sister are his world. When his mother loses her job, and the insurance that goes with it, he is forced to make some choices that he thought were all in his past. With his sister’s acute Cystic Fibrosis, there are steep medical bills to pay and he knows it’s up to him to keep his family afloat. He can still play football and deal drugs at the same time, as long as he can keep the two worlds separate. Emily Parker is a young woman who has suffered much in her short life. She has faced emotional and sexual abuse, drug addiction, depression and a toxic mother who continually breaks her spirit. She tries to conquer her demons with drugs and alcohol but they only contribute to her increasing downward spiral. Emily and Adam cross paths when she takes a dangerous combination of drugs and ends up in the hospital. From here on in, their lives will never be the same. This is a journey that will shatter you, then put all the pieces back together again. It’s filled with so much emotion that you not only read this book, but you feel it, as well. It touches every bit of your heart with the desperation, trauma and fear that Adam and Emily experience, but there’s also a beacon of light that gives them a sense of hope, love and commitment in their lives. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this. It’s a brilliant collaboration between Siobhan Davis and S B Alexander that shouldn’t be missed!

5 OMG MOMENT STARS!! This book was crazy busy that sucked me in from the first page. Adam and Emily both have had lots of drama, but these two will touch your heart. Their story will hit all your emotion button with some tough subjects and keep you turning pages. These two authors compliment each other writing and turned out a fantastic story.

This is the first co-written book I’ve read by one of my absolute favourite authors, Siobhan Davis, and S.B Alexander – and it was a beauty!!

Holding on to Forever is a full length standalone, told through the duel POV of the two main characters Emily and Adam. The combined writing style of Davis and Alexander is executed beautifully. They took me on an emotional, gut-wrenching, sometimes very dark journey that showed no love story is ever the same, and sometimes the truest, heartfelt love is the most hard fought for. The two leads were polar opposites in almost every way, and the angst was heavy but boy, did they love hard.

This is not your average college romance with a few shocks thrown in for entertainment value. Holding on to Forever is a captivating story of two damaged souls, both living through horrible situations, who are unable to fight their forbidden attraction to each other. There are soul-destroying moments throughout this real and raw depiction of addiction, and the heartbreaking toll it takes on not only the user but all those around them, especially those who love them. However, I promise that no matter how hard your heart breaks, it will be put back together in the end.

I voluntarily reviewed an advance complimentary copy of this book and rate it 4 stars. Well done ladies, I can’t wait to read your next joint masterpiece.

It’s a little hard for me to write this review because Siobhan is my kindle crack where I forgo sleep to devour her books in one day but this one had me struggling a little.

I will say this… I loved Adam. He was the perfect combination of swoony and alpha and I love how he DGAF and goes after the girl he wants.

This book was wonderful. Adam is amazing and someone you’d wish for in real life!

Holding onto Forever is an emotional, hard hitting, dark and raw novel to read.
The story between Adam and Emily is beautifully written with so many emotions between the two that I could not put story down…
Adam loves his family and friends and will do anything to protect them.
Emily is a lost soul who struggles with family and friends and does not know who to trust but her best friend “Molly”.
Read this beautiful love story between the two unfold…
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.

Holding on to Forever is a story about two souls who find one another in the most unlikely of ways. Emily is broken and looking for a way to numb the pain of living with a mother who only sees you as a mistake. Adam is big man on campus with potential to go into the NFL but there are bills piling up around him. When Adam’s sister gets sick, he must find a way to come up with the money quick. He goes back to selling and that is when he officially meets Emily. Emily is out of rehab, but it didn’t work like it was supposed to and she is back on drugs. Adam becomes her dealer until he figures out that she needs help more than she needs the drugs. They start a relationship that is not on a strong foundation. Emily is struggling because someone is out to destroy her, and Adam is doing everything he can to protect her. They both must figure out what they are willing to sacrifice to save one another from the betrayal that is coming.
I love when Siobhan can dive right into the issues that our children face when they are growing up and away from their parents. Her stories really get to the heart of the matter, but maybe could it have a little less drama. Emily tended to be a bit dramatic and that made me want to shut her off sometimes. I loved Adam though because he is a protector and big old sweetheart. When he loved he loved hard and fiercely? The issues that Emily faces are very real, and the story makes you wonder if you are doing your job as a parent. This story really takes you to places that may seem like darkness, but you will want to keep reading. The characters will pull you into their story and you will find yourself not wanting to stop. Love the story keep up the great work Siobhan.

Adam Miller is the talented quarterback of Cypress University in South Carolina. But Adam’s home life has been a struggle. When his mother loses her job and his little sister who has cystic fibrosis gets sick, he makes a decision that could cost him everything…

Emily Parker, daughter of the University President AND the head football coach. From the outside looking in, it looks like Emily has everything that she could ever ask for. But on the inside… Emily and her family are falling apart. With a mother that’s so cruel, she wishes her own daughter was never born, and an absentee father who just doesn’t notice the change and the emotional turmoil happening within his daughter, Emily is struggling. The horrific events of one night set her out on a path towards absolute destruction and after that, it’s one bad choice after another.

Overall Rating:

I’ve recently been reading Siobhan Davis’s bully romance series, Rydeville High. Every book is a twisted tale of romance, greed, and star-crossed lovers set in high school. It’s oftentimes difficult to read because everything bad seems rained down upon the head of the main heroine. Davis’s newest book, Holding On to Forever, has much the same feel. Co-written with S. B. Alexander, this is an emotionally gripping romance of two college-aged students, Adam and Emily. Adam meets Emily one night when he sells her friend, Zach, drugs, namely Molly. See, Adam, the Cypress University quarterback, must sell drugs to make enough fast money to care for his mother and sister who has a debilitating disease. To be fair, he doesn’t want to sell drugs, but it allows him to make quite a bit of money quickly. On meeting Emily for the first time, there is an instant connection.

Emily is Adam’s head coach’s daughter, unbeknownst to him at their first meeting. Her past holds a terrible secret that causes her to use drugs to anesthetize herself against the pain of it. An unloving, opportunistic mother, an absentee father, and her secret conspire to derail her life through her use of drugs. Until she meets Adam. Even though Adam realizes quickly that he is inadvertently providing the drugs for Emily, he works to help save her from herself while buoying her up to save herself. In the end, he wants to love her enough for her to stop using it. Will Adam save her, will he save himself and his family, or will they break, unable to move beyond life’s trials? Those are the questions of Davis and Alexander’s book. And they are important ones.

Okay, I have to admit that I was intrigued by this story from the reading of its blurb. While I don’t profess to be a prolific romance reader, I have read quite a few romances in the past couple of years to warrant having a good understanding of typical romance stories. And this one, as far as I can tell, is different. A drug user falling in love with her dealer? Obviously, from my summary, it is much more nuanced than that. However, it is different, and you can’t help but be interested in the story.

Let me also say that there is MUCH more to this book than this basic storyline. Through this story, Davis and Alexander are pointing to issues of poverty, abuse in all its forms, date rape, drug abuse, and broken families. This book is loaded with story. Each character seems to represent a social issue. In my opinion, it’s the interesting, but also problematic part of this book. I think that there were so many different parts to the story that it sometimes undermines other aspects of the story. I hate to go into any detail because I don’t want to give away the book’s secrets. Yet, I can’t help but suggest that some of the storylines could have been revised out. Emily and Adam’s story alone is enough for this book.

In terms of its characters, Adam is a saint by most measures. That’s actually difficult to write given his role in the story. But it’s clear from the start that he feels responsible for providing for his family, and he will do anything to fulfill that role. With that, there are actions he takes in the book that are morally ambiguous. Necessary for survival, but worrisome. That he knows they are morally problematic AND compromise Emily’s sobriety makes him the saint. He can be headstrong which is his downfall. He fails to include his roommate/best friend in his troubles, causing problems for himself. In trying to fix his family’s problem on his own, his actions seem short-sighted in the context of his future. Yet, he loves Emily deeply. With the exception of one moment in the story of their relationship, he is protective and adores her. The love she has failed to receive from her home life comes from him, and it becomes some of the impetus for her eventual healing. Adam is strong, insightful, and a foundation for Emily to build her hopes on.

Now, Emily is a difficult one to assess. Her character alone represents many of the social issues of the story. Encompassed in her is the problem, and, quite frankly, the solution. It, however, takes her most of the story to get there. Like any addict, she self-sabotages throughout much of the book. I think it’s important to read this type of heroine, though. Most characters in modern romance become their own biggest issue. And Davis and Alexander seem to be pointing to this trait of the genre. It really doesn’t matter that she’s an addict. She could be an assistant to a billionaire or the billionaire herself and still make poor choices in a romantic relationship. What Davis and Alexander have done, though, is point us to a social ill: addiction. They could have created a heroine who self-sabotages in more traditional romance genre ways, but they didn’t. They took the opportunity in this book to illustrate for us the difficulties of addiction and its impact on families. This is the power of this book. It is more than a romance; Holding On to Forever is a story of healing and becoming who you are meant to be.

This book can be difficult to read. It handles drug addiction, abuse, poverty, and broken families in some ugly ways. However, the ending has a huge payoff. You feel as though you’ve lived a long life when you finish this book, but it’s so fulfilling because the growth of the characters is tremendous. Holding On to Forever is a book that all of us should read, as it challenges what it means to find and fall in love in the midst of trauma.