Title: Fated
Author: Sarah Ready
Series: Ghosted #3
Much thanks to Sarah Ready, Swift & Lewis Publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to a free eaudio ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I LOVED this book. I did not want to stop listening; I know that’s over used hype for most books these days (I can’t believe we’ve made “unputdownable” a word), but I honestly was loath to stop listening, to the point that I had headphones on while watching TV with my family, which I almost never do because it feels super rude and exclusionary to me. But I was dying to know what the fuck was going on here.
I’m sure there are oodles of plot holes if I cared to look for them; there usually are in plots that mess with time. Some things I plain don’t understand—What the heck was she doing with a gun? What was the point of shooting herself? What was Becca experiencing while Fiona was in her body? (Did it not weird Fiona out to be in someone else’s body??)
And a couple things really tested my suspension of disbelief. No one else was concerned by Becca’s suddenly split personality? No one considered she’d developed DID? I refuse to believe a person wouldn’t have been tempted to google some things out of sheer curiosity, to find out if they’re real. I’ve never had a lucid dream, so I can’t speak from that angle, but if your dream felt that real, contained so many details, and you could remember it all when you woke, wouldn’t you wonder?
But I loved the story, the characters, so much that I did my best to ignore all that. Fiona might not be the most relatable of characters as far as her circumstances—the rich CEO of a Swiss watch company–but her lack of self-confidence and hesitancy toward relationships, her general compassion and sympathy for others, endeared her to me.
When we first met Aaron, I thought he would be one of those super sexy, gruff-to-the-point-of rude, controlling alpha males we see so often in novels. But no, he was actually quietly vulnerable, very sweet, mature, and lacking in self-confidence, but not in a way that made him needy or whiny. He was fully aware of his flaws and countered them with selflessness, doing everything he could to help other people and atone for his mistakes.
I. Loved. That. Man. When I found out . . . There were tears. Many tears.
I do wish I’d gotten to know Becca better, let her speak for herself. We really just heard a bunch of gossip about her, other people’s opinions about her, and were left to make assumptions. I had such mixed feelings about her.
I loved all the children, though I wanted to shake Amy for going back for a book. I understand, I’d be tempted, too, but books are replaceable. Max seemed like a great guy, but I was rather indifferent to him; he wasn’t Aaron. I liked Daniel in this book better than I liked him in his own book!
Yes, this book seems to take place before Ghosted, which makes my eye twitch a little; I went back to Ghosted and scanned the end for mention of Fiona having a husband or children but couldn’t find any, at least not without rereading Ghosted in entirety. So there aren’t any major continuity issues, but there isn’t an obvious connection, either, aside from the Abry thing, of course.
This was a long book, but I was not ready for it to end. The epilogue we got was cute, but I needed more—how did they decide to live their life together? On the island, in Geneva, both? Did Aaron keep being a man of all work and swim on the side, or swim the most and tinker in his downtime? No way was Fiona able to continue working as much as she was used to. What was the custody situation like going forward? Did Fiona and Aaron have more children?
Sigh. Hopefully there will be another book in the series, perhaps focusing on Max, and we’ll get to revisit Aaron and Fiona. Overall, highly recommended, but you’ll enjoy it more if you can let the wonky bits go.
