Release: 1 (The Release Series)

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Aly Martinez is the queen of feels and plot twists. The woman will tug at every heart string you have and then turn your world upside down with a twist you never see coming. And Release brings both of those things in spades. MAN. My heart. My whole heart. The twist towards the end just punched me in the gut and I wasn't ready to forgive either. #IStandWithThea. Ramsey Stewart and Thea Hull meet when they're kids. Even though they're young, they're both having an exceptionally bad day. Both of them need a friend more than they're willing to admit, but Thea wants nothing to do with Ramsey at first. With time, though... he wears her down. Yeah, cuz apparently she doesn’t care if he’s with other women she would still wait for his ass. Mind you he never was with anyone but that’s not the point here. For her to be this pathetic not caring that he had sex with someone else while she begged for his ass.

She refuses to give up on them even when she finds out that Ramsey and his sister have been lying to her for more than a decade. Release flits from 'Past to Present' seamlessly, allowing us a broader connection with these two characters. Eleven year Ramsey and his younger sister Nora were the newcomers to Clovert, moving just doors down from Thea after being evicted from their home. Poor heroine. She wasted her life pining for a guy thinking that he killed for her but unfortunately he didn’t and was just taking the blame for his sister. Amazing. Nice book on a brother sister relationship but definitely not the hero and heroine. I got invested in the budding symbiotic friendship of Thea and Ramsey from the get go. Aly manages to adeptly paint the innocent love picture, complete with rosy hues and starry dreams. All pulled away in the blink of an eye, stomped on and tattered in a single fateful night. Thea and Ramsey owned my heart from the very first chapter. Martinez takes you on a spellbinding journey as they meet as children. What starts off as grudging friendship between two broken kids, slowly blooms into something much more potent. Ramsey and Thea meet at a time where they need each other the most, though Ramsey's pain isn't as obvious as Thea's. Young Ramsey is undeterred by Thea's hissing and swatting him away as kids. He slowly but surely weaves his way into her heart with his easy smile and sweet demeanor. But that easy smile hides painful secrets, secrets that young Thea doesn't spot right away. Their friendship slowly blossoms into teenage love, but then one dark evening shatters their life as they know it.That was exactly how I lived my life, showing the world a pretty exterior to hide the disaster on the inside.” The following days are all about the heroine’s relentless efforts to break down his walls. Because the book is written in dual point of view, we learn that he still loves her but he thinks she will be better-off with a decent person not an ex-convict so because he loves her SO MUCH, he pushes her away. Fair warning, this is not a story of hearts, flowers, and romance. That would all come later. But in the beginning, my love for Thea was born out of death, broken hearts, and desperation. Coincidentally, that was also how it ended." So, yeah. Aly Martinez had me all up in my feelings again with this one. WAY up. But the two most prevalent ones had me laughing at one point and smiling from ear to ear the next - hilarious anecdotes and deep discussions of the past providing a serious emotional barricade. But that certainly doesn't negate the fact that a twist thrown in there didn't just make me gasp like, "no biggie!" Aly Martinez writes the best friends to lovers stories. They always have so much heart and give me so many feels. Some of her older books (Fighting Silence especially) are some of my favorite romances of all time. It's been a while since she wrote a book that gave me those same kind of feels, but Release did just that.

Be prepared to be taken through some gut-twisting angst but know that the ending is so worth all the pain, but also don’t get too comfortable because Aly is going to pull the rug right out from under you!! Get ready to have your mind completely blown once again by the talented Aly Martinez. I don’t know why I keep forgetting to have my guard up whenever I read one of her stories. I thought I knew what road she was planning to take Ramsey and Thea down. I was 100% invested in getting to the HEA for this couple because if anyone deserved it, it was these two. Life had been entirely too cruel to them for far too long. The angst was at an all-time high but I’m used to that with Aly’s books, but MAN, I DID NOT SEE THAT PLOT TWIST COMING!!! My reading experience with this one was a lot like watching a man plays video games and his whole body is moving left and right with the controller in his hand, swearing that’s helping him do better in the game. I was like, "No there’s not enough room in his book to hash the rest of this out - oh my gosh - what am I gonna do - holy cow - someone help her -someone help him - someone help ME!!" As we healed, the secrets and lies of the past smoldered in the ashes, threatening to ignite again.

Overall, this novel was not just another amazing story by this author, but a powerful portrayal of a couple who came out on the other side after years of painful and tumultous heartbreak. Ramsey and Thea found a safe haven in one another throughout their whole lives and Martinez portrayed that beautifully. Bravo! 5 stars! ~Ratula ❤

Of ALL the feelings he could've felt from that moment on, it's dislike, disdain, anger, hate and irritation that are the most prevalent in his thoughts and dialogue. Two tender, naive souls, having lost something precious in their lives, on an escape trip just manage to meet at the crossroads of tenor lives. Under a tree!! He broke my leg. He broke my patience. And eventually he broke my heart. But there hasn’t been a minute that’s passed that I haven’t loved him with every single broken shard.” We were two lonely people who relied on each other. We’d never been brainwashed enough to believe that the world wasn’t a horrible place. We’d been disenchanted with the beauty of life since the day we’d met. But we had each other. That was the one constant we needed for happiness." The two of us could sit outside for hours talking about nothing, and it filled the massive hole in my chest with new life.Thea ignores his rejection yet lives a good life; reaches her goals; makes a name for herself; travels, etc He became her everything, until he was gone. Twelve years, eight months, three weeks, four days and thirty-seven minutes. That was how long he'd been gone.