Loving Mr. Daniels by Brittainy C. Cherry Published by Self-Published on September 16th 2014
Pages: 354
Amazon
To Whom it May Concern,
It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates.
When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss.
When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons.
Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection.
It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter.
It was ours.
And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for loving Mr. Daniels.
-Ashlyn Jennings
First, let me say if you have trepidations about a student-teacher romance, particularly one involving a high school student, put your mind at ease. The student is of legal age (19) and the teacher is only 22. Now, go read this book!!
This story is simultaneously beautiful and heartbreaking. I’m pretty sure I cried throughout the first seven chapters. However, they were the kind of tears I didn’t mind because I knew I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the potential joy without understanding the depth of pain the characters went through. And, boy, Ashlyn and Daniel experienced more than their fair share of suffering.
Immediately following the death of her twin sister, Ashlyn is sent to live with her estranged father and his new family to start her senior year of high school. Although she is 19, Ashlyn was sick as a child and was held back a year. On the train to Wisconsin, Ashlyn crosses paths with Daniel, a recent college grad coping with a horrific family tragedy. Daniel recognizes Ashlyn’s pain and invites her to hear his band play. Their attraction becomes undeniable and both welcome a resurgence of happiness.
Through no deception, Daniel is unaware that Ashlyn is a high school student, not a college student. Ashlyn doesn’t know that, in addition to being a musician, Daniel is about to start his first year as a high school teacher. Both are surprised to discover Ashlyn is in Daniel’s English class.
Here’s the thing: there’s nothing trashy about their romance. It’s slow, sweet, touching, and lovely. I found myself almost equally interested in knowing how Ashlyn’s relationship with her father and her “pseudo step-siblings,” Hailey and Ryan, would develop. I was fully invested in all the characters, completely immersed in the story and, with the exception of some minor typos & grammatical errors, had no complaints – until I was about 90% done. Out of nowhere, the perfectly paced plot jumps up and sprints away. Then the author crams three years of experiences into one chapter of poorly executed exposition. It was completely jarring and so inconsistent with the rest of the book. Rushing an ending is a huge pet peeve of mine! It’s such a shame because this could have been a five star book for me. However, I would still highly recommend this book.
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