[MPOV] The Lives Between Us

My rating: 4/5

Goodreads rating: 4.86/5
Published: August 15th, 2023
Author: Leah Omar
Genre: Romance, women's fiction

Can two shattered survivors find healing in one another?

Carrie is a survivor, and if there’s one thing growing up with an eccentric mother taught her, it was how to chase her dreams. After beating cancer, things are finally looking up for her. She buys a fixer-upper on the idyllic Lake Traverse with plans to convert it into a bed and breakfast. When her hometown crush, Dax Abram, begins to notice her, Carrie is starting to believe that her future is full of hope.

Dax is lost and shattered. When the confident, successful, and charismatic basketball player became a widower, he threw himself into being the best single dad possible. His daughter, Kylie, kept him going when he lost all hope. Now, he’s sworn off relationships, thinking he could never find the happiness he had before cancer ripped his life to shreds. Dax is caught entirely off guard when he starts to notice Carrie in a new way. He’s known her his entire life, but after losing the love of his life, he can’t fathom having feelings for another woman.

Carrie and Dax fall into an easy friendship, but they must heal from their pasts if they are to find happiness together.

Thanks to Bronzewood Books and LibraryThing for this reader's copy. I'm glad I have requested for it as The Lives Between Us turns out to be an enlightening and engaging read. 

Carrie is a cancer survivor. Her best friend Malik pushes her to create and fulfill her wishlist in lieu of her beating cancer. Everything turns out to be good for her until Dax, her crush from high school, started to look her way and tumbles her life upside down. Dax has not recovered from the loss of his wife to cancer as such having difficulty in committing to a relationship. With his daughter in tow, he tries to be a good dad. When he started having feelings for Carrie, he became more cautious and paranoid that flips both his and Carries lives.

This novel reminds me of Nicholas Sparks - John Green type of books. Grief. Sickness. Love lost and love found. I do enjoy Leah Omar's version but with each dilly dally, I became a little more anxious to know how it ends! The self-discovery of their own individual fault was very slow indeed, thus added a little depth to the climax of the story. I liked how it ended and glad that it is a HEA one.

"You'll always be grieving, but you don't always have to be sad. You get to live life, Dax. Why waste that? What happened wasn't fair. But you're here. And there's a reason for that."

The story is told in alternate views of Carrie and Dax. Carrie is headstrong and yet vulnerable to Dax. Dax is such an insecure guy that I truly felt like shaking him up LOL! It truly was an engaging read and with the alternate views, I didn't get lost through both Carrie and Dax journey. It sure felt like the author has experienced both sides of the story, keeping me so in tuned to their plight and grievances. Definitely one to pick up if you are looking for a HEA romance fiction.