Official Description:
If he had only spoken the right words at the right time she would be his forever. Instead, they ache, love and long for each other in silence. A bittersweet love story desperately searching for a happily ever after. E/B, AH, M.
I was lucky enough to be rec’d Love is the End by phoebes.promise when it first started. It is one of the most beautifully written stories I have read and whilst at times I have tears, phoebes.promise always gave me hope that love will be enough in the end.
The prologue sets the scene for this heart breaking yet beautifully written tale of how complicated love can be between two people and how family, circumstances and poor decisions can make it that much harder. The author lets you know that this is a HEA and you need to remember this as you take the journey with her as it can be heart breaking at times. The story flicks between the present, where Edward is married to Lauren and Bella is a widow, and memories of the past that give you the insight as to why things are so complicated and basically screwed today. Edward is locked in a marriage that he cannot get out of easily without hurting the people he loves, whilst Bella deals with the guilt of her relationship with Edward whilst married to Sam (her then husband) and the fact that she is now struggling with only being with Edward a handful of times a year.
phoebes.promise leaves you at the end of each chapter desperately wanting to know more. Every chapter gives you parts of the puzzle as to why things never worked out, how Bella could marry another when she was in love with Edward and with every explanation or answer more questions are raised.
The family and friends of Bella and Edward are almost another story in itself; we see how the family and friends deal with Edward and Bella’s obvious love for each other, who supports it and who doesn’t, who has their own issues and how they relate or impact Edward and Bella relationship and made it what it is today. Edward’s relationship with his sister Alice and her issues play an important part in why Edward isn’t with Bella. Bella also seems to wear the brunt of the negative views on their “affair” and you see how this and being apart from Edward takes a toll on her. Their physical relationship and the ability of Edward to take away some of Bella’s pain was enough until now, but now she needs them to be together, she wants to wake up next to and have a family with him, she is no longer willing to share him with Lauren. Something needs to change and Edward needs to make some decisions that may impact others in order to keep the love of his life and his existences from collapsing under all the pressure.
I don’t think I can put into words my love of this story and the author who is so caring in her responses to reviews and her A/N knowing that her readers may, at times, struggle with Bella and Edward’s heart breaking story, but if I leave you with one thing I hope it is that this is a love story and that theme plays throughout each of the chapters and there is never a point when you feel it won’t be worth it in the end.
I don’t usually read straight through twelve chapters of a new WIP in one sitting, but Love is the End by phoebes.promise really kept me reading. While some readers in the Fandom might have problems with the infidelity that is a central factor in this fic, for me it enhanced the story and made it that much more real.
Edward and Bella have a connection that is so much more than just sex. With a history together that seems to span decades, their tale is one of heartache, pain, desire, and need.
“I’m a thirty year old widow, madly in love with my best friend who happens to be a married man. I’ve loved you for a lifetime, but you’ve never been mine.”
Straight off the bat, we are introduced to the couple’s struggle between doing what’s right and their inability to stay away from one another. Edward is in an empty relationship with his wife, a marriage of convenience, and Bella is widowed from a man she may have been partly in love with at once time, but she was always bound to Edward.
A familiar pain tore through my chest as I listened to her. She was broken from the past, needing our new beginning. She deserved so much more than a year of clandestine traveling and late night phone calls. She’d consumed me since I was eighteen years old. I’d loved her as long as she’d loved me and then some.
The story is woven in a very non-linear fashion, taking us through their present struggles while including flashbacks that show how they got to the heart-wrenching place they are in. Living in opposite sides of the country, they always seem to find ways to return to one another, with obligations to their mutual friends. Phoebes.promise has created a very interesting combination of all our favorite characters, giving them a beautiful history that reminded me of the movie St. Elmo’s Fire. Every time Edward and Bella reconnect, they fall into the comfortable conversations, discussing shared memories of trips and favorite restaurants, but it is always a mask to cover their pain.
Natural, between friends, lovers… it’s how we discovered. We talked, laughed, loved and fucked through college and beyond.
And every time they are able to be together, it is always bittersweet.
“Why did you come, baby?” Her breath hitched, undoubtedly from the term of endearment. I reserved it for her, only, always.
Her stare was pleading. I searched for my own confliction, desperately. We’d already hurt Sam… I would be someone’s husband in a few short weeks. This would be the beginning of the end I reasoned, battling… myself.
It’s several chapters in before we’re given a glimpse of what it is that has kept them from giving in to their love in the first place.
“Say it, Bella… please. Fucking say it.”
“No… no, no!” She heaved and thrashed her escape. “Don’t you dare do that to me,” she shouted.
“Biggest regret of my life,” I yelled and fisted my hair.
“You fucking encouraged me, Edward. Remember? You were happy for me.” She was venomous, furious. Gesturing to herself, then me, raging. “You wouldn’t say it either! I begged you…”
I slammed into her. Covering her beautiful mouth with the passion that surged only for her, her tiny hands full of my black t-shirt. We gasped, pushing, pulling, barely surviving.
She wiped her face; I’d seen it before… slow moving snap shots in my mind. Lingering fingers, quivering chin, a silent good bye… over, again.
I am truly hooked and am excited to see where the author leads us, and how she will give the characters the HEA she has promised.
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