Official Description:
As Bella Swan starts over with hopes of finding her future, Edward Cullen is hanging on desperately to his past. She’s treading water, and he’s a corporate golden boy. They share an office, but few words…until one night changes everything.
Word Count: 173,622
It pains me to admit that I’ve been a big-time flouncer when it comes to fic lately. I used to have daily update explosions in my inbox and now I’m lucky to get one chapter update. I’ve tried starting so many stories-both complete and in progress-only to call it quits a few chapters in when nothing grabs me.
Then I started We Come to Life Beneath the Stars. If I was a guy, I’d say it grabbed me by a certain appendage but let’s just say it caught my attention and didn’t let go until I’d devoured the entire story…and still it stuck with me.
There are a few key ingredients that make a good fic in my opinion and this story has them all in spades.
First, I need a good Bella, one who sucks me in and makes me want to know her story. This Bella is one I instantly connected with. She’s in that awkward stage called “the mid-twenties” where school’s out, adulthood is in and you’re left to fend for yourself without instructions. When we meet Bella, she’s been drifting, following the path others have laid out for her. She’s been working a job her mother essentially arranged and is stuck in a motionless relationship with her longtime boyfriend. Though she appears to be lost and numb at the start, her journey to self-discovery kicks off quickly and only gains momentum as we move through each jam-packed and completely satisfying chapter. This Bella isn’t a pushover, but she’s not without her own vulnerabilities and I found myself wanting to cheer her on, hug her, fist pump her, cry for her and dream with her.
Another key-realistic and non-over-the-top conflict. I hate hate hate angst. My heart’s too fragile to handle a lot of stories out there. In this one, conflict comes from a few different areas, one of the biggest with Bella’s mother. Renee makes me want to squeeze a stress ball until it explodes. She’s not a villain, she’s simply a mother who has a tough time letting her daughter make her own decisions, but that doesn’t make it any easier to read some of her interactions with Bella.
Then there’s Edward. One of the things I love about this love story is that it has a rocky start. There’s no instant attraction between these two, no love/lust at first sight, no swooning, in fact, Edward’s kind of an a-hole when we meet him (and by kind of, I mean really). He’s a cranky workaholic accountant at the company Bella just started working for and if you’re like me, you’ll find yourself wanting to wring his neck on several occasions.
“When you’re finished decorating like this is your second home, alphabetize these by last name, and make me three copies,” he says, before throwing a file folder onto my desk.
There is no please, and no thank you. He just barks orders at me like a commander, and when I don’t respond, he turns and stalks across the floor toward his desk.
See? And that’s just our first glimpse of him. He’s the kind of co-worker you’d make scowly faces at when their back is turned and then go home and whine about how vile they are and how they make your life miserable.
But that’s one of my favorite things about him. He’s not perfect. He makes mistakes, he doesn’t handle stress well, he screws up and doesn’t know how to do everything. He’s struggling. And just when you want Bella to write him off as just another jerk coworker, he gives her a glimpse of something deeper.
He walks out, but a few seconds later, he’s back. He moves his hand up to grip the door frame, but stops himself before he touches it.
“Hey, Bella?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. You really don’t know how much…I just…yeah. Thanks.”
He’s finally poked his head out from behind that ever-present wall of defensiveness and stress, and even though he’s the same person, he looks completely different. He’s all friendly bright eyes that make me want to tell him my life story, and warm, welcoming smiles that make me wish he would tell me his. If this Edward could manage to stick around for a while, I think I’d find it really hard not to like him.
All is not magically fixed with one simple smile and these characters have so many layers that I found myself eager to peel away and always fascinated with what I discovered underneath.
The romance is really the key for me. You can have all the other elements but if Edward and Bella don’t have an amazing chemistry that makes me swoon and fall in love just as much as they are, it just doesn’t fly for me. I don’t think I’ve swooned or teared up over the sweetness or sighed or panted as much as I did while reading this story in a very very VERY long time. The UST is off the charts and while it’s a slow burn, the end result is a blazing inferno of sexiness and adorableness. Seriously, there was one chapter where I honestly had trouble breathing and felt like my heart was going to beat right out of my chest. When was the last time a story made that happen for you?
I could go on and on and on about this fic, I loved it that much. It’s amazingly well thought out and you can tell the author knew from the get go where she was going and how she needed to get there. Overall I just love how “real” it all is. There are no good guys and bad guys, no contrived drama, the characters aren’t caricatures, they’re real people with real problems who are faced with tough times and difficult decisions and have to step up and deal with them. It’s life, but beautifully narrated and with enough sweetness to make up for every challenge. It’s a love story, not a fairy tale. Give it a read and hopefully you’ll find yourself falling in love, just like I did. Make sure you leave Lillybellis some love because her words are sofa king pretty.
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