Stepbrother, Mine

by Mandy Lou Dowson

True love has no boundaries, it is society that applies unrealistic acceptability’s to relationships and therefore hindering the path to happiness for many, but could Sophie and Logan buck the trend?

Stepbrother, Mine had all the hallmarks of a story that was going to tread dangerously close to the mark, dipping its toe into what is considered to be absolutely taboo but I thought that the author delivered what can only be described as a revelation because social etiquette be damned – love gets the upper hand and eventually it is allowed to flourish!

Attraction strikes the pair of them at the same time, the minute they set eyes on each other at Logan’s mother’s wedding reception – Sophie was in attendance- but then why shouldn’t she be- her dad was the groom.  Having never met, neither of them knew just how entwined and complicated their lives were about to become and none it was of their doing.

With the pressures of expectation upon them they fight the attraction growing between them, but it is not wrong – it is just other people’s perception that they was keeping them at arm’s length.

Logan has just about reached the end of his tether and is ready to tell Sophie that he wants them to take the plunge and that he wants to be with her but an accident robs the pair of them of their plans and they are both left in limbo, not knowing what the future will hold. Logan take the lead and decides to puts distance between them hoping to draw a line under the chaos that is their lives at the minute.

Time holds the two of them apart until years later Sophie is forced to seek refuge with Logan at his home. Can they live under the same roof and continue to deny the feelings that have ebbed between them for so long… while Logan does what he can to try and finally get his woman, Sophie is more stubborn, but when she is ready to hold her hands up and stop fighting, Logan has already thrown in the towel – hell will life just cut this pair a break!!!

Again they are left to forge their paths alone, until happenstance finds the two of them once again in the same place at the same time.

But this time feelings run deep but they are not the feelings that have plagued them for so long, this time it is resentment and misery that they wear well, it has made them both sceptical and defensive, both fighting to retain the upper hand and to preserve their status quo – leaving them to spend their time arguing and bickering.

I really felt for the two of them, they had suffered so much at the hands of expectation and it just felt so unfair, they deserved to be happy and together they could have it but the universe seemed to have spent so long conspiring against them that they were having trouble seeing the wood for the trees.

Just when they should be facing up to what they have denied for so long, they are about to wave it all goodbye – they are barely on speaking terms and that was just so sad!

I was screaming at my kindle by this point – they had spend a decade pussyfooting around and they deserved their time together, hell they were made for each other!!

This book was a glorious look at expectations and attitudes. It was painful in parts to read the solitude that the situation forced upon both Sophie and Logan, it was a story of endurance, hurt, denial and perseverance. A story to show that love is limitless.