Retrieval by Aly Martinez

Aly Martinez never fails to impressive and that is exactly what this story is…impressive.

It takes on subject matter that is so painful, so personal and can be so damaging to many couples and she gave it a chance to speak.

She gave a clear opportunity to see the pain and the feelings that infertility can inject into a relationship and the corrosion that, that overwhelming sadness can bring between a couple, a couple that on the outside have everything they could possible want but who are crumbling inside at the lack of the one thing they actually need.

Emotionally this was a bumpy ride, it had a few surprised tucked up its sleeve but those surprises were in good company because the story wore its heart on its sleeve too.

Love came easy to Roman and Elisabeth, they fell for each other in the blink of an eye, it was life that didn’t treat them so kindly, because as you start the book, their time together is over and she is leaving although I didn’t blame her for calling time, they had been through so much.

Roman had emotionally departed their relationship long before Elisabeth walked out the door. Because in his grief and despair he honestly believed that he had failed the woman he loved more than life itself. Everything they went through he wore heavily, he carried the weight of their situation on his shoulders, be it his fault or not, he saw himself as her provider and his male conditioned brain told him that he had failed, he had left her down and he couldn’t cope with how that made him feel. My heart broke for them both, life is so unfair and good people sometimes have the worst luck, for them it was a bad as it could get. They had been consumed, completely understandably by their infertility, it had seeped into every waking moment of their lives but it had achieved nothing other than costing them everything.

But please don’t believe that their doesn’t have something for everyone, it is packed page after page with the most beautifully told story. It has twists and turns that will keep you on the end of your seat and it has pockets of despair that will have you reaching for the tissues.

Despite their time apart, I loved Roman’s resolution that he could win Elisabeth back, that he could show her that he was able to be the man she needed and that he could make her happy. Could he? Well who was I to say he couldn’t.

With the second book to come shortly, this could very well be a duo that makes more of an impact than initially thought, it was superb!