Review ~ Drowning in You by Rebecca Berto

Title: Drowning in You

Author: Rebecca Berto

Series: Finding Forever in Us #1

Genre: NA Contemporary/Romance

Published: April 5th 2013

Secretly crushing

Crushed by a tragedy

Charlee May’s been crushing on Dexter Hollingworth since she was fifteen. Five years later, a horrific skiing disaster at Mason’s Ski Lift Resort leaves her millionaire dad critically injured and her mom dead at the hands of Dexter operating the lifts. Charlee is suddenly the sole caretaker for her little brother while their world falls apart.

Dexter couldn’t be more different from Charlee. He’s tattooed, avoids exclusive relationships and his Dad has a fair share of illegal dealings. With Dexter’s reputation, almost everyone believes he planned the Mason’s skiing disaster.

And after all these years he’s still crushing on Charlee May, the girl who’s too good for him.

When this cruel twist of fate ties Charlee’s family and Dexter’s reputation together, Charlee and Dexter wonder if their feelings are reciprocated, while Dexter discovers his dad is trying to steal the May’s millionaire fortune.

But like an addiction, one look, one touch, one taste—they’re hooked no matter the consequences.

Disclaimer: Recommended for mature readers due to sexual content and crude language.

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Drowning in You is an intense read and has some awesome characters with great, but complicated chemistry. Being set in not only my country of Australia, but in the state I live in made it a little more personal for me. The story was a little slow to unfold at first, but overall I enjoyed it and found it hard to put it down in the end.

Charlee is a sweet girl and has had a crush on Dexter for a long time. She has admired him from a distance and tries very hard to blame him for the tragedy that occurred to her family. She knows that it was an accident and tries so hard not to like him as much as she does. She appears to be holding up well, but we are able to see behind the walls that she has out up and see how she is struggling with it all. She has a good heart and really steps up to be the support her brother needs.

Dexter is severely affected by the accident that has left Charlee and her brother’s lives in turmoil. He believes that he is not a good person for Charlee and cannot forgive himself for what happened at the ski resort. Each time that he runs into her though, is making it hard for him to fight the attraction he knows is there, but he continues to try and keep the distance between them. Also, in his personal life, Dexter struggles as people blame him for the accident, specifically people that were his friends.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the storyline. Both characters have dealt with their share of tragedy and Charlee’s situation opens old wounds for Dexter. He starts to hear things about Charlee’s dad and begins to dig further to discover the truth. What I didn’t enjoy was how the characters seemed a bit moody and the plot was a bit rough in patches, so I found it a bit hard to follow in places. And I would’ve enjoyed a few more romance scenes with these characters, but I’m sure there will be more between them in the future. But if I look past all of that, or if those areas were smoothed out it could really be a great book. 

I think the author has a good writing style and I enjoyed the alternating POV’s. Darcy, Elliott and Rosa were great secondary characters and I look forward to seeing more of Elliott and Rosa in the future. Finding Forever in Us is the next book in this series and is a continuation of Charlee and Dexters story and I would definitely pick it up to see how things turn out for them both.