Toxic by Kim Karr

For my sins, I have to hold my hands up and say that of all the Kim Karr books that I actually have on my kindle – this is the first one that I have read, shameful I know.

 But it is a lesson learnt because I have to say it was a super read, one that you need to work at but that is no hardship.

This is the story of Phoebe and Jeremy and it is not a fly by night tale – it is a fully fledged story of two people and the passage of time.

Their’s was a summer fling that ended far too soon and with somethings that should have been resolved, left hanging, Young people from opposite sides of the tracks that should have had no interaction at all but shared a romance that now they are back in contact refuses to lay down and play dead.

But is it all what it seems, or is the reconnection far from opportune?

So a second chance at picking up where they had left off so to speak, although much of the details concerning their initial  fling is a bit on the sketchy side- I would have liked a bit more of them back then.

The two of them catch up again in what I can only describe as slightly peculiar circumstances- I wasn’t sure what the heck to make of it. But what I was absolutely 100% certain of was the fact that neither of them had ever let go of what had happened all those years ago.

Jeremy had fought tooth and nail to make something of himself and a damn – he nailed it and was now a man of means with his own business and everything he could have possible dreamt of but there is one piece missing and that is Phoebe.

He wants her and is making no bones about it.

Phoebe on the other has lived life as expected, she had been engaged but isn’t anymore, throwing herself entirely into her work and trying to move on with her life . But when Jeremy walks back through the door, he is so much more than her mind could have ever remembered but her heart remembers him and the fact that she has never really gotten over him and what they had.

There were so many twists, secrets and lies that it was hard at time to wrap my head around everything that was going on, I had formed an opinion on Dawson that I then felt that I was unnecessarily harsh with, I thought I knew Jeremy but again couldn’t help but scratch my head with some of his actions and Phoebe well I didn’t take to her immediately but eventually she won me round.

But could the two of them take the secrets that were seeping poisonously into what they had, could they dilute their toxicity, could they water down the mistrust and give what they deserved the chance to grow?

I had my fingers crossed for the two of them but I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy ride.

I liked the fact that the author didn’t just hand them a happy ever after – she made them wait and work for it.

They suffered and struggled but they needed to, they had to earn each other – they had to learn the fact that what they had wasn’t coming easy but would be worth it.