Book Review: Yours by Jasinda Willder

Book Title: Yours
Author: Jasinda Wilder
Series: Standalone 
Release Date: June 18th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

When my husband Oliver died, my life ended. My purpose, my passion, my everything bled out with him on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway.

Ollie was an organ donor. His eyes, his brain, his lungs, his heart…parts of my Ollie went out and saved lives.

Then His heart, beating in another man’s chest, found its way back to me, and I found myself faced with an impossible choice: hold on to the pain and beauty of the past and the memory of the man I loved, or reach for a bold new future, knowing each heartbeat will be a reminder of all I’ve lost.

•••

I wasn’t supposed to live past thirty.

My grandfather died at forty-five. Heart failure.

My father died at thirty-five. Heart failure.

The doctors told me my whole life that I wouldn’t see my thirty-first birthday. My heart was going to give out. It was just a matter of time: a rare blood type and an unusually large heart meant essentially zero chance of a transplant.

I proved them all wrong…by dying on my thirty-first birthday.

And then I woke up, alive, with another man’s heart inside my chest, and his widow on my conscience.

I spent my whole life preparing for death, and now I have to learn how to live. Only, as I soon discovered, living is the easy part.

Loving, and allowing myself to be loved…well, that’s a whole lot harder.

Yours is one of those books where the book blurb was all it took for me to drop everything and dive in. It promised a fair amount of angst and with that, Jasinda Wilder delivered.

Lachlan Montgomery knew his life would be short. All the generations of men in his family died prematurely due to a congenital heart defect. The doctor gave his heart an expiration date of about thirty years so he's lived those years living his life on the edge- hang gliding, cliff jumping, swimming with sharks, you name it. Coming from a wealthy family has afforded him the ability to not work, never having any goals or desire for long term relationships. Why bother when he's planning on being gone by age thirty. So he chose to live it the riskier the better...

It's only a rush if it’s dangerous. I only feel alive if I’m encroaching on death, if I’m toeing the bleeding edge of insanity.

Niall Emory James is a happily married nurse within the Doctors Without Borders organization. Her husband a doctor within the nonprofit disaster relief organization. Only their life of helping others is tragically cut short when Ollie passes away on the highway following a tragic car accident. She was the driver. It's all her fault... She donates his organs, packs up and moves to a tiny little town in rural Oklahoma. Work, eat, sleep. Repeat. Existing. Just barely...

Lachlan never expected to receive a heart and when he wakes from surgery he finds himself almost angry. He has no plans, no skills to offer the world. He finds himself venturing out to contact the family of his heart donor. At least he can offer his thanks...

I really enjoyed this book. Lock was one of those tortured souls that instead of feeling a new lease on life, feels lost. Packing up and just driving, he had no idea the widow of his donor would be the beautiful Niall. The book is angsty but I think it could've been more so. I still really plowed through it and my heart wept for both of these MCs. Both suffering for different reasons but somehow find solace, a connection, in their depression and loneliness.

Little filler side stories also added to the draw with Yours. Lachlan finds a homeless dog along the highway and named him Utah. He finally has someone to take care of and be responsible for. I LOVED that aspect of his relationship with his four-legged friend. We also get a fairly deep venture into the roles disaster relief agencies play in tragedies, be it natural disasters or third world country wars. It provided depth and a bit of suspense.

What made me deduct a star is the inaccurate medical information within the story- stuff that any medical beta reader could've straightened out. It's always a struggle being in the medical field and reading books strongly based on medicine and seeing these inaccuracies. The biggest premise of the book is organ donation and you cannot take a dead body out "in the field," put him in a body bag, and then later donate his heart to a living human being. Cells die in minutes making it impossible to transplant unless they're on life support. It's all a delicate process harvesting organs for transplant. Am I being picky? Maybe. But I found it distracting. If this was a debut author, I'd look the other way but an author of this best-selling caliber can have any number of medical beta readers at her fingertips. It could make this medically accurate and not change much of the plot whatsoever. I guess my expectations for Ms. Wilder are just higher than a newbie...

Regardless, I really enjoyed this story of second-chance at life... of happiness and love in life. The organ donation part of the plot was just an added bonus as the selfless gift of organ donation is a subject very close to my heart. I'm so pleased she chose to highlight it here in Yours.

Don't take your organs to Heaven... Heaven knows we need them here.

NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, WALL STREET JOURNAL and international bestselling author Jasinda Wilder is a Michigan native with a penchant for titillating tales about sexy men and strong women. Her bestselling titles include ALPHA, STRIPPED, WOUNDED, and the #1 Amazon and international bestseller FALLING INTO YOU. You can find her on her farm in Northern Michigan with her husband, author Jack Wilder, her six children and menagerie of animals.