As soon as I read Bella Jewel’s message to her readers about how personal Bestie is to her and how it provides insight into her own heartbreak as well as after reading Molly’s first words in the story, my mind instantly went to the Nazareth’s “Love Hurts” song and how much of a heartless bastard love can be, especially the kind that refuses to let go of someone, holding them prisoner and tormenting them to the point that it suffocates them and harms them in limitless ways.

Love hurts

Love scars

Love wounds and marks

Any heart not tough or strong enough

To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain

Love is like a cloud, it holds a lot of rain

Love hurts

Ooh love hurts

The main characters of Bestie, Molly and Roman, definitely know first-hand the kind of love that the song lyrics discusses. Their respective exes left them both broken and empty and then strung them along, so Molly and Roman would find it impossible to move on…impossible to let go of a love that doesn’t seem to have done them any good but one that binds them just the same.

The Universe can be one cruel bitch, but it also can do exactly what the person needs, even if it doesn’t seem like it at the beginning. Molly and Roman were definitely brought together to help one another heal and to be a shoulder to cry on, but that’s not the only reasons they found an undeniable connection with one another almost instantaneously, but what they would grow to mean to one another had to be a work-in-progress….one where they took two steps forward and one step back…one that still tore them apart and had them, especially Molly, second guessing everything that she and Roman share.

Bestie is an up and down journey that provides a realistic look into the complications of feelings, the idea of moving on and letting go, and the ability for a man and a woman to simply be friends when there’s a deep attraction between them. There are parts in the story that will resonate with every reader who has fallen in and out of love and there are parts that will leave readers wondering how they would handle some of the situations that Molly finds herself in when it comes to her feelings for Roman and Michael.

The message that resonates the most with me is the idea of finding one’s person…the person who gets you…who knows you inside and out and accepts you warts and all and stands by you even when they may not agree.  That kind of friendship…that kind of love is so worth the fight.

I submitted a request to the publisher/author to read and voluntarily review an uncorrected advance reader’s copy of this book.

4 Poison Apples