AJ Williams and Lisa Millar continue their complicated courtship.
The complication Lisa knows about is AJ's in-name-only marriage to his friend Brittany, who has a real relationship, but "needed" AJ to marry her so she could stay in the US rather than returning to Canada.
The complication she doesn't know about is that AJ suffers from bipolar depression. His shame about his condition (which is, yes, one of the symptoms of the disease) makes it really difficult for AJ to do the sensible thing: tell Lisa, and let her decide whether she can cope with it. No, instead he tries to conceal it, and even stops taking his medication because he's trying to be the person he wants to be for her. It's been a long time since his last serious episode, so surely it's reasonable to think it's gone... No. But yes, depression, bipolar depression, and other conditions and the medication that controls them can make this seem reasonable.
Naturally, this becomes a very difficult situation for Lisa to deal with, especially when AJ becomes depressed enough that he believes she's fed up with him and will be better off without him.
It's tricky and dangerous and McMasters portrays AJ's state of mind and resulting behavior very well.
It's that same effectiveness at portraying what's going on that makes this a hard read for me. My condition is "just" depression, not bipolar depression, but some of the challenges are very similar.
So, be aware you'll be diving inside the mind of an extremely depressed person--and his episode of hypomania is not necessarily better, just different. It also ends in a cliffhanger, but the third and final volume will likely be out by the time you read this review.
I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily.
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