Say You Still Love Me

“This nostalgic cross-class romance will hook readers from start to finish... Tucker builds a gripping emotional arc, capturing all the heartwarming pleasure of first love while hinting at a tragic event that eventually separates the young lovers. Tucker skillfully builds both romantic tension and suspense, and delivers an immensely satisfying conclusion in this stellar page-turner.”

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1. SAY YOU STILL LOVE ME by K.A. Tucker

SYNOPSIS

Life is a mixed bag for Piper Calloway. On the one hand, she’s a twenty-nine-year-old VP at her dad’s multibillion-dollar real estate development firm and living the high single life with her two best friends in a swanky downtown penthouse. On the other hand, she’s considered a pair of sexy legs in a male-dominated world and constantly has to prove her worth. Plus, she’s stuck seeing her narcissistic ex-fiancé—a fellow VP—on the other side of her glass office wall every day.

Things get exponentially more complicated for Piper when she runs into Kyle Miller—the handsome new security guard at Calloway Group Industries, and coincidentally the first love of her life. The guy she hasn’t seen or heard from since they were summer camp counselors together. The guy from the wrong side of the tracks. The guy who apparently doesn’t even remember her name.

Piper may be a high-powered businesswoman now, but she soon realizes that her schoolgirl crush is not only alive but stronger than ever, and crippling her concentration. What’s more, despite Kyle’s distant attitude, she’s convinced their reunion isn’t at all coincidental, and that his feelings for her still run deep. And she’s determined to make him admit to them, no matter the consequences.

BOOK REVIEW

K.A. Tucker created a gripping rediscovered love story touching upon a problem of second chances in life. The book explores the question of whether two people from completely different socio-economic backgrounds can overcome the associated struggles on the ultimate path to a traditional happy ending. It is a hopeful tale of everlasting firsts and new beginnings that hit you right in the feels and leave a bitter-sweet aftertaste.

“Was all this really worth it?”
“To get even one more day with you? It was worth EVERYTHING to me.”

Piper Calloway, when a sixteen-year-old privileged teenager, experienced many of her firsts at a summer camp in upstate New York, first love, first sexual encounter and intercourse, and everything in between. Not all the firsts were positive though. Piper also had her first heartbreak when Kyle Miller, her very first real love, went MIA with no explanation whatsoever. Over a decade later, this carefree girl whose feelings were crushed by a dreamy punk boy one summer is no longer the same. She is now a confident beautiful woman, a successful professional in a traditionally male-dominated industry working her ass off to prove her capabilities and right to inherit the family business based on merit and not blood. Everything goes according to Piper’s carefully carved long-term plan. At least, until Kyle reappears on the surface along with the unanswered questions, and puts everything in disarray.

…even after all these years, with college and boyfriends, and my career and my engagement to David, Kyle Miller has always been a sliver in my heart, a shadow in my thoughts. A lingering “what if” that I have never been able to truly shake.

I cannot say that both Piper and Kyle have the exact same feelings for each other once reunited. But the present is very much connected to the past when a new kind of romance starts to blossom. It was good to see the back and forth in the story timeline to understand the decision-making process behind the actions of the main characters as well as their development, to see the transformation of the teenage insta-love into a well-thought-through relationship between two adults, full of hope and promise for a much more different and better outcome.

“I can’t stand the thought of having you and then losing you again.”

I absolutely loved how the author navigated through the struggles of the real world, which made the book more realistic and believable. The effort both Piper and Kyle made to figure out how they fit into each other’s worlds made me root for their rediscovered love, while the challenges they tried to face together by constantly supporting each other made Piper and Kyle relatable.

I absolutely hate repetitions in the plot and dragging, and thus, thankful for the absence of such. Even though it is a second chance romance, the overall dynamics in the book are so much different. The chemistry is present but of a varied colour on every single step as the storyline progresses. The love is still there but more complex and matured with a tiny bit of naivety lingering.