This is One Moment, Mila Gray

Pages: 384

Publisher: Macmillan

Release Date: 10^th September 2015

Edition: UK e-proof, NetGalley review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Come Back to Me. As Sarah Alderson: Hunting Lila, Losing Lila, Fated, Severed, Shadowed, The Sound, Out of Control, Conspiracy Girl  

A forbidden romance.

A wounded Marine who thinks he’s beyond saving.

A girl who’s determined to prove him wrong.

Didi Monroe’s waited her whole life for the type of romance you see in the movies, so when Hollywood heartthrob Zac Ridgemont sweeps her off her feet, Didi believes she might finally have met the one.

While Zac’s away filming for the summer, Didi begins her internship at a military hospital in California. There she meets wounded Marine Noel Walker. Frustrated on the outside and broken on the inside, Walker’s a pain in the ass patient who refuses all help.

Yet Did can’t help but be drawn to him, and though he’s strictly out of bounds it soon becomes impossible to ignore the sparks flying between them.

As the attraction simmers into dangerous territory, Didi finds herself falling hard for a man she knows is going to break her heart. Because Walker doesn’t believe in love or happy ever afters. So what possible future can there be?

Then tragedy hits, shattering both their worlds, and Didi is forced to choose between fighting for love and merely falling for the illusion of it.

I loved Mila Gray’s first novel Come Back to Me, as well as her books under Sarah Alderson, and This is One Moment was no exception.

I had no idea that This is One Moment was connected to Gray’s first novel in anyway, but Didi is Jessa’s best friend! She’s 21, done her undergraduate degree and embarking on a summer internship before settling into her PhD. I had no idea you could do a PhD without an MA! Her Dad is the head doc at a rehab unit for wounded vets in California and she's spending some time there. It was an emotional setting and Gray tackled some really tough topics that effect soldiers when they come home from war: depression, PTSD, shell shock, phantom pain and a myriad of physical injuries. It was heartbreaking.

Here Didi met Walker, a Lieutenant who lost five men in a bombing and managed to save one, who has been left blind and with a severely damaged knee. He’s angry and lost in a spiral of blame, but Didi can't help but fall for him. Their romance was tense, emotional and super swoony. I really loved seeing their story from sides as; I do love a dual narrative! I also thought that the way the prologue played out in the main novel was really clever and unexpected. Very impressed!

This is One Moment is emotional, engaging and romantic and I’m already looking forward to Mila Gray’s next offering.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan for the review copy.

Sophie