Books & Spoons Review for HOT MESS by Amy Andrews

"I never thought I'd get a second chance at a first time with you." 

Firefighter Logan Knight thinks it's fate when he meets Arabella Tucker again, nine years after their brief, intense relationship ended. Until he realizes that Bella doesn't recognize him and all of their memories together are completely erased from her memory. 

Bella may be oblivious to their history but she can’t deny their scorching chemistry and the possibility of a future with the mystery man from her past. Logan wants a future too, but he can’t go there until Bella knows everything they shared. Her parents, though, want to protect her from the emotional cost of old memories and so Logan is reluctantly persuaded to let the past lie. 

But when Bella starts to uncover the truth, she is shocked by the revelations. Can she move beyond the hurt of her shared history with Logan and begin their new story?

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What a perfect mix of fun, sarcasm, joy, angst, sensuality, fragility, sexy, tenderness, pain, loss, love, passion, adoration... A story that completely floored me, had me laughing out loud, going 'aaw' and swooning, smiling, and crying or more like sobbing, really. 
I loved the story, the originality and the uniqueness of it, the tough choices the author did boldly, the fragility of it, yet the strength of the feelings that carried over time and distance, and all loss and troubles.
Firefighter Logan Knight was doing well, his life was in order, he had a job he loves, the brotherhood of the firefighters, his family, and friends. Yet he had an empty space inside of him that still held the one woman he had ever loved, Arabella Tucker. Logan was such a strong character, his loyalty, strength, honesty, openness just a few of his great qualities. He loved with his whole heart and was not afraid to take risks. The choices he made were tough, yet there were obvious reasons for them, reasons I could not blame him for. 
Arabella "Bella" Tucker was a survivor with guts and sass and contagious laugh. I can only imagine the pain and confusion she had gone through and continued to do so, with her amnesia. How her situation with the amnesia was affecting others around her, and Logan in special, was heartbreaking. That little shimmer of hope that never goes away, maybe today they will remember...  
I want to applaud the author for not taking an easy solution here, but going for the tough one, the one that resembles life, the one that made the protagonist grow, to develop into these amazing people who can make compromises, who can learn to love in hard situations, who can learn to accept the difficult things in life. 
This story got all my emotions churning, I don't remember when have I gotten so emotional while reading a story, if ever, and I mean in a good way. I was so connected to the characters, it was like feeling their angst, loss, pain, joy, love, desires as the story unfolds. The loss is so great, the pain is so tangible, the confusion so real, the past still so raw it was heartbreaking. But there is hope. There are hard choices, compromises, there are difficult conversations, and there is a lot of love, passion, and adoration, making Hot Mess an absolutely fantastic story, that I love, adore, and feel passionate about. 
It is going directly to the 'The Best of 2017' file. 
~ Five Spoons!

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