Review: Everything I Left Unsaid by M. O’Keefe

Everything I Left Unsaid
(Everything I Left Unsaid, #1)
By: M. O’Keefe
Publisher: Bantam Books
Release Date: Oct. 13, 2015
Genre: Erotic Romance
Rating:

I didn’t think answering someone else’s cellphone would change my life. But the stranger with the low, deep voice on the other end of the line tempted me, awakened my body, set me on fire. He was looking for someone else. Instead he found me.

And I found a hot, secret world where I felt alive for the first time.

His name was Dylan, and, strangely, he made me feel safe. Desired. Compelled. Every dark thing he asked me to do, I did. Without question. I longed to meet him, but we were both keeping secrets. And mine were dangerous. If I took the first step, if I got closer to Dylan—emotionally, physically—then I wouldn’t be hiding anymore. I would be exposed, with nothing left to surrender but the truth. And my truth could hurt us both.

Annie ran away from an abusive husband and is hiding out in a podunk trailer park where she finds the previous tenant’s cell phone. Upon answering it she is met with a male voice that intrigues her. She finds herself coming out of her shell the more she talks to him. He helps her push herself by giving her small challenges to overcome between their conversations.

My thoughts while reading this…

• Annie is very meek and timid.
• Why are you having phone sex with a complete stranger?
• Joan (trailer park neighbor/stripper) is definitely not the enemy and is in fact a bad-ass. Make friends with Joan! I need more Joan time!
• Old man Ben most certainly has skeletons in his closet but I feel like he’s punishing himself for them.
• I’m not sure if Dylan (phone dude) hides himself from everyone because he’s possibly physically scarred from some fire he was in or if he’s emotionally jacked up as well. Probably both.
• Plus, what’s his obsession with Ben? And why does he pay people to keep an eye on him if Ben’s so dangerous?
• Wow. Even Joan is warning Annie away from Ben. Something is seriously up with that dude.
• Finally! Finally Annie is starting to break out of the hold her husband has on her and is starting to let loose a little.
• Oh my goodness. Those sexy phone calls are doing me in. *fans herself*
• Every time they talk on the phone Annie get emotionally stronger and bolder, and Dylan grows on me more.

Needless to say I loved the crap out of this book! Those were just some of my non-spoilerish thoughts. I deleted the ones that would give anything away. My mind was all over the place when reading this that I needed to write down what I was thinking as it was happening because I found myself just as confused and unsure as Annie. I mean, how can you possibly justify having an emotionally erotic relationship with a man that you’ve never met via phone. Especially when you know nothing about each other and he thinks your name is Layla!? However, at the same time you see Annie starting to poke her head out of her shell and starting to assert herself more in life that you can’t begrudge her this small fantasy she has with the stranger on the phone. I mean, her whole life she’s been beaten down and told over and over again that she’s nothing special. Then all of a sudden one phone call changes everything and she’s being told that she’s IS special. He sets little goals for her to push her limits. He asks her what a few things are that she’s always been too afraid to do and when she tells him, he tells her to do them before calling him again. They are minor things like go skinny dipping, eat dessert for breakfast, but they are things that she was never allowed to do in life. That’s how sheltered she was. She’d never left her family farm until she ran away from her abusive husband. Just reading about how far she comes in this novel is awesome.

“It didn’t matter who he was. All he was to me was the guy on the other end of this phone. The guy that pushed me farther and faster out of my terrified little box than I ever would have gone on my own.”

I think the thing that I loved most about this story was how real the author made it. The characters were honest. They weren’t hiding any deep dark secrets. The hurdles were real and the author helped them overcome it in a natural way. There was no fancy revelation for these two characters. It was just two very lonely people finding companionship with someone on the phone whom they’ll never meet in person. I just… I can’t put into words how much I enjoyed this book. I literally sat down to read it and didn’t get up until I finished, except when I had to make dinner (which was almost late because I didn’t want to stop reading). That’s how much I enjoyed this book.

It’s the first book in their story and so a lot of the story was about the present. The story is mainly in Annie’s point of view but there are a few small parts where it’s Dylan’s point of view. Annie talks about her time with her abusive husband or her abusive mother here and there but her story is more felt in her actions than her words. Dylan talked very minimally about his abusive childhood and his screwed up family. However, he’s still somewhat of a mystery. This book focused more on setting the stage for these two, building connections with other characters, and allowed Annie to start to grow into a confident woman. The majority of the book is centered on her trying to get her feet under her and Dylan helping her break out of her shell little by little.

I received this book unsolicited from the publisher. I’ve never read anything by this author before but I can tell you one thing… I will be picking up the next book when it comes out. I need to know what happens next for these two. While the story doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, they still have more left to their story, and I cannot wait to read it.

“Dylan Daniels was still the beast. The bad guy in the stories. Layla just didn’t know it yet. And he was forgetting. He was letting himself forget. Because he’d somehow gotten addicted to the sound of her voice. The way her voice made him feel.
Sometimes it was nice pretending to be the hero.
But it was time to stop.”