When Wrecked Meets Ruined: A Second Chance Sports Romance (Lost Stars)

I have so many books in my Kindle that I have yet to read. But this book? I just could not stop myself from reading it again. I loved it the first time and cried. I read it again and cried...AGAIN! This love story is so perfect. We have two main characters, male and female, who are both so broken from what life has thrown at them for the last 16 years. Ridge is a bad boy, handsome, with muscles in all the right places. He would be a cougar magnet. He has just discovered his extended family in Texas, after living in the Chicago slums until his mother dies of a drug overdose. Evie is just as broken, living with her drug taking stripper mother, her 2 year old sister Wren, and at times, Wade, a scum bucket who is Wren’s father, and a drug dealer.Evie is a gorgeous, sexy teenager who has high morals, but because of her mother, everyone assumes "like mother, like daughter". When Ridge and Evie meet, he knows she's the one, but she uses her sass and her fear of becoming like her mother to keep him away. But like Ridge, she also feels his pull, and they finally agree to date over the summer after they graduated from high school. Over that summer they fall in love. Evie knows she has to stay at home to make sure Wren is cared for, but plans on going to a community college to become a nurse. Ridge has a full athletic scholarship 40 minutes away playing football.As is always the case, the two try to keep their romance going, but life and a traumatic event in Evie's life steer their love affair off-course. This is the part where you start crying.Suffice it to say, there's an HEA, but getting there is torture.I love Emery Rose's books....have read them all, and they all give you the feels. But THIS book is special. You will never regret reading a book with well defined characters and a plot that can easily be turned into a movie. My only criticism is that the cover model for the book was not acknowledged, and I would LOVE to see other pictures of him. Yes.. shallow, I know. ..but don't care.

Don’t read this one without the tissues handy. Two broken people. One big love. One big obstacle after another. Highs, lows, and a separation that will make you weep. The ending is worth the journey.

The majority of the book is great, but the last part, basically a second break, due to miscommunication, really just hurts too much. I especially couldn't handle them being in long term relationships with other people. Screw that. Pick up the freaking phone and have a hard conversation already. I'm too empathetic to live through the second hand trauma of lost loves and what ifs. They get their HEA and I'm stuck with raging anxiety and panic attacks. But fine...four stars...it will make you fill things.

4.5 Stars! And again Emery Rose fills my heart to bursting, rips it clean out of my chest and tramples it, then carefully puts it back together and fills it up all over again. 🥴Summary:Evie Bellamy isn’t easily impressed. Especially not by Cypress Springs’ beloved bad boy. Ridge McCallister may be insanely hot and phenomenally good at football, but Evie can see right through his charming smiles and playful winks. He thinks his playboy image hides that he’s a wreck, but like recognizes like. What possible good could come from wrecked meeting ruined? Evie doesn’t want to find out. But trying to steer clear of what could only end in disaster isn’t working. Things are about to get good and messy because Evie finds her unwanted attraction to Ridge taking center stage. Can she indulge in a no-strings affair with the man she loves to hate or are they only flirting with destroying each other? Remember those days when I avoided angst like the plague and refused to read it?? Well, I’m happy to say those days are gone. 🤣 A BIG reason for that is Emery Rose’s books. Through her, I’ve not only learned to love the angst and crazy ride on the emotional rollercoaster, but crave it. Who knew! 🤷🏾‍♀️ As for When Wrecked Meets Ruined, it was everything I wanted for Ridge and Evie and more. This book gave me all the feels, and did that deeply. It left me even more in love with Ridge than I was before. Evie was a fighter. She was feisty, independent, strong, brave, and smart (both street wise and book). Very few people saw through her snarky personality to the real Evie, but she loved deeply. And when she let down her guard, her beauty and love shined even brighter. Evie had a hard life, and her struggle broke my heart. But I admired her dreams and motivation to give herself and Wren better. Ridge had a bold and imposing personality. He was strong, outspoken, a rebel, and the life of the party. But like his older brother, Ridge had a difficult and painful past. He hid his vulnerability and insecurities behind his playful, playboy exterior. Like all McCallisters, he loved his family and a select few fiercely and deeply, doing whatever it took to protect those he loved. As a couple, Ridge and Evie were intense. They had an instant connection that was tangible. Even though parts of their story were hard to read and even frustrating, I think it happened exactly as it was supposed to. What Ridge and Evie had was something so much bigger than young adults could handle. I truly believe the time they had to grow stronger, smarter, and steadier was the best thing for them. No matter what, though, their chemistry was off the charts. They were steamy, sexy, and even a bit sweet. These two broken and damaged people were meant to be, but they had to work to find the strength and courage to grab hold of the love they found in each other . Overall, I adored getting to know them more and following them on their journey to love and happiness. I love seeing our past MC’s and where they are now in relation to our new MC’s. Ridge and Evie’s story is not easy, but it is beautifully written. Each book in the Lost Stars series has put me through an emotional wringer. But that is why I love them all so much. Just when I think my heart is well and truly broken, never to be mended, Emery Rose says, “Here. Hold my keyboard.”, and I’m made whole again. It’s magic and brilliance, and I can’t get enough. I’m more than ready for the next book in the series and any others that Emery is prepared to share.♡

If someone would have told me that Ridge would have the best book of the series, I would have laughed. So, color me surprised that this book was a home run.I thought that Ridge would have gone into music because of the way Shiloh and him had bonded over that in Brody's book. Football then, just seemed like a high school thing to do. It worked in his favor with this one though. Ridge and Evie had a rough life. It was heartbreaking but also rewarding to see them defy the odds. This was a redemption story and I was 100% invested in seeing it pan out. Filled with angst, good lord, so much angst.I'm not sure what this author has in store after this. I'm thinking Gideon to round out the McAllister men. Or maybe Quinn's brothers and then hopefully bringing this series full circle and ending it with Noah and Haley that has been hinted about since book one. Regardless, I will be eagerly awaiting for whatever she has planned.

This book had me experience every emotion. I couldn’t put it down. Every book in this series is like a roller coaster of ups and downs. I couldn’t put it down.

This book is a winner!It’s one of the best second chance romance novels I’ve read. Ridge and Evie are great characters. There’s the constant tension between them, the pull, the chemistry is off the charts. There’s a very real feel to them and to the whole story regarding second chances and recovering from trauma. Very well done!

When it comes to Emery Rose and her Lost Stars series, I know that I’m going to be a sobbing mess, angry and feeling all the feels. Every book in this series has put me through all my emotions and I honestly don’t know how to handle all of it. So I went into When Wrecked Meets Ruined knowing that I would be wrecked and ruined. And this book did all of that and so much more.While Brody and Shiloh from When The Storm Breaks are still my all time favourites, Evie and Ridge really pulled a number on me when I started this book. Because all of these stories happen parallelly, we’d been introduced to Ridge before and we’d seen his complicated relationship with Brody unravel and how he was with the other McCallister men as well. But to have his whole story, told through three parts and three different times in his life really made it so great.To keep it simple, Evie and Ridge are complicated. He’s the new guy and a popular jock and she’s the girl who everyone likes to pick on. Everyone but Ridge. He’s drawn to her and can’t help himself, even when she keeps pushing him away. Their push and pull in the first few chapters was pretty entertaining. While I didn’t like the characters right away, I loved their chemistry. I knew they were going to be hard to like at first, because both of them come from such tragic and traumatic backgrounds—please go gently into this book and take all trigger and content warnings seriously—but as they grew up and their relationship evolved, they started to become slightly more interesting. Their friendship and enemyship (as it were) and relationship could only be defined as intense, chaotic, painful, loving and hot. They go through so much and it rips you apart, puts you back together and then rips you apart again.Because Emery Rose is good at all of the angst, this book delivers that in spades. Part 1 covers their high school relationship and how they poke and prod at each other till the other gives in. Even though they’re enemies, you can see just how much Ridge feels for Evie and vice versa. Part 2 covers post graduation and into college and this was honestly my favourite part of the book. Seeing these two damaged souls come together and slowly fall in love was truly something so special. The characters evolved as well and once you got sucked into their world, it was hard to walk away. Part 3 was heart wrenching. I might have cried a few times, I definitely felt everything too deeply, but I have zero regrets about it.At times, their relationship felt a little toxic, but there’s no cheating or lying, it’s just a little hard to read. But Emery does such a good job of immersing you in this story that you start to feel like one of their friends and suddenly all of that toxicity doesn’t matter.I loved seeing all of the McCallister boys again, I liked seeing their relationships through Evie and Ridge’s eyes. I loved how they welcomed her into their world without a moment of hesitation. Knowing that there’s one more and knowing that we haven’t fully met Gideon yet has me all kinds of excited. I can’t wait to see what happens in that one!

Most definitely my favorite story out of this series, despite going in a bit dubious. Ridge and Evie are so perfect together and yet they are so far from perfect, they mess up, they fail, they fall, they break and they hurt... And together they make pure magic.Thank you for such a story!

I read the Lost Stars series out of order and started with Evie and Ridge’s story. And I loved them from the start and their story hit me in the feels. Love, love, love!