M.K. Schiller - a new-to-me author - delivers an almost perfect New Adult romance with The Scars Between Us.

Emma Cooper's mother has passed away and left her a rather cryptic set of instructions: find a Mr. Aiden Sheffield, and convince him to come to the small town of Linx, Texas, to scatter her ashes. Intriguing, no? Well, I thought so, and it only gets more intriguing as you read and begin to wonder just what exactly is the connection between Aiden and Emma's mother...

I really enjoyed this book. If it weren't for that pesky needing to sleep thing, I'd have read it in one sitting. It immediately draws you in with the question of who the heck is Aiden, and once you actually meet Aiden and see the instant chemistry between him and Emma, you just won't want to stop reading until you find out everything there is to know.

Physically, Aiden sounded absolutely divine, and the swoon factor in this book is pretty darn high. Also, the fact that he rescues dogs was an instant hit with me - love dogs. I wasn't really fussed about the cage fighter aspect, but since this book only covers a few days, that wasn't really a part of the story anyway.

Character-wise, at first glance Aiden appears to have the stereotypical brooding hot guy with a back-story thing going on, but as I read on, I found it was all done really well and didn't seem at all contrived. Once you actually know Aiden's story, you'll definitely accept he has every right to brood and be a little Negative Nancy now and then. His problems are not superficial, and I thought this part of the story was tragic but fascinating.

As for Emma, she was fun. It might seem as though her characterisation wasn't as detailed or as interesting as Aiden's, simply because she's generally just a nice girl who's lived a happy, normal life. We, as readers, live through her rose-tinted outlook and experience each new revelation in this book as yet another blow to the happy bubble she's previously existed in.

The romance I thought was pretty perfect. Although the attraction for both was instant, they don't hop to it so soon you're not emotionally prepared for it (hate it when authors do that). No, I was definitely invested in them both by the time the first kiss happened. I did lots of grinning and even laughed aloud a few times at the dialogue.

So cute.

I'm now going to explain what I meant when I said it was almost perfect, and because this is quite subjective, I thought I'd leave it until the end.

So, having read quite a few NAs at this point, I've come to expect them to be intensely emotional reads, and for there to be at least a section of the book, usually towards the end, that completely emotionally destroys me. That has me lying like a quivering pile of heartbroken goop on the floor, unable to process all the feelings. I'm sure if you're interested in reading this book, you've probably already read a few of them yourself. Those awsome, stomach-dropping "Oh my God" moments that just kill you. In fact, since the cover art keeps reminding me of Travis Maddox, we could easily use Beautiful Disaster as a perfect example of a New Adult book that gut punches you repeatedly until you're crying out for mercy. Now, you see, I like that. Love it, in fact. And in this genre, I kinda expect it now, too. That's not to say this book didn't produce feels, it did. But just not to the heart-shredding degree I crave when I'm in the mood for this genre. Schiller instead opted to keep it more tense and action-y, which is her right to do so, of course. I guess what I'm saying is, I have no actual complaints about what was in this book, but for me, there was just that little something missing  from it that kept it from being a 5 star read. Because I'm apparently a masochist.

Still, if you're an NA junkie, maybe a book that's not quite so emotionally draining could be a welcome relief every now and then!

Overall, The Scars Between Us was wonderful book, and I'll definitely be checking out this author's future reads.

4 Stars ★★★★ A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.