Who's your Merrick? 
 I love how every person who reads the Elementals series has a favorite and a least favorite book or character, then a second favorite or second least favorite book or character. Hardly anyone will agree on the order of what goes from first to last. With most series, there's a general progression from okay to better or better to worse, and a good portion of the time, fans will wholeheartedly agree where a series "started to pick up" or "started to go downhill." But there's something special about this particular series and its entire set of characters and experiences which speaks differently to every person. My favorite character is Michael, but my favorite books are Gabriel's and Nick's (so far). Chris's book was awesome, and Hunter's book was decent, but not a favorite. One of you might have Hunter for a favorite character, or Chris's book as your favorite. But I think most of us fans can agree on one thing : We love the Merricks. 
 The rest of my review is going to be a little different from my normal reviews. I'm going to be writing it only for the people who have read the Elementals series. If you have not read the series up to this point, you'll want to avoid the rest of this review because I'm just wanting to talk about my feelings - with tissues handy. If you're curious about this series, you might want to check out my earlier reviews for the series prequel (0.5) and book 1 if you want to get a feel for what these books are all about. 
 I knew as I was reading that there was no way I'd be able to write a public review stating the pros and cons of why people should read this series. There was just no way to do this when my heart was getting pummeled. 
 So I want to talk with you fellow fans about why Secret is tied for my favorite book of the series. It was really all about the emotion for me. 
 "You're safe here," he said softly. "Okay?" 
 "Sometimes I wish you weren't...you know." 
 "I know." 
 Nick always did what his brothers expected. 
 "What do you want? Does anyone ever ask you that?" 
 Those lines has me emotional, but the following scene with Nick and his mom broke me down into a blubbering mess : 
 He'd leaned into her contact, and she'd said, "You're the only one who still lets me do that. My gentle boy." 
 I don't even know why the dam burst there. It just did - and it came from out of NOWHERE. 
 But then it kept going. Of course Michael had to come along and be wonderful. Was anyone else having the same emotion? 
 "He wouldn't fall asleep at night unless Mom put you in his crib." 
 FFS, Can it GET any more emotional? 
 "I'm not his best friend, Nick. You are." 
 Why yes, yes it can. 
 Nick kept going. And Adam never said stop. 
 Even though Nick was the star of the book, I was just as pleased with Quinn's story with Tyler. Tyler wasn't the "normal" romantic lead. He smelled like beer and cigarettes. In a weird way, I liked that. He's a young man being a young man with the same habits that a lot of young men have. Quinn's story never felt forced to me (as "I was abused" stories often do), and I was happy that she wasn't tossed aside in the wake of Nick moving on. 
 So that's it. I just wanted to talk to the other fans about why this particular book resonated with me. Even if this wasn't the specific Merrick book to shoot to the top of your favorites list, I'm sure you might understand why we all have our reasons to find a Merrick book (or two) to love, even if we don't all agree on which one should be at the top. 
 This book provided from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.