I'll admit that I didn't love the first book in this series as much as other stories Brighton has shared with the world. Which I hate saying, because as you've seen me say before, I'll read anything she writes. She's never done me wrong when it comes to hot boys. And let me tell you that while Ghost was hot, he never really did it for me. But Riley? Riley can come over and whisk me away to safety any freakin' time he pleases. Because damn. Swoons galore. GALORE. 
 I'm getting ahead of myself, though. We'll come back to Riley later. 
 If you've read Captive, you'll remember that Riley is Ghost's younger brother. And in this companion novel, the story focuses all on him and a girl--the girl--from his past. Evie. The one who got away...kind of. 
 I am a total sucker and a half for once-lovers stories, and these two just about killed me dead. I won't go into the details because spoilers, but I'll say that the story unfolded so well, and the sensitive topics were treated with the respect they deserved. Evie's story felt real because it was. She wasn't just your everyday cliche'd character with a bad past. She had reasons for what she did that went beyond the "I was abused so I'm fucked up" trope that's so often seen in New Adult novels. I was so very happy with the way everything turned out, and I'll say that I thought the blurb on the jacket didn't do the book justice at all. There was so much more inside these pages than I expected. 
 Can we move back to Riley now? Okay. He was so very unexpected. I've been reading Brighton's words for a long time, and she's made me swoon before, but it's been a while since I've swooned like this. He did everything right. Even when he did that one thing that broke my heart but made me swoon like crazy anyway. And his mouth. The sparring. The sweetness. The... all of it. All. Of. It. 
 Don't wait to pick this one up when it hits the shelves, for real. Just get it and read because you won't be sorry.