O.M.G.
Hunt&Cam4Ever has been a favourite of mine ever since I read On His Knees. From that very first (short) installment, Hunter Kane and Camden Snow were unforgettable and edged into my mind. In fact, I started that very first review the exact same way I’m starting this one and, in all fairness, OMG is a perfect fit for the whole series.
This book is the culmination of everything that’s gone before. It answers remaining questions and reveals truths I wasn’t even aware I’d missed so far. It rounds things off in the most perfect fashion and yet, it was the toughest, most heart-wrenching story in the series.
Before I say anything else, let me repeat the words I ended my review of Shadow Men with: whatever you do DO NOT READ FOREVER UNTIL YOU’VE FINISHED SHADOW MEN. In fact, now that I’ve read Forever, I’ll go one step further and urge you to make sure you read all previous books before you even think about starting Forever. Without knowing everything there is to know about Hunter, Camden, Hunter’s team, and all the other characters who featured in the earlier stories, you won’t get the significance and beauty of everything that unfolds here.
Mind you, you’ll want to prepare yourself before you open this book. Guard your heart and be prepared for pain. The first third (approximately) of this story all but broke me. I never thought I’d see Hunt and Cam as shattered and insecure as they were in this tale. On the other hand, now that I have seen it, I have to admit it was inevitable. They had to break before they could become everything they always were, individually and together.
There’s a lot of pain in Forever. Old pain, almost forgotten pain, pain denied, and fresh pain. And while this pain is important and something our heroes must go through, it’s not what this story is ultimately about. The real purpose of this story is what’s on the other side of that pain, on what remains when the sharp edges of grief have smoothened, on what emerges after it seems like everything is lost.
In one way this is the story of Cam and Hunter doing what they should have done from the start and certainly before they got married. They’re communicating, discovering each other in different, not sex- or work-related ways. It’s beautiful, emotional, at times warming my heart at others all but breaking it.
In another way Forever is about Cam and Hunt being honest with themselves before they’re (able to be) honest with each other. They have to open themselves up and dive into the depths of everything they’ve more or less successfully pushed into the far recesses of their consciousness before they can emerge together, better, stronger, and closer than they’ve ever been—even if I thought they couldn’t possibly get any closer than they already were.
Just because Hunt is out of the running, doesn’t mean that his team doesn’t have a nasty and tricky murder to solve. Just like his team members, I initially had a hard time coming to terms with that. Hunt was such a central and vital part of their earlier investigations that it was hard to imagine how they would manage without him, whether they even could function without him. But I guess they, and I, had to learn a lesson too. Hunt and Cam have grown over the course of the eight book series, but so have those who work with Hunt. His influence may not be direct in this book, but enough of it rubbed off on his co-workers for his intuitive and at times unorthodox style to bring them to the (rather horrifying) solution this time too.
The sex scenes in this book are as hot, powerful, and breath-taking as always. They are (how shall I put it) less prominent in Forever, though. The sex, their scenes, were never the problem. You could say they were the only thing about Hunt & Cam not in need of re-examination. The scenes in this story were perfectly placed though since they happened just when Hunt, Cam, and I needed them most.
Honestly, I could go on Forever (pun totally intended) about this book, Hunt and Cam, and the series as a whole. It is just that good.
Before I finished Forever, I feared that this might be my last encounter with Hunt and Cam. I’m very happy to report that I worried about nothing. There’s more to come and while it may be a little while before we meet again, I rest assured in the knowledge that Hunt and Cam will be back.