Review: “In Between Forever” by Mika Jolie

Series: Martha’s Way, #5

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Steam: 🔥🔥🔥

Trigger/Content Warnings: Conversations about infertility

Release Date: February 4th, 2021

Add to Goodreads | Amazon.in (Available on KU)

What happens when happily ever after isn’t?

For Keely and Blake Alexander, the vows were easy, the love unconditional, and the promise eternal. But when life comes crashing forth, bringing a hard, cold slap of reality in their fairytale, Keely and Blake question everything they ever wanted.

As their carefree, happy marriage begins to crumble, they’re faced with a truth they never saw coming. Suddenly, battling from opposing sides, they find themselves struggling with until death do us part.

With a promise of forever, can they find a way to make it work all the times in between?

 

“I’m in love with you. You have me forever and everything in between.”

Prepare to have your heart wrenched out and tossed around before stuffing it back in your chest. Mika Jolie has woven such a beautiful story about a couple struggling through the hardest part of their marriage. As mentioned in the trigger warnings, there’s a lot of talk about infertility and the struggles that come with it. It might be hard for some, so brace yourself.

While a love story about Keely and Blake, In Between Forever is also a really sad story. It will make your heart ache as you follow the two of them through the journey they’re going on to have the family they so desperately want. It’s also a marriage in crisis story and as the trope suggests, it’s bound to be difficult, because these two are being held apart by things they can’t control.

“She loved the strength in those arms. How safe, protected, and loved she always felt nestled up to his body, wrapped in his arms.”

Keely and Blake have been married for 5 years and they’ve been trying to have a baby in all that time, but every test that Keely takes comes up negative. She’s been following her ovulation cycle and doing everything she can to ensure that they don’t miss their window. Sex has become scheduled and Keely is so focused on having a baby that she keeps ignoring the little things about her husband. Their love is put on hold as she navigates this thing that she’s struggling.

While Blake is a supportive and present husband, it’s clearly not enough to hold their marriage together. And then there’s all the drama with his parents and the chaos they’ve caused over the years. Blake and his parents don’t see eye-to-eye and when they inject themselves into the messy situation at home, things start to unravel even further. But it also helps them hold onto each other more.

“Her belly ached with longing, the frustration and injustice of it all made her hands tremble with suppressed emotion. A whole world was blocked off to her.”

You can feel Keely’s pain. She’s watching her sister and her friends all get pregnant and have great lives, so she’s suffering even more. And then she’s sitting on pins and needles not knowing what the problem is. There’s just so much she has to contend with and it’s wearing her out. When Keely does get the devastating news, it completely changes the course of their relationship. Gosh, it’s so heartbreaking to watch Keely go through what she does.

I love how Mika crafted this story, that while being sad and heartbreaking, it also held a lot of hope and promise. Very often, in romances with mentions of infertility, everything works out in the end, but in In Between Forever, you accept that sometimes things don’t always work out and that’s okay too. The only thing I didn’t like about the resolution of the relationship was that Keely had to struggle with almost losing Blake to realise that a baby is not the end goal. But I guess it makes sense since she’s given up all hope for everything and everyone else and the only person that matters to her is her husband.

Thanks to Mika Jolie and Wildfire Marketing Solutions for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.