A review by lalauren04
The Sheltering Tree by J.R. Lawrie

5.0

I can’t get over how INSANELY GOOD this book is!!

I used to frequently write reviews on here, but for various reasons I lost the motivation to write them over the past couple of years and instead would give a star rating and leave it at that. I couldn’t do that for this one. I couldn’t just give it the 5 stars it deserves without expressing in words (albeit in my usual chaotic way) just how incredible this story was, and how much I fell madly in love with it.

The Sheltering Tree was absolutely perfect and I couldn’t get enough of it. I was hooked from the very first page and I never wanted to put my Kindle down. I ended up sitting on the sofa for hours and hours because I was so engrossed in the story and the characters and the incredible love that we see developing between Alastair and Jay. When I did have to put it down and go back to the real world, it was all I could think about. This story consumed my life and I am absolutely okay with that!

I loved these characters with my whole heart. They made my heart ache, made my eyes well up with tears more than once, and I just wanted them to get their HEA so badly that my heart hurt (in the best way!). And to be honest, I could have read about them FOREVER. This isn’t a short story, but I could have quite happily read thousands more words about these two without any complaints.

I loved so many aspects of this book - the sex, the intimacy, the character development, the perfectly paced plot.... it also has older MCs which was refreshing (I don’t feel like this is done enough although that may be just because I don’t seem to see it on my feeds and recs?), and there was a healthy amount of pining and a lovely bit of angst too. I LOVE PINING AND ANGST. The sex was beautiful and emotional, the love was heart-achingly good, and there were plenty of moments that made my heart hurt but it felt SO GOOD.

The story was written SO WELL. I just can’t get over the beautiful writing - there was something so hypnotic and lovely about it. I could picture everything so perfectly in my mind, the descriptions of everything were so wonderfully done, and I just fell madly in love with each word.

This review probably makes no sense and is just a ramble. My point is this - I bloody LOVED it. I’ve read a lot of books in this genre, both good and bad, and I can say with certainty that this is one of the best I’ve ever read. It has become one of my favourite books in this genre, but also a favourite out of all the many books I’ve read in the last few years. Just.... please read this. That’s all I can say. Read it right now, and I really hope you’ll love it as much as I did.