4.25 stars--IF WE FLY is the second instalment in Nina Lanes’s contemporary, adult WHAT IF romance duet focusing on artist Josie Mays, and distillery owner Cole Danforth. For backstory and history I recommend reading the prequel novella-IF WE LEAP. IF WE FLY should not be read as a stand alone, as it picks up immediately after the events and cliff hanger of book one-IF WE FALL.

Told from dual first person perspectives (Josie and Cole) using present day and memories from the past, IF WE FLY picks up immediately following the events of book one-If We Fall- in which Josie has returned to her home town of Castille, Maine to pay homage to the family she loved. But returning home meant coming face to face with her past, a past that is about to come crashing down when the truth is finally revealed. Ten years earlier Josie May’s life was destroyed, and now she is about to face the destruction once again. Cole Danforth has struggled for close to ten years to move on from the past but memories and pain are all that he has left of the girl that he loved. With Josie’s return to Castille, so too, do the memories that threatened to rip them apart. A lifetime battling his father’s legacy, and the rumors that continue to push him down, Cole Danforth isn’t willing to risk losing Josie again, even if it means revealing the truth about what happened, years before.

IF WE FLY is a story of family, secrets, grief, lies and loss; a story about two sisters who struggle to move on from the past; one woman who searches for the answers to the missing pieces of her mind; and one man who hasn’t stopped loving the girl, now woman, he will always protect even if it means destroying his own reputation in the fall-out. Nina Lane pulls the reader into a revealing and emotional story about forgotten memories, broken souls, a passionate sacrifice, and a love that has endured. Although predictable and a rush to the finish IF WE FLY is an impassioned look at love and sacrifice. My only wish is that the author focuses a little more of the town’s acceptance and understanding of the man that Josie loved.