**Please note, I suck at taking pictures so I definitely did NOT take the picture above. None of the pictures I have used, or will use, are mine. This one was from Dominique herself!**

At fourteen years old, I loved him.
Hard.
So hard it hurt.
I loved him, but love isn’t what it was.
It was a game, a lie. And I would never be the same.
I fell in love with a liar, and when the truth was uncovered, he left my heart shattered and never looked back.
So I didn’t either. I moved on, went to college, and I lived my life without him, pushing thoughts of him away whenever they tried to break through the bubble I had created for myself.
I was twenty-four when he came back into my life, a month before I was set to marry someone else, someone who had pieced together the broken parts he had left behind.
I shouldn’t have agreed to meet with him, but I did. I had to.
My heart broke all over again.
My head and heart were officially at war.
I had a choice to make, and it should have been easy, but it wasn’t. Because whatever choice I made, head or heart, I knew it would break me.

Dominique Laura started off writing under the pen name Rosie C. but grew brave enough to transition to her real name (well, close enough to it). She loves to read and write whenever possible. She’s an advocate for love and happily ever afters, and she’s snarky and sarcastic. She lives in sunny Southern California with her dog, who she’s slightly obsessed with.

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SHE DID IT AGAIN. Dominique Laura gave me another novel that had me in tears. This was emotional in a different way, because it’s the story of your first love. She gave me another YA/Contemporary Romance that I connected with on a level I didn’t know I could, since my first love, I thought, wasn’t like Jade’s. My first love was different because it didn’t last years, like Jade’s did. Mine was short (three months!), tumultuous, and definitely didn’t carry over to college. Hell, looking back, I don’t even know if it was love. But throughout the rest of high school, he definitely impacted my life. I’d get the call or text every few months, trying to be friends, and have to learn all over again he was a grade-A jerk.

I think our first love always holds a special place in our hearts. It’s the one I think teaches you the most about what you want in life. It’s the one that hurts the most. It’s the one you thought would last forever, even if your head (and everyone around you) told you it wouldn’t last. There’s manipulation, tears, fights, and happiness.

Going into this, especially with the prologue, I thought for sure I’d root for Jade’s first love. I mean, who doesn’t like to read about the guy you fell in love with, fought to be with, coming back into the girl’s life and they end up together? I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, much like Jade had, with her relationship with Dylan. What was going to be the thing that pushed her towards Tian?

But God, this was so much better. Because it was real.

Dominique eloquently and perfectly describes the falling in love so young, thinking it is going to be your everything, allowing someone to hurt and manipulate you into forgiving them, ignoring the signs they aren’t who you think they are, and the hurt that follows when you have to choose yourself over someone else. Someone you thought you loved. Someone you thought loved you. She describes the hardships of falling in love with someone new.

Dominique: Keep writing your amazing stories. They are beautiful, and you have a true gift! I will gladly have tissues and ice cream ready for every tale you weave, as long as you continue to do it.
Everyone else: GET THIS BOOK! And when it releases, look in the back for true lessons readers learned from their first love. (Which I will be getting just to read those stories).