Review: Keeping 13 by Chloe Walsh

Name: Keeping 13
Series: Boys of Tommen #2
Author: Chloe Walsh
Publisher: Piatkus
Format: Kindle
Genres: Upper YA, Contemporary, Sports Romance
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Rating:

Synopsis: Goodreads
Falling in love was the easy part. What comes next is the test . . .

Following a devastating injury that has left him sidelined and stripped of his beloved number 13 jersey, Johnny Kavanagh is struggling to hold onto his dreams. Lost, insecure, and desperately seeking comfort, he sets his sights on unravelling the mystery of the girl with the midnight-blue eyes, who haunts his every waking hour.

Keeping secrets has never been a problem for Shannon Lynch. The life she was born into demands nothing less. She knows that demons and evil men don’t just exist in fairytales. They exist in her world, too. Traumatized beyond repair after her return from Dublin, and desperate to protect her little brothers, Shannon finds herself falling into the same old cover-up, barely keeping her head above water, as her future unravels before her eyes. Beaten and broken, her walls are up and her trust is shaken.

Only one boy has the ability to climb those walls. The boy who owns her heart. But secrets are about to be exposed and lives could be changed forever – can Johnny and Shannon’s love survive?

Review:

Keeping 13 is the second book in Chloe Walsh’ Boys of Tommen Series. There are a lot of rough topics discussed and suggested meaning the author recommends this for an audience of 18+ despite it being marketed as YA. I have put Upper YA for that reason. Please read the authors warnings before going into this book / series. And as always, spoilers for Keeping 13 would be hidden, but there may be spoilers for the previous book in the series.

Guys, I derailed my May TBR to go straight into Keeping 13. And I thought I was prepared for the emotion that would hit because of Binding 13 but I absolutely wasn’t. Keeping 13 ruined me. I am talking that ugly crying that I last experienced with Kingdom of Ash (again, if you know you know, but the witches… I was not the same after that), full on put the book down and cry it out because I just can’t handle it…

The ending of Binding 13 was just awful, it hurt so bad. So, when I picked up Keeping 13 I expected a lot of pain right from the word go. But honestly, that didn’t happen. I did find the start of the story to be slower (and almost painfully so) however, the insight we got into Shannon’s family and Johnny’s family trying to navigate the situations they were finding themselves in… Yeah, that was excellent.

Johnny and Shannon started to annoy me in Keeping 13 – or more specifically Shannon – and at one point I did consider giving up on the book because of it. However, I didn’t, and thank god I didn’t. Because Keeping 13 destroyed me emotionally. I really, really struggled with this one. Because what Shannon goes through, and what Johnny goes through by connection to Shannon, was absolutely traumitising.

I love Johnny’s mum and dad and how fiercely they love Johnny and even Shannon. Gibsie and Claire continue to be high up on my list of favourite found family members, I love them…And Joey… Oh boy, I struggled with Joey. This wasn’t Joey’s story, so I constantly found myself yelling internally about wanting more of his story… So I am very much excited to read Saving 6 (though I am terrified because I think it’s the same time line as Binding / Keeping 13).

Keeping 13 does end Johnny and Shannon’s story (though I’m sure they pop up in the rest of the stories!) and so it is a completed duet within The Boys of Tommen. I think you could finish there if you wanted to… but if you love Joey then you’re going to want to continue. I’m also preemtively annoyed that Taming 7 is Gibsie and Claire’s story but instead of their second part we get Releasing 10 which I believe is Lizzie’s story? I’m not a Lizzie fan so I can’t say I’m looking forward to that…

But okay, we’ve gone off topic now! So, I’ll end the review here. Just know that Binding 13 and Keeping 13 were absolutely not my genres but I loved them. Even with Keeping 13 being slower and even annoying me in parts, these characters I think are going to live with me for the foreseeable future. These books are not 6 stars, but I do have a strong feeling that this series is going to be God Tier…

“For keeps?”
“For keeps.”

Reading With Tyler