A Way Back Into Love by Veronica Thatcher

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 4/5

Emily left her home 5 years ago. She ran away from her home, her family, and especially her best friend, Derek, whom she also happened to be in love with. What she didn't know was that he was in love with her too. Now, she is returning home to begin a surgical internship. Derek has moved on and is now getting married to her sister. Emily and Derek become friends again and start to spend more time together. It becomes clear that they both still have feelings for each other but there's a gaping chasm that neither is completely willing to cross. As they spend more time together, secrets from the past come to light that change everything.

I almost never read contemporary romance novels because I tend to find them unrealistic, cheesy, and irritating. There's always lots of drama and usually the dialogue and interactions seem so pretentious.
That being said, I was quite impressed with this book. The interactions between the main characters, Derek and Emily, were really just fun and enjoyable to read. They had a truly interesting and entertaining rapport. They constantly joked with each other and just had a lot of fun with each other. That was just a pleasure! The actual plotline of the story was fairly predictable but nonetheless enjoyable. I kept thinking how incredibly blind and stupid they both were for not realizing that they were head over heels for each other. But then I realized that this is quite realistic. I think many people can understand misunderstandings and relationship drama of this type. We hesitate to open up and be 100% honest because we are scared. But if we just took a leap of faith, we could have something truly special.
I found Emma's character fascinating - she's the main antagonist but her behavior surprised me throughout the book. There were some interesting twists near the end that made my jaw literally drop. I also really liked the Grey's Anatomy-esque scenes. (Emily and Derek were both surgical interns.)
I did have a few issues with the editing. The use of contractions was puzzling - there were many instances where contractions weren't used in the dialogue and it made it a little awkward to read. In other cases. contractions were used where they were NOT needed (which I have never seen before). Sometimes, really obscure words were used that weren't really necessary (just because you can use a fancy 5 syllable word doesn't mean you should). I did learn some new words though, so that was fun.
Ultimately, a pretty good read. I was pretty engaged the whole time - I wanted to find out how it would resolve and, like I said before, Derek and Emily were really fun to read about.

Grammar/editing: Abysmal/Poor/Needs Work/Good/Excellent
As mentioned above, I had issues with the use of contractions. There were some words that were misused or not needed. Certain grammatical issues existed like saying "I and she went to ..." instead of  "She and I went to..." or using "She had got used to the idea" instead of "She had gotten used to the idea." Etc.
 
Violence: None/Mild/Medium/Heavy/Extreme: This book is violence free! (Unless you count the mention of one of the characters having an abortion). No one even got slapped or anything.

Profanity: None/Mild/Medium/Heavy/Extreme: The language used was fairly standard dialogue. The F-bomb was dropped when people were feeling particularly emotional. One of the characters was referred to as "Asshole," one was nicknamed "Bitchy Barbie." Course language was not used excessively.  

Sexuality: None/Mild/Medium/Heavy/Extreme: The sex scenes (there were 2) were done very tastefully and were not explicit. There was also mention of an abortion at one point.

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