Anything Rae Touches by Holly Caste

Publication Date: January 19, 2023
Publisher: Self Published
Rating: ★★★★★

Rae and Miles met on the worst day of their lives.
They shared a kiss goodbye
And never saw each other again.

Ten years later and fresh out of rehab, Rae’s starting over in a new town, Golden Bay Beach. With a cynical outlook on life, her only two goals are to stay sober and escape the past.However, running away from the memory that haunts her becomes difficult to do when she crosses paths with Miles. With his sunny disposition and charming personality, he’s the complete opposite of Rae—but that only lures them closer to one another.

As the two reconnect over their tragic history, Miles becomes intent on showing Rae that the stars aligned for them to have another chance at life together. Slowly but surely, Miles chips away at Rae’s armor. Through their steam and banter comes vulnerability and healing.

Until ultimately, Rae is left with the decision of creating a new life with Miles or staying trapped in the pain of the past.

Review:

Thank you Holly Caste & Romance Me With Books for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review and the ability to be on this tour. This book does have a few trigger warnings including grief, death and addiction. Please be aware of these before reading as they do play a massive role throughout this book.

Anything Rae Touches begins in the past and goes back and forth between current times and a fretful day where her entire life changes. The chapters change between Rae and a guy named Miles. Rae was just a random girl in high school and Miles was the head of the baseball team, a big shot. There’s something severe that happens that change their lives forever and they go their separate ways, never to see each other again. Or so they thought. After 10 years, they meet each other again by chance and have the ability to reconnect after tragedy stole 10 years of their lives.

This book was the reverse grumpy x sunshine I didn’t know that I needed. Rae had plenty of stubborn one-liners in this book and it honestly made me envision her character even more. I was able to physically imagine her in my brain and that doesn’t always happen to me. Her character surrounded around her addictions and past addictions made her completely real in my mind. It was written so vividly that I couldn’t stop reading about Rae.

Miles is definitely your next book boyfriend. He’s sweet, been through some trauma and says all the right things. He has his own storyline which makes this book 10x better in my opinion. Their friendship & relationship realistically shows what trauma is like and how people react to each other when put in a terrible situation.

This book is very spicy. It wasn’t something I expected in the beginning, but I’ll tell you, this was spicy in the best way possible. It didn’t overpower the book by any means, but it had some scenes where my cheeks were blushing.

This was my first Holly Caste book, and definitely not my last. I feel extremely comfortable saying that. This book wasn’t just written as a romance, it was written for those who have dealt with death, addiction or both. I found this book to be comforting to see how people attempt to get sober and how they might be feeling. It was very real, and I liked that a lot.