Release
Date: March 29, 2016

Shana Gray’s provocative novel features a resilient fighter going round for tantalizing round with the one that got away—a headstrong woman bent on seduction.

Pepper Chapman refuses to throw in the towel. Six months ago, she made the biggest mistake of her life. Blinded by grief after her mom’s death, Pepper abandoned the man she loves. Now she wants a second chance at everything she gave up: strong hands driving her to ecstasy . . . a deep voice whispering naughty promises in her ear . . . the future they’d planned since they were teenagers. So Pepper comes home looking for forgiveness, ready for a new beginning—if he’s willing to give her a shot.

Retired MMA star Tank Sherman may be used to low blows, but Pepper’s emotional sucker punch left him reeling. Trying to ignore the pain and forget the pleasure of her body beneath his, Tank is prepared to ring the final bell on their relationship. Then Pepper shows up out of the blue, radiating pure sex. But Tank won’t let himself get hurt again, and that means resisting the heat that still burns between them. Because if he takes Pepper back, he knows he’ll never be able to let her go again.

Let me say up front, I’ve read Shana Gray’s books before and liked them. A lot. She has a great style, a compelling voice, and tells an enjoyable story. She’s a good writer. Which makes it difficult for me to say I had some issues with After The Hurt. I even went back and reread quite a lot of it, hoping it was just me having an off day the first time I read it. And while I was able to re-evaluate a few things, and lessen some initial negative reactions to the book, overall I still have to say I wasn’t totally in love with this book. I wish I could, because it’s clear Ms. Gray put a lot of herself into writing it. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Sometimes when we’re too close to a project it’s almost impossible to stand aside and evaluate it from an impartial perspective. In any case, here are my thoughts about what worked, and where it went wrong for me.

Grief makes us do strange and illogical things. The sudden loss of her mother devastated Pepper Chapman. Believing she was in some way responsible for the tragic turn of events that led to her mother’s death, Pepper walked away from her life. As well as everyone in it, including Tank, the love of her life since high school. Without a word to anyone, she took off to Bali. For six months she immersed herself in her grief, trying to come to terms with her loss, and make sense of all that life threw at her. She also never once contacted Tank. Never answered his messages. Now she’s back in Toronto, hoping to make amends. She knows she has no right to expect Tank to fall into her arms after the hurt she’s caused. She needs to prove to him that her self-imposed exile was a growing experience for her and, ultimately a good thing for their relationship.

When Tank sees Pepper standing in the Octagon, the restaurant they’d sunk their savings into as an investment for the day he retired from the MMA, he’s stunned. He’s also more than a little angry, resentful, confused, and ready to toss her out on her ass. The months of silence, her total abandonment of everything he believed they meant to each other…none of it makes sense to him. Why is she back?

All this is great stuff! Perfect for a compelling story loaded with emotion, angst, explanations, heated conversations, and hot makeup sex. While there is indeed a lot of perfectly conveyed, deeply emotional scenes, and a fair share of well-written angst going on, this story let me down in the dialogue department. Dialogue is how we get the nitty gritty of who the characters are, what stuff they’re made of, what motivates them, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Inner monologues certainly serve a purpose in small doses, however, they are merely a one sided view. And this is my biggest issue with After The Hurt. The primary focus is on the cycle of reminiscing, guessing, questions, and what if’s going on inside Pepper and Tank’s heads through inner monologues. The dialogue they do have with each other is somewhat stilted. It doesn’t come close to what I, as a reader, would expect from this couple who have been together since high school. And it doesn’t measure up to Ms. Gray’s ability as a writer.

There are missed opportunities for awesome dialogue to amp the excitement and move the story forward. This is a beautiful example of Tank reflecting on the changes in Pepper. Which I would have loved to see conveyed in dialogue as well.

He knew Pepper well enough to know she was antsy about their situation. He sensed it in her. And he was surprised as hell she hadn’t cornered him and demanded they talk. Pepper was a very different woman since she’d come back. He liked the change in her. She was softer. Mellow. More accepting and not so judging. Yet her fire lurked, waiting to burst to life. He’d finally accepted he hadn’t gotten over her and ached for her in a way that was a monumental distraction.

Another problem I had is a rather weak storyline “threat” to Tank. It felt more like an obligatory bit of danger inserted just because…that’s what you’re supposed to do. It detracted from the main focus and didn’t serve a purpose as far as I could see.

As I mentioned earlier, Shana Gray is a great writer. I’d love to see this story reworked, giving us the dialogue and elements necessary to make us root for Pepper and Tank, and truly feel their hurt.

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Tank stared into her violet eyes. The ones that had the ability to turn him inside out. But not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. The shock of seeing her after the door slammed shut had been enough to stop his heart. He’d been about to step out from behind the floor-to-ceiling glass-walled wine cooler to do one last check of the details for the engagement party this evening and froze midstep.Now she was back in his arms; he was staring into her face. A face he’d loved from the moment he’d laid eyes on her in high school. What the fuck was she doing here? Now, after all this time without even a peep from her, she’d returned. Where had she been? What had she been doing? Pepper had vanished into thin air. He wanted to rage at her but bit his tongue. The rush of emotions crashed over him and he didn’t trust himself not to say something he’d regret. His actions probably gave away much of what he was feeling but holy hell, touching her again felt amazingly right, which only confused the fuck out of him even more.

His breath ceased as if there were a band wrapped tight around his chest squeezing the life out of him. She’d been able to bring him to his knees in the past, but by God he’d not let it happen anymore, especially after what she’d done. He was still reeling and not thinking straight, unable to believe his eyes. When she’d come through the door just a few minutes ago, Tank felt like a starved man seeing food for the first time in days.

He’d watched her weave between the tables with an elegance and grace a dancer would envy. When she’d removed her coat and slid onto the stool, her red leather skirt hiked up to reveal a very familiar, tantalizingly trim thigh, it had nearly done him in. Her long, slender, and yes, magnificent legs had him mesmerized, especially when she’d hooked a high heel on the rung, crossing one leg over the other. He swore those were the same heels she wore the last time they’d fucked. Once he would have called it making love. That didn’t suit them anymore. That was the past.

But those damn shoes. They matched her flaming red hair, and the memory of her sprawled naked before him, arms flung wide, was imprinted on his brain forever. Like it was yesterday, he could still see her alabaster skin in vivid contrast against the glossy black sheets. The clear violet of her eyes gazing at him under her finely arched ginger brows. She’d lain there, taunting him to do as he wanted with her. And he had.

“Brimming with sensual detail and loaded with heart, After the Hurt brings together two characters you won’t soon forget. Shana Gray gives us a winning combination of sizzling chemistry and emotional depth. Bravo!”—New York Times bestselling author Vicki Lewis Thompson “Shana Gray’s After the Hurt is an emotionally packed page-turner. I was rooting for Pepper and Tank the whole book!”—USA Today bestselling author Jamie K. Schmidt 

“After the Hurt is a second-chance romance that sizzles and satisfies to the very last page. The chemistry between Pepper and Tank is both heartwarming and explosive.”—Stina Lindenblatt, author of This One Moment 

“Incredibly sexy and heart-melting, the chemistry in this story is explosive. Pepper and Tank’s emotional struggles were so real and just jumped off the pages. After the Hurt is an excellent read.”—Violetta Rand, author of Persuasion