One of my most anxiously awaited books in 2017 was Cora Kenborn’s Shallow.  In Shallow, we meet Shiloh West, Myrtle Beach’s very own shinning star.  With every intention of leaving town without ever glancing in her rearview, Shiloh throws the one person who knows the real her under the bus. For seven years, Shiloh lives life in the fast lane…until one night everything changes. Now, forced to return to Myrtle Beach in the wake of a train wreck she’s entirely responsible for, Shiloh is met with seven years of hate & resentment. Another person stands in place of Shallow on the utter wreckage of her past, but no one else can see beyond her tarnished exterior.  Shiloh quickly realizes you either forgive and forget or fracture and finish. Carrick Kincaid paid the ultimate price for his friendship with Shiloh West.  But the boy has become a man & Cary has had seven years to imagine all the ways he can hurt the woman who ripped him and his family apart. Shiloh West cost him everything.  Cary discerns that beauty is only skin deep, but revenge goes straight to the bone…

Just a short five months ago, I read my very first book by Cora Kenborn and I was hooked. Her writing kept me binge reading until I was caught up on all of her previous publications and I was without questions anxiously awaiting the release of Shallow. I am not at all surprised with just how amazing Shallow was, as Cora Kenborn is EXTREMELY talented in whatever genre she seeks to conquer. And conquer she does with what has got to be my favorite book in her lineup. This book is angsty and at times gritty…with just enough light to strengthen readers fortitude for the dark moments that follow.  The beauty of their unique love story can’t truly be appreciated until you finish with the book.  At intervals throughout the book, I wanted to hate Shiloh and Cary…or at the very least chuck my kindle at their heads for their stupidity. But Cora redeemed them when I least expected it. She built them up…made them your favorite character ever in her books and then left readers completely adrift when she ripped the carpet out from under us. Her talent in storytelling makes exceptional romance novels.  The plot to Shallow was deep; deeper then I realized… And Cora Kenborn was a master at slowly unraveling the story for us…I sat holding my kindle after I finished reading in shock and aww. After reading Blurred Red Lines, I didn’t think that was possible…But Cora Kenborn is systematically rewriting the rules we’ve long held of great authors and captivating stories. She’s dabbled in several sub-genres as I mentioned previously and truly excels at each and every one.  Her snarky, independent heroines are some of my all-time favorites, & as someone that reads a book or two a day, that really says something. Cora’s heroines do not conform to standards often held in the romance world and I love that about them.  Shiloh is gorgeous. She is the embodiment of every woman’s fantasies for ourselves… the women we wish we were on the exterior. On the inside, Shiloh is someone else entirely.  She is  self-serving, cowardly and vapid. Then there’s Cary…the good boy who after a dose of Shiloh becomes the town bad boy. And what a bad boy he is!  Again, Cora broke the mold with this one. At times the hero, Cary is also the anti-hero but you can’t help but find yourself under his spell. Even when you think you can’t possibly like his character you’re secretly routing for him. Is beauty really only skin deep?!? Or can Cora Kenborn teach you that it’s sooooo much more and that everyone is redeemable? Read Shallow and you will find out.

In addition to Cora’s superb storytelling abilities and astonishing characters, Shallow is written in duel perspectives. Sometimes as a reader, its hard to connect with a character because we can not understand them. I love that Cora Kenborn choose to tell this story as duel POV because it added that additional layer I needed to allow Shiloh and Cary to get under my skin. I could feel their emotions as my own. I understood them, even when I didn’t want to like them. I could identify with them even though our life circumstances were utterly and completely different from one another. Ultimately, it was the combination of all these things I mentioned (and more) that made Shallow one of my very favorite books of 2017. Cora Kenborn really outdid herself and I can not recommend Shallow enough. I urge you to one-click this book immediately…it will overshadow almost everything else you could read at this very moment. With twelve other books in her backstock, and some of them rockstar romances (my favorite trope), this book outshines everything she’s written to date. I can’t wait to see what she thinks up next.