Unforgettable You (Silver Springs, #5) by Brenda Novak

Jada Brooks and Maddox Richardson were high school sweethearts until a tragic accident at a party during their senior year in which her younger brother, Atticus, was paralyzed, tore them apart. He was sent away, out of town, to another school. Jada, left behind, found herself pregnant and an outcast in her own family, blamed for what happened to her brother. Against her family’s wishes, she had the baby, moved to LA on her own, and eventually married someone else.

Now, years later, she is coming home after a sad divorce with ten-year-old Maya by her side. But she’s not the only one returning to Silver Springs. Maddox, a successful school administrator, has been hired by Aiyana Turner at the Silver Springs-based New Horizons Boys Ranch, where he had once been a pupil himself, to open up a new girls’ school.

Unforgettable You is a story with a number of twists. Even after the passing of 11 years, Jada and Maddox are still in love with each other. Her family never liked Maddox, and to complicate matters, it was Maddox’s brother, Tobias, under the influence of drugs, that shot Atticus the night of the party – a party that Jada had taken him to behind her parents’ backs. Jada’s father had recently passed away leaving her mother on her own and trying to support herself and Atticus with the income from a faltering bakery. Maddox and Jada had only been intimate one time and she didn’t know about the pregnancy before Maddox left and because of all the intertwining blame, she never searched him out to let him know that they had had a child.

It is a heartbreaking story but one of forgiveness and second chances. I found it to be a very emotional reading experience and with so many obstacles to overcome I was really rooting for a happily ever after ending. I recommend this book for romance readers that like secret baby stories and second chance romances. Although Unforgettable You is part of the Silver Springs series, it could easily be read and enjoyed on its own.