A Wish for Us – Tillie Cole

Genre: New Adult, Romance

From the author who brought you A Thousand Boy Kisses comes the new emotional novel, A Wish For Us.
A story of music. A story of healing. A story of love conquering all.

Nineteen-year-old Cromwell Dean is the rising star of electronic dance music. Thousands of people adore him. But no one knows him. No one sees the color of his heart.

Until the girl in the purple dress. She sees through the walls he has built to the empty darkness within.

When Cromwell leaves behind the gray skies of England to study music in the South Carolina heat, the last thing he expects is to see her again. And he certainly doesn’t expect that she’ll stay in his head like a song on repeat.

Bonnie Farraday lives for music. She lets every note into her heart, and she doesn’t understand how someone as talented as Cromwell can avoid doing the same. He’s hiding from his past, and she knows it. She tries to stay away from him, but something keeps calling her back.

Bonnie is the burst of color in Cromwell’s darkness. He’s the beat that makes her heart skip.

But when a shadow falls over Bonnie, it’s up to Cromwell to be her light, in the only way he knows how. He must help her find the lost song in her fragile heart. He must keep her strong with a symphony only he can compose.

A symphony of hope.
A symphony of love.
A symphony of them.

I decided to read A Wish for Us because I read a review that likened it to Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire, one of my favourite new adult romance novels. A Wish for Us is nothing like Beautiful Disaster. Where Beautiful Disaster is all fun, sexy romance, A Wish for Us is emotional.

Cole’s writing is easily the best part of the novel. The main character, Cromwell, has synesthesia, meaning he can see music. Cole’s description of what he sees, feels, and tastes is beautifully written. I could easily visualize what was being described.

The chemistry between Cromwell and Bonnie is lackluster. There was no sizzle or heat between them despite Cole’s attempt at creating an almost forbidden love story. The emotional baggage both characters carry is too heavy to allow any room for a fun, sexy romance. Their relationship is a typical bad boy and good girl romance and fully employs every trope possible. That’s not to say tropes are bad and should never be used, however, if you are using them, every aspect of the novel needs to work in tandem, meaning the dialogue and chemistry. Unfortunately, the dialogue in A Wish for Us is stiff and does not roll off the tongue. There were so many instances where Bonnie was speaking that pulled me out of the story because her dialogue read as robotic.

Overall, A Wish for Us is an emotionally heavy romance novel that’s predictable from start to finish.

 

Have you read A Wish for Us? What did you think? Have you read anything else by Tillie Cole?