There are so many charming and cute moments and interactions in this book. I believed the romance between Marc and Trevor, and my heart warmed often. I really wanted to be able to rate this book with four stars.

Ninety pages in, I screamed, "Just talk to each other!" It is -such- a cheap cop-out when miscommunication is a plot device. -Talk- to one another. It makes your relationship more believable, enriches you as characters, and can help plot take place. Trevor doesn't tell Marc until a hundred pages in that he needs a kidney transplant. He spends three long paragraphs explaining how it affects his life. They are well-done, but poorly placed. Had they been spread, sentence by sentence, throughout the novel, I'd have been more affected and the story more solid. Instead, it's a wall-o'-text of important, needed content. I realize it was originally just a one-night stand, but there sure are a lot of pages in this book for a simple fling. That's also how I knew Trevor was going to survive. And I couldn't pardon the book anymore after that hundred pages. I couldn't pardon the purple prose (credit to TVTropes for the term), the dead herrings (thanks to Das Sporking for the term) of Trevor constantly mentioning some variant of the sentence 'I don't have time to live the life I want', the sappy cliches, the over-the-top-ness of the characters in some ways--nearly every lawyer I've worked for, works eighteen-hour days. Totally a thing. They also have families, hobbies, and friends. Denying Marc that made him look like a huge weirdo, and when he finally did get to happy hour, the reaction of everyone else--go back and start over, please, so it can develop more organically. It was all either forced or rushed, and the ending was--it could have been stronger in so many ways. ( )

Artist Trevor Morrison longs for a connection with someone he knows he can't have. He's been waiting for a kidney transplant for years, and it looks like it's not going to come through. He knows that without one, he'll never be able to grow old with the man of his dreams. So why bother looking for him? Attorney Marcus Roberts has no room in his life for love. He's focused on becoming a partner at his firm as soon as possible--and then maybe he'll have time for a life. And since his last attempt at love went wrong, there's no need to risk muddying his world on the small chance things could go right. When a blizzard leaves Marcus stranded at a hotel near the airport on his way home from the office, there's a small joy in the fact that he won't be completely alone for the holiday--and a bit larger joy in his chance meeting of Trevor who is similarly stranded but without a room of his own. The two connect quickly and actually end up spending several days together before Trevor quietly disappears and flies home for his family Christmas. But for once, Marcus has found something, someone he wants enough to disrupt the vision of his perfect life and he's not willing to give in easy. Trevor refuses to make Marcus go through the process of losing him. In a battle of stubborn wills, it's hard to see just who might win out.

I'd describe this as charming. These two meet and fall hard, especially Marcus, even with everything that stands in the way. I'm not super keen on stories where guy meets guy who can magically solve the problem that has been lingering without a solution with relatively little effort, but those do tend to lead to the happy endings we often seek. ( )

If the films ‘Two Night Stand’ and ‘Dying Young’ had a book baby, this would be it. Exquisite, poignant, heartwarming. ( )

*tissue alert* Oh my God, I spent more than half this book sobbing my heart out. Starting from the very first chapter. I must look a complete mess.

A beautiful story and a believable love at first sight story despite the short time period.

Highly recommended. Just be sure to have your tissues nearby. ( )

I'm thinking of changing my username to Heartless Bitch because instead of having tear-soaked eyes from all the emotional crying I was supposed to do while reading this, I was instead nursing a headache from all the Olympic-quality eye rolling I spent doing.

I really had to force myself to finish this book but that was just because at some point I decided I needed to see how much worse it could get when the big reveal occurred. For some torturous reason I had to know how the story would end. Would he live? Would he die? Would they stay together, regardless of health?
Side note: I'll put this in a spoiler tag since it is a non-book related rant only slightly relative to this review. A year or two ago I would not have questioned the fate of the lovers in my romance novel. I probably would have just stopped reading this book when it became clear I was not enjoying it, secure in the knowledge that even though I didn't really care, the couple would in fact go on to fully recover from all illnesses and live happily ever after. But some romance writers have been playing fast and loose with my HEAs so all bets are off in that department. So I blame them *yeah, I'm talking to you Ward* for making me have to actually finish this book just to be sure one or both of the guys didn't kick the bucket.
Considering what we know from the book blurb about what's-his-name's health (see, I couldn't even care enough to remember the dying guy's name) I should have known not to get my hopes up that the HEA wouldn't have me rolling my eyes.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the writer. Is it even possible to have a scenario like the one listed in the blurb and not have it end in one of two ways: the first being what I like to call the "Dark Lifetime Movie of the Week" in which the hero dies and the movie ends with the dead hero's parents sort of adopting the lover he left behind. The man left behind lost his soul mate but it's all good because he now has a family to love him and make up for all the hurts inflicted on him by his real family. OR the second way it could end, aka "Rainbows and Unicorns Lifetime Movie of the Week" in which some unbelievable *cue eye rolling* event occurs and everyone lives happily ever after.

If anyone has read a book in which there was a third possible outcome I'd love to hear it.

My dislike of the story rates this a 2.0 but I'm adding another point because the writing was, by my definition, good. And by that I mean we saw both of the MCs POVs (which I love) AND the POV shifts were clear. No bouncing POV from one paragraph to the next (which I hate). This is the first book I've read by this author and while the story didn't work for me the writing style did so I would probably consider reading something else by this writer. ( )