Blurb:

He’s loved her forever. Now she’s marrying another man.

Chaya
The wedding plans are underway, and the Save the Date cards are sent. If only the man she was marrying was the man she loved with all her heart.
Being a contemporary woman in a traditional faith requires compromise. Being in love with her best friend, Sad Fridays’ guitarist, Ben King, the man who saved her years ago, is agony.
It’s official. He has ruined her for all other men.

Ben
When Ben receives his Save The Date card, he gets so drunk he falls off stage during their American breakthrough tour.
He’s loved Chaya for what feels like forever.
But her father made it crystal clear. Ben will never be the one for his daughter. Now she’s marrying another man, and Ben is beginning to wonder just when Chaya will realise it’s him she should be saying I do to.

When tragedy reunites them, Chaya is caught between her fiancé and her love. And it’s up to Ben to fight for Chaya or let her go forever.

My 5* Review:

Let Me Love You is the final book in Scarlett Cole’s Excess All Areas series and is Ben and Chaya’s story. All through the previous books we have known this couple are best of friends and that Ben had rescued her from a kidnapper when she was eleven.  Due to her being Jewish, they have always known their love was forbidden but Ben had always wanted more. Over the last year she had come to realise she wanted him as much as she couldn’t have him due to her faith. This story isn’t just about Ben and Chaya, but also about the power of family and friendships. While we follow them trying to decide what to do, we get to see how much the band has progressed and how all five of them have grown and matured. It is a thoughtful and emotional series finale. 

“We’ve always loved each other and now we want to try being in love with each other.”

Ben King is the lead guitarist for the Sad Fridays and now the only single member of the band. He  is feeling very envious of the others all settling down with their girls. When his brother Alex tells  him that Chaya has got engaged he is devastated she’d picked Asher. He has been in love with his best friend for years but knew in reality she’d never marry him as he wasn’t Jewish. Ben’s reaction to the news was to get drunk and this continued as his coping mechanism throughout their US tour, ending with him disgracing himself by falling off the stage drunk one night. She had been a part of his life for fifteen years since he rescued her. Now he knew she would drift away as Asher not comfortable with their friendship. His life is spiralling downwards and he knows he needs to figure out what to do with the rest of his life especially if it means Chaya isn’t in it.

Chaya is a junior doctor and under a lot of pressure at work. With all the stress of the wedding and her indecisions she is overwhelmed. Why does she have to choose between her faith and her family’s support or Ben. She knows what her faith expects from her and how interfaith marriage is frowned on. The wedding is in three months but she’s beginning to think they have rushed things because she thought she’d have time to fall out of love with Ben. Asher thinks their relationship isn’t healthy as it bordered between friends and lovers so she questions if she can commit to him and give up her friendship with Ben. 

When a tragic event has a huge impact on him, he reaches out for the one person he shouldn’t. The band is like family to Chaya so she has no reservations dashing to help them. She misses the band because they are a massive part of her life but has stayed away to appease Asher. This leads to her questioning her decisions and wondering if she will let her faith dictate her actions. Is the love they have as best friends enough after years of never crossing the boundaries to see what would happen. Can they envision their lives without one another? Who are they without each other? Can she find a way of loving Ben without sacrificing her faith when she realises she can’t live without him? 

I loved the way he insists they get to know each other as lovers because he knows they work as friends. She needs to accept that what happened to her as a child has affected her far more than she realised. She always been scared to let anyone down so must take responsibility for her own life. They have both had huge expectations placed on them and this is a chance to get something for themselves. Both have feelings of being a disappointment and Ben feels he needs to be a better version of himself not only for Chaya but also himself.

“When you let me love you like that…Your trust in me and us devastates me, babe.”

I think this was one of my favourite of the series as there was a lot of depth to their story. I loved seeing Matt and Izabel, Jase and Cerys, Alex and Zoe, Luke, Willow and Zale, all doing so well after all the ups and downs they’d been through. I laughed at the girls putting the band member’s love lives into romance tropes.

It was lovely seeing Ben find a sense of purpose and finally be happy because he was always there for everyone else and fixing things so it was great he fixed something for himself. I loved how he managed to stand up to her dad in the end.

The Epilogues are great and bring the whole series to a romantic and fun ending. A good conclusion to an enjoyable series.