What Matters Most by Helen Bea Kirk

Publication date: March 21st 2017

Read Date: March 17th 2017

Genre: Fiction / Drama / Romance

Pages: 240

Stars: 5/5

Meagan Morris has lost everything. Her family is dead, and all that remains of them, all that was endowed to her, has been stolen. Desperate to retrieve her legacy, Meagan disguises herself and attempts to rob King of her grandmother’s pearls at gunpoint. When Officer Dell arrives at the scene, King doesn’t turn Meagan in, but rather drops her jewels in a bag and gives it to her. 

As Meagan searches pawnshops and the Internet to recover her lost heirlooms, King now not only fears for his life, but is deeply concerned that his father, Jack, or brother, Ace, may soon find themselves looking down the barrel of a gun. 

All the while, King must contend with the demands of Gayla, who unabashedly wants King for her own and who has lied to him about the parentage of her child. Guilt-ridden, King must work day and night to satisfy Gayla’s demands for money and sex until the truth sets him free.

Set among the cattle ranches of America’s Southeast, What Matters Most delivers steady suspense and savory romance as Meagan and King’s worlds collide!

What will you do if everything you had as a memory of your loved ones is stolen? Job is only helping in paying half of your rent, your distant relative is making you clean the house for hours long in exchange for a place to live. You find your belongings at pawn shops and on internet trying to sell you back your own things? Will you risk life in trying to steal them like Meagan? How much it’s ethically right or wrong in trying to get your belongings back?

That tag line on cover perfectly defines the book.

What matters Most is character driven realistic fiction novel with bit of romance a bit of suspense, and lots of drama. A refreshing love story of Meagan Morris and King Pullman narrated in third person which was focused on their life, their past and people around them. It’s about importance of things, memory of loved ones that emotionally attach you to the things they left behind. 

I can’t separate characters from what I liked and at the end I loved whole book so I guess there no need in sectioning this review.

Variety is spice of life- here this verity was characters and they spiced this book so perfectly. All characters had their flaws, they were so much realistic and relatable. Book was very lighthearted, funny that made me chuckle now and then. It was emotional and had a feel good factor in it.

The beginning was remarkable, it directly started with Meagan out in her truck with gun ready to look out for her possessions in King’s pawn shop and her first encounter with King. This beginning only made the overview on both character interesting and I knew I’m going to love this book.

Meagan was a widow who lost her family at young age. Her husband died fighting in Afghan. She had no one except her best friend Rhonda (divorced and crazy for handsome man). Her family heirloom and possessions were all she had left in memory of her loved ones, but when they were stolen, it was emotional breakdown for her and also it drew her deeper into financial crisis. She was strong feisty woman who can fight and even can use a gun. She was real nice talented woman but she was desperate to get her things back. She didn’t have money to buy her things back from pawn shop and paying for what was hers was infuriating, nope she won’t do it. So she planned to steal them from those who possessed them. And that’s how she met King and his family.

Meagan’s situation was really bad. Life was so unfair to her, she had a lot of pain in her but still she kept herself going, I admire her for that. Her thoughts and monologues were heart touching, it made me understand her better and that’s why it felt fair when she went on hunt for her heirloom. I feared initially like King that she would end up in jail or hurt someone in her desperation but I’m surprised seeing that she actually never meant to mortally endanger anyone and she hardly used her gun and I like her ethics and compassion for people around her.

King Pullman was rich, handsome, mature, and kind to a fault. He had a great experience with people and could judge them just by look. When Maegan came to his shop in disguise to steal her Grandma’s pear, her action falters his judgment and he didn’t turn her to police. Photo she left at shop made him curious to know about her. He was protective for his family as well so to save his father brother from her gunpoint, he hunted for her possession before she does.

King couldn’t understand her madness and I don’t blame him because these two characters hardly knew each other and it was easy for him to overlook Meagan’s situation and emotion because they never talked about it. But when he searched a bit about Meagan, met Andrew, and in climax met his customer and her Willowby relative, he eventually understood her and that changed his thoughts about Meagan.

They both King and Meagan struggled in life, matured in life very early. Good thing was it was it’s not love at first sight. The relationship between Meagan and King was slow burner and very sweet. It was clean romance novel with family drama.

Pullman family were into pawn business. Jack Pullman (angry old man) his eldest son King and younger one Ace (28 but acted like a teenage). King’s mother Sandra was nicest of all and kind learned woman but stroke had taken its toll, she was weak and needed care. I loved this old lady in the book. This Pullman family was really amazing and it was amusing to read them in the book.

Gayla was cunning woman who had biggest crust on King since 9th grade and was after him since that. She was extorting money by emotionally blackmailing him and poor King was tolerating her out of guilt (that I got why) and his fear of hurting her (that I couldn’t understand because he knew the truth very early). She was so full of lie and mean woman and totally blind in her madness for King. But the change in this character at the end of the book was shocking.

Andrew was another mean person who never valued women in his life and was after Meagan because his parents were bribing him to date her. That Willowby family – distant relative of Meagan- were weird. It was hard to digest that woman like Meagan was tolerating them.

There was no big suspense in the book except who was the robber. Rest of the things were already put in front of readers so it was easy to see where thing will go eventually but how that I couldn’t guess.

In climax when Sandra played a detective part to save his son was surprising, I like the way she revealed Gayla’s lies and set her son free. Oh and that fighting and hospital part and everything after that was hilarious. End was not how I guessed it but I like the way author wrote it, nice and sweet that left me smiling.

Overall, it was entertaining, dramatic, light hearted, clean romance novel with interesting characters that anyone will enjoy.

Author: Helen Bea Kirk

To know more about author click ⇒ here ⇐

Buy Link: Amazon.com / Amazon.in

*** Note: I received this book from the author, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to author. ***

What do you think about the book and my review? Have you read this book already or book by this author before? Have you read something similar to this before? Share your thoughts in comment-box below.