This is the 3rd part of The Brightest Light series, in this story we have as protagonist Lila, who is the daughter of the protagonists of the first book Cal & Grace.

This story begins in a rather peculiar way when Reed finds Lila in a compromising situation, and for which he promises to keep her secret. Lila decides to trust him, a friend of her parents, without knowing that this will only be the beginning of everything.

Lila is about to graduate from her master's degree as a child therapist, but to do so she needs to do an internship in the field, but despite her good grades and publications she has not been able to get one. This is where Reed offers to help her, and where these 2 will begin to get to know each other, form a beautiful friendship, and realize that perhaps they feel more for each other than they are willing to admit.

The connection between them is beautiful, she becomes his confidant, he becomes her unconditional support and they both connect in an incredible way. They both show a personal development and growth necessary to be together.

Lisina has done it again, creating such complex and cute characters. I don't know how she does it but she makes you connect with them in such a deep way from the first pages.

Extra points for the scenes with Cal & Grace, the unconditional support of Maddie & James, and just how nice it was to see such a beautiful family.

If you haven't read this series, I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Page & Vine, Netgalley & Lisina Coney for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

🩷The Deepest End of Love-The Brightest Light Book #3

✍🏾By: Lisina Coney- read The Brightest Light of Sunshine and The Darkest Corner of the Heart gave them 5 ⭐

📃Page Count: 429 eBook

📆Publication Date: 9-24-24 | Read 10-10-24

🙏🏾 Thanks to ARC by Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op | Page & Vine, and Lisina Coney for this ARC! I voluntarily give my honest review, and all opinions expressed are mine alone.

🌎 Setting: Warlington

Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult

Tropes: age gap, close proximity, workplace/forbidden romance (student/professor), mental health, slow burn, pet friendly

☝🏾POV: 1st person, dual

⚠️ TW: parental neglect, foster care, adoption, SA-in the past-not H/h, PTSD-H

Summary: Lila needs an internship to get her master's in psychology and her dream job as a youth counselor. Reed is a professor at University of W. and supervisor at a youth center. He offers Lila the internship, but Lila doesn't want it in fear of people calling it nepotism. She doesn't want Reed to ruin her reputation or be accused of getting favoritism. She changes her mind and agrees to take the internship. Lila and Reed have to work together, fight their attraction, and help Lila fulfill her dreams.

🚺Heroine: Lila Callaghan-24, a grad student, discovers her bf cheating, vandalized his car, and Reed saw her do it.

🚹 Hero: Reed Abner-36, a professor @ Lila's university. A family friend

🎭Side cast

•Mariah-Lila's BFF
•Karla-Mariah's roommate, a psychology grad student
• Grace+ Cal- Lila's parents, Reed works with Grace in publishing
• Liam + Warren-Reed's BFFs, owns boxing gym
• Oliver-Lila's ex-boyfriend
•Haniyah-works at the youth center
•Maddie + James-Lila's aunt and uncle
• Ginny-a wounded puppy found by the kids Reed adopts her

💭My Thoughts: Lila overanalyzed everything and thought way too much about others thought of her. She worried herself to her own detriment. Reed felt guilt over putting his parents in prison and relived their horrible abuse. I loved that Reed fell for her intellect and how they interacted with the kids.

Range of emotions:
🌶️: Spice 4/5
😭: Emotion 5/5
🧑‍🤝‍🧑: Couple 4/5
️✨: Rating 4/5

Wow! This was so good. I hadn’t read the first two and I think that would’ve been beneficial but either way, I liked it on its own too! Age gap is one of my fave tropes. Also mental health rep is always a winner for me. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to ARC read♥️

I haven’t read the other 2 in the series, but now I HAVE TO.

This book was soooo good. At first, I thought I was gonna hate the age gap, but it was written in a way that didn’t give me the creeps. Yay!

Not only that, but there’s so many wonderful underlying messages regarding mental health and self worth. I absolutely adored it.

This was a great read with some delicious spice scenes!

Highly recommend🥰

The end to a heartfelt series! I loved that this covered multiple generations of the family, however nothing compares to that first book! It was great to see Lila grown up and her parents and aunt still all very connected to each other. I did love Lile and Reed together and how they overcame the controversies in their relationship. It is kind of sad seeing the chapters close on this families story.

I wanted to be invested in this book but the way that the kids at youth center spoke and the way Reed and Lila talked to the kids during their therapy sessions was so out of touch with reality. Kids don’t react like that and therapists should never say those things in a professional capacity. This was so off putting that it made it very hard to gloss over the repetitive and awkward writing style. How the author dealt with the characters’ previous trauma felt more like trauma porn than reality and made me very uncomfortable. The need for everything to have a deep lesson made this book tedious to read. I did not read the first two books in the series but, before I started this book, was planning on going back to read them but I think I’ve read enough from this author to know they are not going to be a good fit for me.

Finally getting to see this series through was such a complete circle moment. I loved getting to watch Lila and Reed find each other. And Cal always gets me with his reactions (so funny).

Absolutely go read this!

I loved every minute of this book! The tension was perfect throughout the whole book. I loved the difficult topics that were tackled during the book. I ended up reading this book first out of the series, but I can’t wait to go back and read the other two to explore those characters more.

Lila Callaghan is the daughter of Cal and Grace from The Brightest Light of Sunshine. I was super excited to read her story. Lila is a smart girl who’s working hard in life to get her masters degree. She’s accomplished so much and I loved seeing that for her character.

✨ “I’m not much of a spiritual person, Lila, but I believe you were sent to this world to heal my soul,”✨

I’m always up for a forbidden age gap romance. I’ll read those any day. 🤭 Reed Abner is a researcher and professor at the university Lila attends so when she starts getting close to him, lines start to blur. This was a SLOW burn and I wish there were more scenes of them ✨together✨ but the ending was real sweet and I’m happy with how Lila and Reed are now. 🥹🥹

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a great title. I didn't realize it was part of a series, but I enjoyed it as a stand-alone. My favorite aspect was seeing someone as accomplished and successful as Lila doubt herself. The underlying story of confidence and worth was encouraging and uplifting. It was a great read and I'll be looking into the others in the series!

I really enjoyed this book. I binged the whole trilogy in a week. But, the reason I rated it 4 ⭐️ is because I couldn’t help but feel after the first two books, this one was a little bit repetitive. For the first half of the book, it felt like I was still reading the first two but with different characters. I do have to say though, I enjoyed it more closer to the second half of the book, that’s when I felt like this story had its own storyline.

Thank you netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

3⭐️ - i didnt realize that this was basically a series when i request this book, so now i really am looking forward to going back and reading the first ones. And while this is the 3rd book, the others are all stand-alones, so you dont HAVE to go back. while i didnt exactly relate to the fmc (i think it might be our age differences), i found the writing of this book to be really good. it might not be the best book for me, but its not a bad story at all. i can see why this series is so loved by people i follow on goodreads! i might even try to revisit this in a few months to see if it hits any different :)

Coney's writing is so vivid and emotional, which made it easy to connect with the struggles faced within the story, and maybe you can also see yourself relating to the characters and their relationship struggles. Like i said, im excited to go back and read more from these stories!

This series has my heart & it’s so bittersweet to see it come to an end 🥹 Lisina knows how to write an great age gap romance and Lila & Reed’s story was the perfect conclusion!

I’m a sucker for slow burn & Lisina delivered here! I also love a forbidden romance & what’s more forbidden than a professor & his student being together? 🤭 The Professor x Student trope can be a hit or miss but I thought it was done super well here.

The author also did a great job touching on some heavier topics & some struggles the characters were facing. Lila & Reed’s story was truly ao sweet & beautiful and I absolutely loved their growth in this book 💕

If you haven’t read this series yet, I highly recommend doing so! Start with The brightest light of sunshine & fall in love with Cal & Grace (who happen to be Lila’s parents!)

Thank you to NetGalley & Publisher for the ARC! ✨

Tropes:
- Age gap
- Forbidden romance
- Slow burn
- Dual POV
- Mental health rep

Some may call this book a slow burn, but I I call it savory, funny, and sweet. I enjoyed reading Lila and Reed's story while also saying goodbye to all the characters from book one and two.

Similar to book one and two this book is a sweet slowburn romance. Lila is twelve years younger than Reed so we get a bit of age gap and taboo as well as he's a professor supervising her work. However, the way that their connection builds is

This book closes out this series so well. Each book can be read as a standalone, but when you read them in order it just feels that much sweeter. I recommend this series for any romance reader!

4 ⭐️݁𝜗𝜚. ݁₊

Tropes:
𝄞 Age gap (24-36)
𝄞 Professor x student
𝄞 Taboo (family friend + sneaking around, whewwww)
𝄞 Open door romance

"I said you taught me plenty of things, and you didn't believe me," he says. "But you taught me the most important thing of all, Lila. You taught me how to love."

We got Grace, we got Maddie, and now… it's time for Lila.

First off, can we take a quick moment to appreciate the fact that all three books in this trilogy are age-gap romances??? Like, I’m here for itttt! Gimmie twenty more, thank you very much!

I can confidently say that Lila’s book was my favorite, and her story was a perfect way to wrap up the series! The professor x student aspect played a huge part since I’m an absolute sucker for that trope, but beyond the romance, I found myself relating to her on a this-is-getting-a-little-too-specific level.

Lila, in a complete spur-of-the-moment fit of rage, vandalizes her cheating ex-boyfriend’s car, not realizing her professor and family friend, Reed, got a front seat ticket to the whole thing. Talk about embarrassing…

As the story progresses, so does their chemistry. It shifts from Reed being the professor Lila desperately tries to avoid to the man who consumes her every thought, turning her initial resistance into an underlying attraction that she can’t ignore.

“I’m not much of a spiritual person, Lila, but I believe you were sent to this world to heal my soul," he says.

Lila and Reed understood and complemented each other so well, and it was as if they both filled the empty gaps in each other's lives. Their bond was just so…genuine. The growth between the two of them was astonishing; Lila grappled with her insecurities and switched to a confident, more radiant version of herself, while Reed was able to confront his past and finally embrace the love he thought he didn’t deserve.

“You're a gift to this world. You make everyone's life better just by being near them. You love unconditionally, and I admire you so damn much for it. You're an angel walking among mortals, and I'm so damn lucky to call you mine."

I’m so happy this series was able to end on a happy note as well as a beautiful full-circle moment!

Thank you for the ARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own :)

This book was really good! Full of tension and forbidden feelings.

I feel that there was repetitiveness with Lila’s self confidence that I just ended up feeling annoyed with. Yes, Lila, you are worth it and you are great. I know Conley was just trying to show her readers how she overcame that, but… it felt a bit much.

But overall, this was the third book to Coney’s series and I would 100% recommend this and the two before! Coney’s work is really well done, and the smut is pretty good too!

Thanks to NetGalley and Page & Vine publishing for the opportunity to read this eARC! Published September 26, 2024!

Thank you NetGalley, Lisina Coney and Victory Editing for this ARC, all opinions expressed are my own.

This was the ideal conclusion to the series. Lila was determined and loving, with an intriguing personality, and the way she was developed as a character was absolutely amazing. Reed is calm, focused, and compassionate all at the same time. It was a slow burn with an appropriate amount of spice that was not overpowering.

This was so sweet. A nice ending to the series. I did think their feelings were a bit intense at times for having looked at each other 3 times but I swooned regardless. I also thought the 3rd act was really sweet and well done. I'm excited to see what Lisina Coney does next!

3.25/3.5⭐️

I have mixed feelings about this book, absolutely loved Reed, but struggled with Lila a bit.

I feel like the plot and the tropes had so much potential but fell short, there was definitely cute moments and it really felt like it was heading somewhere good maybe just after the half way mark, but honestly the 3rd act was so unnecessary.

I understand struggling with your worth and questioning yourself but do I want to read a book where the FMC is constantly making 1 step forward then immediately taking 4 steps back, nope. I also struggled connecting Lila as the child of Grace and Cal, it didn’t seem to fit for me.

Reed was great, he was VERY understanding and patient with Lila, he deserved better treatment from Grace and Cal tbh.

This review feels a lot rantier than I intended, I really did enjoy moments from this book, but TBLOS is was one of my top reads last year and the following two have really fallen short of that.

4.5 ⭐️

smiling through the pain of finishing this series😭 I first discovered lisina coney in early 2022 when she released the brightest light of sunshine and I quickly became obsessed for obvious reasons. her style of writing and the topics she writes about are so near and dear to my heart. it’s so therapeutic and healing to read her stories and you quickly become attached to the characters for how complex, healthy, and kind they communicate with each other.

Lila and Reed were giving everything I wanted!! the age gap was sooooooo good, the communication and mutual pining made the tension that much better, and the forced proximity/forbidden romance of it all was perfect. no notes for this perfect couple I LOVED THEM

If you’re looking for an age gap romance full of healthy communication, emotionally mature adults, with some tension and forbidden romance sprinkled in there then this is the book for you! I can’t wait to see what lisina does next and be right along for the journey 🥹🤍