When his parents separate, and his father moves to Boston, Sam’s mother takes Sam and his younger sister, Olivia, to Woodmont, a suburb of Nashville to regroup. Sam just wants to get on with life, play baseball, and graduate.

Hadley St. Claire has been looking for love in all the wrong places ever since she found out that her father cheated on her mother. Now her parents are barely speaking to each other and she can’t stand to look at her father. Her most meaningful relationship is with her bestie, Kat. That is, until she and the new kid get paired together to rewrite an act from one of Shakespeare’s plays. (And, no, they don’t choose Romeo and Juliet.)

Sam and Hadley connect almost immediately. Perhaps they sense in each other that deep well of hurt, but Sam knows something that Hadley doesn’t and so he does his level best to keep his distance.

I want her to come with me and I want her eyes on mine and her words to fill up the space in my car. There are a million voices in my head right now, screaming about what a delusional idiot I am, but with her standing right in front of me, her lashes fanning her pink cheeks, they’re easy to ignore.

And, as is the way of books like this, these two can’t stay away from each other – try as they might.

Suffer Love is a book about messy family relationships, forgiveness and first love. Sam and Hadley are both likeable characters just trying to figure it all out. The book is a little bit sweet and a little bit angsty and I appreciated that Ashley Herring Blake didn’t try to go for a happily ever after, even though you really hope these two young people actually manage to get theirs.