Arrows through Archer: a beautiful written story full of angst, sorrow and grief

Arrows Through Archer by Nash Summers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One morning I woke, but the two halves of my heart did not.

That’s the very first line of this book and it was exactly what made me read it.

Loved it. This book was so perfect in many ways.

This is not a fluffy story at all, it deals with lots of dark emotions and it is not an easy read.

As I already said it is such an emotional story that wraps you from the very beginning. Summers has a way with words that makes you feel Archer and Mallory’s pain as it was your own. You’ll get one or two tears rolling down your face at very least.

"People could see the storm cloud hanging over my head and the phantom at my back. They could hear the shattered glass clanking in my throat when I spoke, see a void in my eyes when my gaze met their own.
I was broken now, and I was utterly unfixable."

Angst. It definitely has its dose of angst but you won’t drown in your own tears with this book, those who are not an angst-junkie as me, you won’t have any problem. It’ll just remind you that happiness is not so easy to get and you sometimes have to be strong and determined enough to fight for it.

Now, the story. We have two moments in this book, Before that is told by Archer and After that's from Mallory's POV and both POV are really difficult to read at times. I’ll try to this review as spoiler free as possible.

Archer is a 21-year-old guy who’s grieving a lot by the loss of his parents and Mallory is around 38 and he’s trying to move on from the death of his wife.

These two meet each other thanks to Danny, who is Mallory’s son and Archer’s best friend. And after a terrible incident, Archer is forced to live with Mallory and that’s when their story begins…

I gotta say that Danny is awesome, he’s the only good thing that Archer allows himself to have before he meets Danny’s dad. Danny and Archer relationship is pure brotherly and I like seeing that is that way the entire book, I adore how Danny loves and cares for Archer’s wellbeing. Even after some issues, Danny is still there for him.

“You’re like a brother to me, Archer. You’re not perfect, but no one is. And if I met a billion people on this planet, I’d still choose you. You and your silent fucking depression - you and your quite heart and your fear of living.”

Archer and Mallory are very similar. Both are in pain and both are reserved people who liked to deal with things alone. Let me say that this slow burn was incredible and Summers did an excellent job writing a love that feels so real. It was refreshing that we didn’t have insta love/lust in here; their attraction grew little by little and when they just fall into each other arms was delicious.

“People fall into each other in different ways. Some people fall together in laughter, surrounded by energy and joy. Some fall into each other in passion, unable to keep their skin from touching. But Mallory and I fell into each other slowly, gently, tentatively, like almost everything we did. We were quite and fluid.”

Summers give us a story so well written, her prose is so captivating. Both POV were brilliant, they help you to connect better with the MC because they are so closed off that it was kinda necessary and I adore Archer and Mallory have their own voices that are pretty easy to differentiate in their POV. I also liked very much the time jump; it added more realism to the story.

Overall, the author makes it difficult to put the book down to continue with RL, you just get lost in the story and the characters that the only thing you want to do is devoured the book in one sitting and then after you finished you can’t stop thinking about it.

I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a story about grieving, love, and healing.

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