London

Summary of Palas

Palas 1

Alex lives in England with her father. Her mother left her father and Alex behind when she was only seven years old. Something that scarred Alex for the rest of her life, trying to please her alcohol abusing father and taking care of them from a young age. Money always tight, and Alex being the girl that she is, never found a stable job. Her history and outbursts that usually revolved around her father that she loves very much, making it unable for her to keep a job longer than a few months. After a coffee accident at her latest job, she is left with debts from her father and no job to pay them off. 

Her father then comes with a solution that brings her in Palas, a Greek island, with the biggest sand beach of Europe and famously know for the dangerous currents and rips. Besides the beach, Palas is also know for it being a notorious place for youth to go on holiday. With a long strip full with bars and clubs, it is a great place to party though that's the last thing on Alex's mind when she moves there for the summer. All she plans on doing is work as a lifeguard, skype with her boyfriend James and earn money to pay of their debts.

But from day one her plans are put to the test because of Harry, a boy that she is unknowingly drawn to from day one, but actually annoys the hell out of her. Unfortunately they do not only live next to each other, Harry is also her buddy at work learning her the robes of lifeguarding. Slowly she starts to like him, but they fight a lot about Alex's roommate Rosie who claims to have had sex with Harry. Alex believes that to be true because all she hears and see is Harry with different girls, one-day tourists as he calls them, who he only shares one night with. That's his rule that he takes very seriously. 

One day, after performing CPR for the first time, Alex sees her mother on the beach. The confrontation with her doesn't go well and Alex is left in tears after her mother tells her that she never loved her. Harry comes to comfort her and as she cries, and he calms her down, all she wants is to be close to him. In the last weeks she grew closer to him than she realizes and although she's still with James, she asks Harry to kiss her which he doesn't as Rosie walks in on them. 

After that Alex is left shattered. She gets angry with her father who planned her stay in Palas so that maybe she would run in with her mother and stop blaming herself for her departure. Then she has to tell her boyfriend that she almost kissed another guy. And to top it all off, Harry ignores her for the most time. Feeling miserable, James and his friends come to visit Palas. But after only one day everything goes to shit when she finds James cheating on her with Rosie. 

It is Harry who tries to calm her down once again, and this time they do kiss right in front of James. It means the end for her relationship with him, but the start of a new relationship with Harry. After some more obstacles and ignoring each other they finally realize they're meant to be together and when they leave Palas to return back to England, they return as a couple.

Palas 2

Alex and Harry decide to return to Palas, but this time they leave early in the year. At first things are going right, and Harry and Alex are happy together. That is until strange drugs surface in Palas, killing and hurting many tourists. Harry feels guilty for the arrival of this drugs because it all ties back to Zeno, the old head of lifeguards he helped put behind bars the year before. It puts a strain on their relationship because Harry doesn't speak of it. To top it all off, Alex's father loses his job and for Alex it is the last straw and she breaks contact with him. It pushes their relationship to the test and one night after Alex gets really drunk, Harry almost tries to break up with her. 

Then one night, everything goes to shit. Harry and Alex part ways, and Harry freaks out. It gets him arrested as he was also under investigation for the strange drugs. When she bails him out of jail the next day he tells her that her father is in the hospital and that he had a heart attack. Because of Harry's situation they can't go together. Alex has to go back to England where she finds her father on the ICU. She learns that he's dying and after a lot of effort Harry flies back to England so that they can say goodbye together. 

The death of her father breaks something in Alex that isn't repaired anytime soon. Still, Harry and Alex manage to get through it together and it makes them stronger. After his funeral they travel back to Palas where they are soon ambushed and held hostage. Harry gets hurt in the process but it finally puts the investigation about the faulty drugs in progress and they find out it was Zeno all the time. After all everything seems well in Palas and Alex and Harry decide to stay there and move to Palas permanently.

Palas 3 

The book starts off three years after the last events of Palas 2. In those three years a lot has happened. The most important thing is that Alex and Harry broke up. A half year after the death of her father, Alex learns that her mother has died as well. It shuts Alex off, and puts a big strain on their relationship. One they can't survive. While Alex closes off, Harry starts to dream of tattooing again and his career in Palas isn't exaclty taking off. Almost a year after her father's dead, Alex and Harry break up. He returns to England to work as an tattoo artist while Alex stays in Palas with Liam who she kisses briefly after Harry breaks the news. Something she doesn't tell Harry.

Alex is broken after Harry leaves, but after a year of fucking around and feeling miserable, she meets a man that makes her happy. Harry on the other hand spends his three years apart from Alex trying to find women like her, but failing every time. He keeps missing her and it stops him from enjoying his job. Instead of trying to make tattooing work, he goes to work for his father, but that also doesn't satisfy him. 

Alex's relationship with Thomas doesn't go as smoothly as it starts out either. After dating for over a year, they split when Alex sees a picture of Harry on a magazine suggesting he's back in business with his father. This breaks Alex as Harry always loathed his family and now it seems that he only left her to go back to them. Thomas sees it as a sign that she's not in love with him and leaves Palas. 

Life drifts on slowly after that but is turned upside down when Harry returns to Palas in an attempt to get over her, but instead they end up falling in love again. But then Alex needs to tell him about her kiss to Liam that happened the day he left and it makes Harry leave Palas for the second time, but this time they keep in touch. 

So when Alex is invited to the wedding of her niece in England, she goes back for a long holiday with Liam. In those three weeks the both of them find love again. Still they go back to Palas where they give up their jobs as lifeguards and a month later they're about to return to London, for good.

London

The fourth book that I'm going to write about Alex and Harry, and there's so much more to dig into like Harry's relationship with his mother who suffered of cancer but survived because Harry donated his bone marrow, all that happened while they were apart, and previous relationships that aren't quite finished. Life has never been easy for them, and it certainly isn't going to be easy for them in London.

To be continued