ARC Review: Lead Me Not by A. Meredith Walters

Pub. Date: August 5^th, 2014

Publisher: Gallery Books

288 pages

Paperback/ebook/audio

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Synopsis from Goodreads:

Aubrey Duncan understands loss. She knows what rock bottom looks like, and she is determined to crawl back up to the top after the sudden death of her younger sister. She blames herself for her part in the tragedy, convinced that she could have done something, anything, to help her.

In her effort to gain redemption, Aubrey starts fresh at Longwood University and facilitates an addiction support group, hoping she can support someone else in the way she failed her sister. But what she doesn’t count on is an all-consuming fascination with group member Maxx Demelo, a gorgeous, blond, blue-eyed enigma who hides dark secrets behind a carefully constructed mask. He only reveals what he wants others to see. But Aubrey glimpses another Maxx hidden below the surface—a Maxx who is drowning in his own personal hell.

As Aubrey and Maxx develop an attraction too intense to ignore, he pulls her into the dark underbelly of the city club scene, where she is torn by her desire to save him and an inexplicable urge to join him in his downward spiral. Worst of all, she is beginning to love everything she should run away from—a man who threatens to ignite in her a fire that could burn her alive…

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Whenever I read a book with characters I feel are intentionally imperfect and not entirely likeable, I want to give the author kudos for bravery. So, A. Meredith Walters, kudos. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that as a reader I want to root for characters. I want to connect with them. I want to like them. I don’t like not liking the characters I invest my time learning about. But, this was one of those rare books where I disliked the characters and disagreed with just about every choice the they made, but I was kept enthralled by the story, desperate to know how it was all going to end.

What I really liked about the novel was it shows everyone is fallible.  Aubrey knows how quickly addiction can take over, and take, a person’s life. She saw it first hand when her sister overdosed. Yet initially Aubrey is pretty judgmental towards people with addictions, especially her roommate Renee’s addiction to her abusive boyfriend.

ARC Review: All Lined Up (Rusk University #1) by Cora Carmack

Pub. Date: May 13^th, 2014

Publisher: William Morrow & Company

Paperback

320 pages

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Synopsis from Goodreads:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cora Carmack follows up her trio of hits—Losing It, Faking It, and Finding It—with this thrilling first novel in an explosive series bursting with the Texas flavor, edge, and steamy romance of Friday Night Lights.

In Texas, two things are cherished above all else—football and gossip. My life has always been ruled by both.

Dallas Cole loathes football. That's what happens when you spend your whole childhood coming in second to a sport. College is her time to step out of the bleachers, and put the playing field (and the players) in her past.

But life doesn't always go as planned. As if going to the same college as her football star ex wasn’t bad enough, her father, a Texas high school coaching phenom, has decided to make the jump to college ball… as the new head coach at Rusk University. Dallas finds herself in the shadows of her father and football all over again.

Carson McClain is determined to go from second-string quarterback to the starting line-up. He needs the scholarship and the future that football provides. But when a beautiful redhead literally falls into his life, his focus is more than tested. It's obliterated.

Dallas doesn't know Carson is on the team. Carson doesn't know that Dallas is his new coach's daughter.

And neither of them know how to walk away from the attraction they feel.

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The thing at the top of my ‘what I have love the most about Cora Carmack books list’ is her insanely witty, entertaining dialogue. I’m always a little worried when an author I adore starts a new series. There’s a little bit of fear that the new won’t live up to the old. But within the first pages of All Lined Up, I knew there was nothing to worry about.  All Lined Up lives up to high wit and character bar that Cora’s Losing It series set. The first page introduces us readers to Dallas and her best friend Stella, and I couldn’t help but compare them to Bliss and Kelsey from Losing It. Like Kelsey, Stella’s character shows that while you may not currently be the star of the show (or I guess more accurately, the star of your own book!), if Cora created you, you’re bound to make a lasting impression. I hate finishing one of Cora’s books because I know I’ll have a wait for the next, but All Lined Up only reinforced how worth the wait Cora’s books are. 

All Lined Up has one of the most adorably hilarious ‘meet-cutes’ ever. I found it so refreshing that from the first meeting, Carson (who quite literally has the girl of his dream fall into his lap) and Dallas are honest and vocal about seeing something in the other person that they like. There is so little of romance’s typical will they won’t they drama, and when it is there, there’s an actual reason behind it.

ARC Review: Three Broken Promises by Monica Murphy

Pub. Date: December 31^st, 2013

Publisher: Bantam

Paperback

304 pages

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Synopsis from Goodreads:

Commitment. That’s what I really want from Colin. Ever since my brother, Danny, died in Iraq, Colin’s done so much to help me, including giving me a job at his popular restaurant so I can leave my crappy waitressing job at the strip joint. But lying in bed with him every night to comfort him from his horrible nightmares isn’t enough anymore. I know he feels guilty about Danny’s death, about not going to Iraq, but I can’t keep living this double life.

I love him desperately, but he’s got so many demons, and if he can’t open up to me now, then he’ll never be the real partner I need him to be. I gave him a month, and now I’m out of here. If he truly loves me like he says, he knows where to find me.

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Disclaimer: I only read about half of Three Broken Promises.

From the beginning of the novel I wasn’t a fan of the characters. I found that the primary characters actions and their words in no way matched up. With neither being exceptionally honest, and with very little build up occurring in their relationship, I found I didn’t care how either was feeling, or honestly, how their story worked out. The further I got into the novel, the more frustrated I became with what I perceived as 'and then this happened, and then this happened' story telling. The flow felt disjointed, with very little happening for a while, and then too much being thrown at you all at once. My disinterest in the characters, and my feeling of too little development in their story may have been because I have not read the other books in the series – though it was my understanding that you could read this one without having read the Drew and Fable stories. For whatever reason, I lost interest pretty quickly, and I will not be attempt to pick this one up again.

ARC Review: Believe by Erin McCarthy

Pub. Date: January 21st, 2014

Publisher: InterMix

232 pages

ebook (Trade Paperback publishing June 3rd, 2014 by Berkley Trade)

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Robin used to be a party girl… until she got black out drunk and woke up in bed with her best friend's boyfriend. Now she's faced with being THAT girl, and couldn't be more disgusted with herself. She can't even tell her friends the reason for her sudden sobriety and she avoids everyone until she meets Phoenix—quiet, tattooed, and different in every way that's good and oh, so bad…



Phoenix is two days out of jail when he meets Robin at his cousin's house, and he knows that he has no business talking to her, but he's drawn to her quiet demeanor, sweet smile, and artistic talent. She doesn't care that he's done time, or that he only has five bucks to his name, and she supports his goal to be a tattoo artist.



But Phoenix knows Robin has a secret, and that it's a naïve dream to believe that his record won't catch up with them at some point. Though neither is prepared for the explosive result when the past collides with the present…

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I absolutely loved True and Sweet, books 1 and 2 in the True Believers series. Naturally I was extraordinarily excited about Believe. One of the things I loved most about True and Sweet, was how naturally the relationships between Rory and Tyler, and Jessica and Riley, developed. The relationships weren’t rushed, or hurried, and they always felt genuine and realistic. I also really loved the wit and the humor of the dialogue – especially the banter between Jessica and Riley in Sweet ( check out my review of Sweet). Believe really switched things up stylistically, and the change threw me as a reader.  

I was initially kind of annoyed by how quickly Robin and Phoenix’s relationship progressed. By the time the couples in the other two novels got together, it felt like a reward for the reader, because we got to see the relationships grow, and we had the chance to root for them to be together. Robin and Phoenix’s relationship felt too insta-lovey for me because there was no waiting, or questioning if or when they would end up together. The relationship itself was still believable – you could clearly see that there were a lot of similarities between the two characters, bringing them together - but I was nowhere near as emotionally invested. I missed the build up and the will they/ won’t they tension that the other two novels had in spades.

Where True and Sweet had a lot of humor to balance out the serious parts, Believe is almost humorless. We met Robin in book one, and coming into this novel, we know a lot of the reasoning behind some of the choices she makes. Because we know so much, it’s easy to understand why the more lighthearted humor just wouldn’t have worked this time around. From the tone, to the events, Believe is a much more serious novel. The seriousness was necessarily, but the wit and humor of McCarthy’s writing is what really drew me into books one and two. Even though I understood why these elements were absent, I still seriously missed them.

If I’d read Believe as a standalone, or prior to the previous two novels, I’m sure I would have liked it more – and don’t get me wrong, I really did like it. But, given how much I loved the style of the previous two novels, I spent a great deal of time contrasting the differences. Believe simply didn’t work for me as well as for me as the previous two novels, but I know there are readers who will adore the more serious side of Robin’s story.  

Rating 3/5

*** I received a copy of the novel from the publisher to read and honestly review. I was in no way compensated. 

ARC Review: Sweet by Erin McCarthy

Pub. Date: October 15th, 2013

Publisher: InterMix

257 pages

ebook (Trade Paperback publishing June 3rd, 2014 by Berkley Trade)

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Jessica Sweet thought going away to college would finally make her free of her parents’ constant judgments and insistence she play chastity club role model for their church events, but if anything, the freedom has made her realize she can’t go home and be a hypocrite anymore. Tired of dodging their questions, she stays at school over the summer and lands in an unexpected crash pad: Riley Mann’s house.

Sarcastic, cocky, and full of opinions, Riley is also sexy personified with tattoos and biceps earned from working as a roofer all day. Not the right guy for her even if Jessica was looking for a relationship, which she is definitely not. But Jessica knows that Riley hides the burden of having to raise his younger brothers behind that grin and as she helps him get his house in order for a custody hearing, they begin to fall hard for each other, and she is forced to question what she’s hiding herself.

Jessica has never had a problem getting naked with a guy, but when it comes to showing Riley how she truly feels inside, her fear of rejection may just ruin the best thing—the best guy—to ever happen to her…

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Some books blow you away with description, others with dialogue. "Sweet" is definitely a book that blows you away in the dialogue department. 

When I first started reading Sweet, I didn’t realize that it was book two in the True Believers series. While I don’t think reading the books in order is absolutely necessary, reading them in order gives you more context about the characters backgrounds, and a stronger sense of flow from one story to the next. Sweet is one of those novels that grabbed me from the first page and didn’t let me go until the last. I started reading just before bed, and while the logical side of my brain told me ‘go to sleep, you have to work in the morning’, I was so into the story and so in love with the characters that I couldn’t help but finish the novel in one sitting.

Jessica Sweet’s voice is what drew me in right away. She is one of the wittiest, funniest, most sarcastic, and completely no nonsense characters that I have ever read. I connected with her in a way that I don’t connect with many characters.

ARC: Foreplay (The Ivy Chronicles #1) by Sophie Jordan

Pub. Date: November 5th, 2013
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Paperback
320 pages

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Before she goes after the life she’s always wanted, she’s about to find the one she needs.

Pepper has been hopelessly in love with her best friend’s brother, Hunter, for like ever. He’s the key to everything she’s always craved: security, stability, family. But she needs Hunter to notice her as more than just a friend. Even though she’s kissed exactly one guy, she has just the plan to go from novice to rock star in the bedroom—take a few pointers from someone who knows what he’s doing.

Her college roommates have the perfect teacher in mind. But bartender Reece is nothing like the player Pepper expects. Yes, he’s beyond gorgeous, but he’s also dangerous, deep—with a troubled past. Soon what started as lessons in attraction are turning both their worlds around, and showing just what can happen when you go past foreplay and get to what’s real…

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I heard only praise about Foreplay from some of my favorite YA and New Adult authors. Even still, I was slightly apprehensive. The title alone makes the book seem decidedly more adult than NA, which kind of scared me off. I was also not that excited by the whole stereotypical bad boy/ good girl vibe that the synopsis alluded to. Here comes the huge but – but my pre-judgment was ridiculously wrong. Foreplay represents why I love contemporary novels. This novel has loveable and relatable leads, a swoon worthy romance, and a cast of thoroughly entertaining and developed secondary characters, all in addition to a perfectly paced storyline.

One of the things I loved the most about this novel was how subtly the baggage that Reece and Pepper

ARC Review: Forever Innocent by Deanna Roy

Pub. Date: October 1st, 2013

Publisher: Casey Shay Press

Paperback

288 pages

For most people, walking into the first day of lectures may cause a little bit of anxiety. But walking into class and seeing your ex-fiancé, adds a little more pressure to the situation. The last memory Corabelle has of Gavin is his back, as he walked out the door at their son’s funeral without a good-bye. Best friends, first loves, fiancés and parents, Corabelle and Gavin’s pasts are inseparably interwoven. But even if they wanted to, can they learn to accept the people they have become, start living in the present, and move past the devastation they faced in the past?

Not only does this novel put a huge spin on what has become typical for New Adult, but it completely changes what a happily ever after means. There can’t be a typical easy breezy fairytale ending when you have faced the devastating experience of becoming parents, being told your newborn wouldn’t live, and then watching him die. The novel balances the lows of just how hard it would be to experience losing a child, with the highs of Corabelle and Gavin's relationship. The grief aspect is never completely consumes the story, which I think consistently makes the novel accessible for all readers. You truly hope that Gavin and Corabelle can learn to lean on each other again. Regain the trust and love they had, and together work through their grief. Their relationship is heartbreaking, but realistic, and one you can actually connect with and rally behind.

Review: Unspoken (Woodlands #2) by Jen Frederick

Pub. Date: September 16^th 2013

Publisher: Pear Tree LLC/ Jen Frederick

260 pages

Paperback/ ebook

Having read a fair amount of New Adult lately, I’m finding that there's a bit more ‘rough’ than diamonds in the rough out there. Unspoken is definitely a diamond – but a diamond that needs just a little more polishing until it reaches perfection.

Bo is not your typically college student. At 23 he’s already been a Marine stationed in Afghanistan, and carries more baggage than a sorority house sees on moving day. AnnaMarie, AM for short, carries just as much baggage after a series of rumors involving ‘‘extracurricular activities’’ with the entire Lacrosse team were falsely spread. The only two non-freshman in Biology class, Bo slyly groups the two together. Under the guise of schoolwork, Bo and AM spend increasing amounts of time together, showing the other who they really are beneath the baggage and rumors that they have been brandished with. 

I appreciate NA without Insta-love immensely. Insta-love is so unrealistic and I typically lose interest the second it is introduced. Frederick really proved to the reader the relationship between Bo and AM, and why the two characters connected, long before they actually became a couple. As a reader you had to work towards the Happily Ever After, it wasn’t just handed to you, so you appreciated it that much more. I especially appreciated that once the two are together, they’re together. There is very little of the ‘what is going to break them up before they’re eventually brought back together’ drama. Bo and AMs relationship felt much more true and realistic to real life than most NA relationship do for me.

Review: My Favorite Mistake by Chelsea M. Cameron

Pub. Date: August 27^th, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin

Paperback

400 pages

Cameron has an insane ability to pull you right into her novels. Her novel Deeper We Fall is by far my favorite read of the year, and My Favorite Mistake is definitely top 10. As Cameron’s novels begin to take the ‘traditional’ publishing route, I’m preparing my ears for the squeals of joy as more readers discover her excellence.

Taylor and Hunter first connect like a punch connects to a face. Nothing could surprise Taylor more than her new roommate being a smooth talking, guitar-playing dude. Instantly rubbing her the wrong way, Hunter seems to have the innate ability to make Taylor uncomfortable and bring out the worst in her – a trait that leads to him gaining some significant facial bruising. Hunter, out of rooming options makes Taylor a deal – by the end of the semester, if she can truly make him believe that she either loves or hates him, he’ll move out. Rooming with a guy is just as awkward as you would expect, but Taylor and Hunter learn that opening up about the struggles they’ve dealt with in the past, may just be the thing that can bring them together.

Review: White Trash Beautiful by Teresa Mummert

Publisher: Gallery Books

Pub. Date: July 9^th, 2013 (first published in 2012)

Paperback

240 pages

I had such mixed feelings about this book. The things that I loved, I thought were done really well, while the things I didn’t love, I didn’t feel got the treatment they deserved.

Cass Daniels is perpetually down on her luck. Working as a waitress to support herself, and her mother, and her boyfriend Jax, is neither inspiring, nor fulfilling. She carries the weight of their needs, and her own disappointment about her life, on her shoulders. Cass is not only providing her family with a roof over their heads and food, but she is ultimately supplying them with the money they need to keep their increasingly severe drug habits going. When Tucker White walks in to Cass’ diner, he represents things that Cass doesn’t understand. Most significantly Cass doesn’t quite get why he’s so interested in her. Tucker has a lot of secrets, but in Cass he sees someone that would not only understand the bad in his life, like his childhood, but someone who wouldn’t be overly influenced by the good, namely his growing fame and wealth. Cass and Tucker’s relationship makes both want more out of their life, and through each other they find the strength to demand more.

Cass’ character is one of the things I loved about this novel. Voices and experiences like hers I feel are underrepresented (appropriately) in fiction. She is ultimately a very strong character, who grows a lot, and who I admired in terms of her resilience. But, Cass and Tuckers relationship is something I had

Review: Brooklyn Girls by Gemma Burgess

Pub. Date: July 2^nd, 2013

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Paperback

320 pages

Brooklyn Girls features a quirky cast of five twenty something’s – Pia, Julia, Coco, Madeleine and Angie - who take a lot of missteps, trying to figure life out. Having just moved into Rookhaven, an old brownstone, Pia wakes up after a housewarming party with a massive hangover, Madeleine’s brother in her bed, and pictures of her flashing partygoers on Facebook. She is promptly fired from her new PR job and cut off by her parents. After a single hilarious night as a waitress, and a few chance encounters, Pia comes up with an idea for a food truck. Borrowing $10,000 from a loan shark to buy the truck, and using her roommates as resources to plan a menu, Pia sets out at record speed to make a profit to pay the loan shark back. Chaos inevitably ensues.

Brooklyn Girls is a very character centered novel that epitomizes how your 20s are the time to take chances, get out of your comfort zone, and learn to live for yourself.  Pia, initially, is truly unlikeable.

Review: Kissing the Maid of Honor by Robin Bielman

A Secret Wishes Novel

Pub. Date: May 13, 2013

Publisher: Entangled

Ebook

230 pages

If every wish we made came true, then we would miss out on some pretty great things. Case in point, Kissing the Maid of Honor. Before her best friend Vanessa’s wedding, Sela Sullivan drops a coin in a wishing well, wishing that Vanessa’s brother Luke would keep his distance throughout wedding festivities. Ten years before, when she was 15, and harboring a major crush on Luke - her best friends brother and her own brother’s best friend - she paid to kiss him in a kissing booth. It was everything she wanted her first kiss to be – until he absolutely humiliated her. Thankfully her wish doesn’t come true, Luke does not keep his distance, and both are ultimately very happy that they have had the chance to reconnect.

Switching the narrative between Sela and Luke’s perspectives works really. It allows a lot more insight into what both are thinking, and how genuinely concerned they are with how their family and friends will react to their growing relationship. The switching perspective really helps you buy the relationship, and root for Sela and Luke as a couple to finally get it together, and be together.

I found the majority of the novel to be fairly realistic. There are specific struggles and development that

Review: Deeper We Fall by Chelsea M. Cameron

Book #1 in the Rise and Fall Series
Pub Date: January 25^th 2013

All Night Reads

Ebook

280 Pages

New Adult is a genre that I can definitely get behind. But I hadn’t read an NA title I really loved until Deeper We Fall. Lottie (Charlotte) Anders is by far one of the most flesh and bone characters that I have ever read. She is so vividly created that you feel you are going through every experience, emotion and conversation with her. From the first chapter you understand Lottie in a deeply profound way, and you wish you had her gumption, or in the least, you wish you could know her.

Leaving the party should have been easy. But that was when Lottie’s best friend Lexie was going to drive her own car home, instead of getting a ride from Zack Parker. Their was no way Lottie was getting in Zack’s truck, even after Zack’s much more sober brother Zan decided to drive, and their was no getting Lexie out. Two years later, Lottie and her twin brother Will are moving into their college residence when they come face to face with the last two people Lottie ever wanted to see again – the Parker brothers. While Zack seems unaffected by the permanent mental and physically damage the car accident caused Lexie, staying the cocky asshole he was two years ago, she can’t say Zan is the evil person she built him up to be.

Review: Touching Melody by RaShelle Workman

Pub. Date: May 14^th, 2013

Publisher: All Night Reads

Format: ebook

161 pages

When Maddie Martin sees two men leaving her house, one her best friend Kyle Hadley’s police officer father, the other man with a gun, she would never have believed that she would find her parents shot to death inside. Forced by her strict Aunt and Uncle to keep quiet about Hadley’s involvement, Maddie becomes reclusive. She throws herself into music, becoming an accomplished pianist, earning a full scholarship to the University of Bellam Springs. As devastating as it was to lose her parents, never hearing from Kyle after the murders hurts her more, and makes her believe that he is just as bad a person as his father. What Maddie and Kyle don’t know is that her Aunt and Uncle intercepted all of letters Kyle wrote, in an attempt to keep the two apart.

At Bellam Springs, Maddie and Kyle are reunited. Maddie is surprised by how strongly she is drawn back to Kyle, given how firmly she believes that he is not a