Category Archives: New Adult

Believe
(True Believers, #3)
By: Erin McCarthy
Publisher: Penguin Group
Release Date: Jan. 21, 2014
Genre: New Adult Contemp. Romance
Rating:

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

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…

Due to a mistake Robin made while she was black-out-drunk, she’s hated herself ever since. She’s gone from the outgoing party girl to the wear baggy clothes and stay in type. So when she gains the attention of her roommate’s boyfriends cousin who was just released from jail, the last thing she wants to do is start a relationship. However, she finds a kinship in him. Like herself, he’s lost and trying to start his life over as well.

I’ve never read any of Erin’s work before and was really looking forward to diving into this even though it was the 3rd book in a series. I mean, cmon, we’re talking about a guy who’s just been released from prison. I don’t think the hero in any of my books has a record. So I was pretty interested to see what this book had to offer.

This story was entertaining but unfortunately fell into the new adult mold. Aside from the whole prison thing, I didn’t really feel like this was an original story. The characters instantly fall in love. Drama arises. Then they live happily ever after. The beginning of the story when the two first start hanging out but lost interest about half way through. The author tried bringing up Phoenix’s time in prison with some guy who he used to know on the inside but it fell flat for me. It seemed out of the blue and didn’t really tie in with the story.

I liked that the author gave the characters self-redemption. She allowed them both to heal from their past and move on. However, this story just didn’t work for me in the end. It started out strong but soon turned into a bad boy with anger issues who falls in love for the first time with a girl he barely knows.

“Life is like waiting in line at the grocery store. You wait, you slowly move forward, you pay the price, then you exit unsatisfied and broke.” -Phoenix

Knowing Jack
By: Rachel Curtis
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: Jan. 17, 2013
Genre: New Adult
Rating:

Goodreads

I am not a slut, although I’ve been called one often enough. Yeah, I spent three months screwing one of my college professors, but I was crazy about the guy. Then he broke up with me.

I am not a bitch, although people like to say I am. I kept our relationship secret. I’m not responsible for telling the university administrators about it, but a lot of students still blame me for getting their favorite professor fired.

I am not a drama queen, although everyone thinks I am now. When I got a few nasty messages, I just deleted them. When I got the threat, I assumed it was someone being stupid. I still think that’s all it was. My parents worry, though, so they hired me a bodyguard. Now Jack follows me around, intimidating everyone who approaches me and looking obnoxiously hot.

This is what I am. I’m Chloe. I’m a twenty-year-old art history major. Kind of shy, although I pretend not to be. Stubborn enough to stay here for my senior year, even though everyone hates me.

And I’m stuck with Jack.

He calls me “Princess,” but I’m not a princess either.

Chloe slept with her professor resulting in the professor being fired from his job. Now the school (both teachers and students) are angry at Chloe over it. They view that it’s her fault he was fired and they lash out at her. Now she’s getting threats via text message and there’s a Tumblr page dedicated to her with some not so nice pictures of her with other guys. Which is where Jack comes in. He’s screwed up with his previous job and his father has decided to put him on a cotton candy case that’s supposed to be easy peasy. But when he meets the girl he’s supposed to protect, he finds that he needs to protect her from himself as well.

I thought the story sounded really interesting. I mean I’ve read bodyguard to lover stories before but the whole background to this one sounded like it would make for a great suspenseful read. However, it fell flat for me. The suspense just wasn’t there. It was cyber bullying at it’s finest. There were no real threats. Plus the writing was really choppy. The conversations between Jack and Chloe read as if someone scripted it as apposed to an actual conversation two people would have.

I also wasn’t a huge fan of Chloe. She was like a cat in heat. throughout the entire story. I don’t mean just because she was fawning over Jack either. There were times where he’d lean in to talk to her and she’d stick her chest out at him, or he’d push her away and say he couldn’t go there with her and she’s straddle his lap and kiss him. I just felt like the sex in this book was way over amped and it overshadowed the story.

“There’s no way I can hide it. I let my head fall backwards and arch my spine against the wall, pressing my breasts toward him without thinking. I let out a long, textured, embarrassing sigh. It’s almost-almost-a moan.”

The story had some promise but I think it needs some time with a good editor to work out some of the kinks and help it run a bit more smoothly.

“When you’re trained from kindergarten, from the cradle, to always protect, to always be strong, to control your surroundings, to let nothing slip by you, then it breaks the core of who you are when you fail.” -Jack

Tear
(Seaside, #1)
By: Rachel Van Dyken
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: Nov. 23, 2012
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

Life as a teenager is never easy. But for Natalee Murray, things have just gotten way more difficult. Bored with life, she can’t wait to graduate high school and get out of town, especially considering the famous band members from AD2 suddenly start attending her school, making her once boring life, absolutely insane.

It starts with a pen. A single brush of fingers, and she is captivated.

But Alec and Demetri have a dark secret, one that could shatter their reputations and Natalee’s heart. What do you do when one guy paints your life with color while the other infuses your soul with passion? How do you choose when your heart is divided?

Tear is a story about a girl who falls in love with two rock stars. Two rock stars who just so happen to be brothers. Two rock stars who are hiding out at Seaside while guarding a huge secret.

I’m a sucker for celebrity stories and this is no exception. The brothers are very different on their approach of life. Demetri is a live on the edge kind of guy. He parties, drinks and likes to live life to the fullest. Whereas Alec is more quiet and reserved. He’s really protective of Demetri and Nat and he is always looking out for them. Even when it comes to watching his brother go off with the girl he loves and helping him patch things up when he screws up. The brothers are very different and it was interesting seeing them interact so differently with Nat.

However, there were some issues I had with the story. One of which being the love triangle. I’m okay with a little angst but the love triangle was so huge that cheating got involved and I’m never a fan of cheating. And it wasn’t just there and done with, it loomed over the readers head the entire time. Even though Nat was dating one of them, she constantly went after the other one and was upset when he’d turn her down. Maybe because you’re dating his brother? The cheating kind of left a sour taste in my mouth. I also felt like this book could use a good polishing by an editor. I found problems where words were missing or jumbled a bit and even though I knew what the author meant, it would have gone smoother without those hiccups in the way. Plus, there was a bit of choppiness when it came to the story. I think with a good polishing, this book would be amazing… minus the cheating. Sorry I just can’t do it.

Regardless on the hangups that I had, I did enjoy this story. I found myself enveloped in their story. I wanted to know what would happen next. Would the brothers reveal their secret? Is it really as bad as they think it is? Will Nat finally get caught cheating and end up depressed and alone thinking maybe she should have just chose one brother instead of both of them? I read the story until the very last page and I enjoyed every second of it.

“I guess that’s what makes life special. It’s unexpected. Scary as hell. But in the end, totally worth it.”

Panic
(Rook and Ronin, #3)
By: J.A. Huss
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: Oct. 24, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

Rook is chasing her dream—film school and a chance at a life beyond the one she ran from six months ago. But before she can become the girl she wants to be, she must deal with the girl she left behind.

Ronin is also chasing his dream—a family of his own and a life away from erotic modeling. And he too, has a past he’s trying to forget. A past that makes Rook question everything about their life together.

Lies, secrets, and shocking truths will rock the foundation Rook and Ronin have built. Can they put the past behind them and move forward together? Or is this just another too good to be true relationship that will crash and burn in the end?

There are no crazy contracts going with modeling. In fact, Rook’s contract with STURGIS is winding down and she’s not playing her part of running errands for Shrike Bikes for the tv show. Meanwhile, Ronin is back at the studio casting girls for the GIDGET campaign. So the two of them are separated for the majority of the book. However, even though the story starts off like everything is looking on the up and up for these two, the sh*t hits the fan and pretty soon everyone’s world is turned upside down.

I must say that J.A. did a great job with ending this trilogy. She didn’t leave any loose ends. We find out everything that happened with Rook before stumbling into the studio and landing a modeling gig. We also learn more about Ronin, Ford and Spencer. Their past as a “team” that lead Spencer as the muscle, Ford as the brains and Ronin as the front man.

J.A. paced the story beautifully since we get a lot of information in this one and a lot does happen. However, the story never felt rushed or like it went off course. This book was the climatic grand finale for the trilogy. Even though I’m sad to see Rook and Ronin’s story end, I’m happy with how everything ended.

“How did I get here? We’re Three’s Company. Spencer is airhead Chrissy, Ford is international Janet, and I’m pretending to be gay so I don’t notice that you two are roommate eye-candy.”

Previous reviews from Rook and Ronin
Tragic
Manic

JA Huss is a SF and new adult romance junkie, has a love-hate relationship with the bad boys, and likes to write new adult books about people with real problems. She lives with her family on a small acreage farm in Colorado and has two donkeys named Paris and Nicole. Before writing fiction, she authored almost two hundred science workbooks and always has at least three works in progress. Her first new adult romance is called TRAGIC.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Perfect Mess
(A Perfect Mess, #1)
By: Zoe Dawson
Publisher: Blue Moon Creative
Published: Aug. 5, 2013
Genre: New Adult
Rating:

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

I know what you did last summer.

Aubree Walker, the perfect girl most likely to succeed, is sure there’s only one person who knows what she did.

Booker Outlaw, one of the three Outlaw brothers—all identical, all gorgeous, all from the wrong side of the tracks, and all pure bad boys. He was always the unpredictable one, the one who would be brash enough to make it big self-publishing horror novels on the internet. He promised never to tell, but everyone knows you can never trust an Outlaw.

Then a year later, in the middle of the night, she receives a phone call at Tulane. Her aunt, who took her in after her mother’s death, is in a coma under suspicious circumstances. Now she has to face that one person who knows all about what she did that summer—sexy Booker.

Returning to Hope Parish to be with her aunt, stirs up all those ugly memories. When Aubree starts getting threats, she can’t help but wonder if what she did last summer was tied to her aunt’s “accident.” Afraid, she turns to the only person who knows the truth and Booker doesn’t hesitate to offer his broad shoulder for her to lean on. But Booker has a secret of his own that could crush their fledgling relationship.

As the hot, sultry summer days move on, she finds that even a perfectly smart girl can lose her heart to a perfectly bad boy. What is she going to do when someone starts asking questions Aubree doesn’t want to answer? She’s knee deep into a terribly dangerous, wholly life changing, who-can-she-really-depend-on perfect mess.

Aubree is the 19 year old goodie two-shoes math whiz while Booker is the 19 year old bad-boy who just so happens to be a best-selling author. They each share a secret. The same secret that made Aubree run from her hometown one year ago. But when her aunt (who raised her), takes a serious fall and ends up in a coma, Aubree goes back to the place that she never planned on visiting again. A place that holds her deepest darkest secret.

This was an entertaining read. You had some suspense over Aubree getting these cryptic text messages from someone claiming to know what she did last summer. The summer that holds her dark secret. So she confides in Booker since he was involved in what happened that night. However, we as readers have no idea what this big bad secret is until the very end. So the entire time I was speculating what could have happened. So I did like the mystery behind the big secret.

However, I had a problem with the characters. These are supposed to be 19 years. What I read were people in their late 20’s or early 30’s. The way they portrayed themselves and the way they talked did not come off as someone in their teens. So throughout the entire time I pictured people who were older. I mean, Booker self published a few books online and all of a sudden he’s this big hot shot author who has 3 vehicles, a fancy house and is pretty much a famous author. Maybe because I’m a blogger and talk to authors who are not only published through big publishers but indie authors as well, I’m calling bullshit. All the stories I’ve ever heard from authors is that it’s not as glamorous of a job as people think. They are not rolling in the dough, in fact most still have day jobs. Then you have Booker’s brother who owns a bar/grill. Who again, is 19. Not only does he have a liquor license at his establishment but him and his brothers (triplets) drink there. I just couldn’t get on board with it. No one at 19 were saying things like “I was ‘overcome’, not just by your emotions but by my own.” The characters should have been written as adults instead of teens. I think had that been the case I would have enjoyed the story so much more and wouldn’t have had to keep pulling myself out of the story to remind myself that this was a group of teenagers not full blown adults.

I liked the idea of this book and I enjoyed it as a whole but I really had a problem with the way the author wrote the characters. It felt more like the author had written this story initially about a 25-35 year old couple and then went back and changed the age to 19. And that really messed up my reading when I had to keep reminding myself that these were teens not adults. If it weren’t for that, I could’ve easily given this 4 emotes but it messed with my head way too much.

“I couldn’t stand there and stare at her. My reputation in town was bad enough. I didn’t need to add perv to it.”