Category Archives: New Adult

Unspoken
(Woodlands, #2)
By: Jen Frederick
Publisher: Pear Tree LCC
Publlished: Sept. 13, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

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Whore. Slut. Typhoid Mary.

I’ve been called all these at Central College. One drunken night, one act of irresponsible behavior, and my reputation was ruined. Guys labeled me as easy and girls shied away. To cope, I stayed away from Central social life and away from Central men, so why is it that my new biology lab partner is so irresistible to me?

He’s everything I shouldn’t want. A former Marine involved in illegal fighting with a quick trigger temper and an easy smile for all the women. His fists aren’t the danger to me, though, it’s his charm. He’s sliding his way into my heart and I’m afraid that he’s going to be the one to break me.

Impulsive. Unthinking. Hot tempered.

I allow instinct to rule my behavior. If it feels good, do it, has been my motto because if I spend too much time thinking, I’ll begin to remember exactly where I came from. At Central College, I’ve got fighting and I’ve got women and I thought I was satisfied until I met her.

She’s everything I didn’t realize I wanted and the more time I spend with her, the more I want her. But she’s been hurt too much in the past and I don’t want to be the one to break her. I know I should walk away, but I just can’t.

AM lost her virginity during her freshman year after a night of drinking and partying. Since that day, she’s been labeled a slut by just about everyone on campus. Guys from the lacrosse team are going around saying they hooked up with her when they really haven’t and even a couple of guys have tried to take advantage of her thinking that she’s easy. So AM only goes on campus for classes and then hightails it out of there. She figures, if she’s not seen by her peers, the rumors will go away and people will leave her alone, but so far that hasn’t happened yet.

“If you were a guy, your conquests made you a god. If you were a girl, you were the conquered, no better than a toy.”

Bo’s followed his friend Noah everywhere. Into the Marine Corp, overseas, even to Central College. Last year when they arrived at CC, he had a class with AM. He tried to engage her but she shied away from him and gave him dirty looks. So now that she’s sitting right next to him in Biology, he’s determined to get to know her. The only problem is, she’s a bit prickly towards him and he’s not sure why. However, by making himself her lab partner he’s guaranteed to spend time with her and will hopefully figure out what makes this recluse tick.

“I didn’t mind taking chances, but I wasn’t stupid. I also knew I needed to spend more time with her. If a man in a desert finds a pool of water, he doesn’t leave until he’s lapped that fucker dry.”

I started reading this book and got about 25% through it before I decided to buy and read the first story. It’s not that this story can’t be read as a stand alone but I knew that I’d enjoy the story a lot more if I went back and read the first book. You see the first book focuses on Noah and his now girlfriend and Bo is in there a lot. So you get a sense of who Bo is before he meets AM and you realize how much he’s changed since meeting her.

I liked the pace that the author kept through the entire book. I was never bored or overwhelmed at any time. It was basically a story about a girl who overcomes her bullies and rises above the gossip. I really enjoyed the story and I cannot wait to see who’s story pops up next.

“You know how it’s all about God and country over there in Afghanistan. Well, when you find someone like AM, what you felt about the cause, about being a patriot, is like ating eggs from the MRE pack. Dry, tasteless, meaningless. It’s nothing. I’d kill for her and, I’ll learn to walk away.” -Bo

Previous reviews from Woodlands
Undeclared

Tragic
(Rook and Ronin, #1)
By: J.A. Huss
Publisher: Science Future Press
Published: May 20, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

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Rook Walsh is TRAGIC

Because life so far – just sucks. Some girls get parents. Rook got the foster care system. Some girls get Prince Charming. Rook got an abusive frog. Some girls get lucky…

Rook got a second chance.

And she took it. Because when fate throws you a bone – you grab it with both hands and run.

Antoine Chaput knows the minute he spies Rook in his photography studio that she’s got The Look. The dark and desperate look he must have to land the exclusive TRAGIC media contract.

Rook is paired up with top model, Ronin, and he’s everything her abusive ex-boyfriend wasn’t. Patient, gentle, happy, attentive, and sexy! He knows exactly what to do to make Rook blush for Antoine’s camera.

Rook’s luck changes in an instant and suddenly she’s the darling of the modeling world. It’s a dream job to go with a dream guy and all she has to do is look pretty and follow directions. But there’s always a price to pay – and Rook is about to get the bill.

Rook just lost her job and only has $10 to her name. Well actually she HAD $10 but she decided to throw caution to the wind and buy a fancy coffee with it instead. While enjoying said coffee, a business card for a modeling gig dings her in the head. The model at the next table over clearly doesn’t want it, so Rook decides to stop by the place indicated on the card before heading back to the homeless shelter for the night. When she gets there she finds out that if she signs a contract to do the photo shoot, she will not only be walking away with thousands of dollars but they will put her up in an apartment for the duration of the shoot. The shoot’s headline is “TRAGIC” and they are quick to offer her the job when they see her. It’s really a no-brainer for her on whether she’s going to take the job or not.

“She’s a blackbird sitting in a tree staring out at the world, daring the wind to come and knock her off the swaying bough.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting into before I read this. I saw that is was on sale for $0.99 and bought it. I had no idea what kind of photographs she’d be taking or the world in which she’d be living in. Neither, apparently, did Rook. She’s pretty innocent when it comes to all this modeling business and it takes her a little bit to warm up to the erotic shoots. It also doesn’t help that due to her past, she’s not very trusting when it comes to people. But now she finds herself in an unknown world, needing to trust total strangers in order to make it through to the end.

I was immediately sucked in by Rook’s life. I’ve never read a J.A book before but now I understand why people go crazy over new releases by her. She has a way of detailing everything without putting it into too many words. It’s as if you’re right there with Rook going through what she’s going through. I liked that the book was written in both Rook’s and Ronin’s point of view. So we could get the full spectrum of what was going on instead of it being one sided. Rook is definitely someone who is self-reliant and doesn’t cling to those around her. Life has dealt her a crappy hand and she’s not one to throw in the towel when things get too hard. Rook was a great main character to read about.

I may be new to J.A’s books but she’s made a fan of me with this book. I cannot wait to read more of her work.

“And I sit on the couch, absently flipping though channels, wondering how the fuck I just blew this whole day with a conversation about fruit baskets.” -Ronin

Fallen Too Far
(Too Far Trilogy, #1)
By: Abbi Glines
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: Dec. 14, 2012
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

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To want what you’re not supposed to have…

She is only nineteen.

She is his new stepfather’s daughter.

She is still naïve and innocent due to spending the last three years taking care of her sick mother.

But for twenty-four year old Rush Finlay, she is the only thing that has ever been off limits. His famous father’s guilt money, his mother’s desperation to win his love, and his charm are the three reasons he has never been told no.

Blaire Wynn left her small farmhouse in Alabama, after her mother passed away, to move in with her father and his new wife in their sprawling beach house along the Florida gulf coast. She isn’t prepared for the lifestyle change and she knows she’ll never fit into this world. Then there is her sexy stepbrother who her father leaves her with for the summer while he runs off to Paris with his wife. Rush is as spoiled as he is gorgeous. He is also getting under her skin. She knows he is anything but good for her and that he’ll never be faithful to anyone. He is jaded and has secrets Blaire knows she may never uncover but even knowing all of that…

Blaire just may have fallen too far.

I’m so disappointed that I didn’t love this book. I really wanted to love it. However, I think the bad editing really took away from the story for me. I didn’t find myself falling in love with the characters. I found myself more in a zombie state of mind while reading this than in a frenzy to find out what happens next.

I didn’t find the characters engaging and I didn’t find myself falling for Rush. In fact he kind of weirded me out. He starts off as this high and mighty “my dad’s a rock-star” attitude. First he kicks Blaire out of his house when she shows up. Then after his brother talks him into letting her stay, he places Blaire in the housekeepers “room” which is just large enough to fit a bed behind. I kid you not, to get to her “room” she has to go through a door that’s in the back of the pantry and that’s only half of it, it’s actually under the stairs! Blaire’s “room” is a 4×4 closet space under the staircase! Then Rush proceeds to screw every vagina in sight and treats Blaire poorly. By the time he started acting like a descent human being, I had lost interest.

I thought that Blaire was going to be tough and independent. At first she is, but then she starts falling for Rush and all common sense goes out the window. She finds herself giving away her virginity to a guy who’s treated her like crap and who she’s personally seen banging at least two chicks and those were just the two that she saw first hand. She knows that he’s hiding a secret and yet she still drops her IQ and turns into a lusting 19 year old all because he’s oh so sexy.

And the big bad secret… I didn’t find that all upsetting. I won’t go into details and ruin the story but I was expecting something insane involving Nan (Rush’s sister). Maybe, Nan was his adoptive sister and the two of them had been on again and off again for years, resulting in a baby who they raise under the disguise of being their sibling or something equally as shocking. Maybe it was just me but I found myself shrugging my shoulders thinking “So what? I don’t get it. Why are you freaking out?”

I don’t think that I’ll be continuing with the story. The ending didn’t really leave me clamoring for more but I am curious why Blaire comes back. My thoughts… she’s pregnant. Dun Dun Duunnnnnnnn

“Your instant reaction to being scared is to pull out a gun on someone? Damn girl, where are you from? Most girls I know squeal or some shit like that.” -Grant

Undeclared
(Woodlands, #1)
By: Jen Frederick
Publisher: Self-Published
Published:April 28, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

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For four years, Grace Sullivan wrote to a Marine she never met, and fell in love. But when his deployment ended, so did the letters. Ever since that day, Grace has been coasting, academically and emotionally. The one thing she’s decided? No way is Noah Jackson — or any man — ever going to break her heart again.

Noah has always known exactly what he wants out of life. Success. Stability. Control. That’s why he joined the Marines and that’s why he’s fighting his way — literally — through college. Now that he’s got the rest of his life on track, he has one last conquest: Grace Sullivan. But since he was the one who stopped writing, he knows that winning her back will be his biggest battle yet.

Since this love story started 4 years ago when Grace’s teacher had the class write letters to deployed troops. What started out as a class assignment turned into so much more for the two of them. Grace became his life support while overseas and vowed to become a better man for her. But getting out the military isn’t easy and it took him sometime to get his head on straight. That time spent not communicating left doubts in Grace and she’s now trying to move on from her delusional life with prince charming. Except, one day she exits out of a class only to find him waiting for her. It turns out that he enrolled in the same college as her and wants to reconnect.

I liked the way the author wrote the story. Just about every chapter starts with a letter that was exchanged during his time in the Marine Corp. So you not only get a look at the two of them when they started writing each other but you also get the present time mixed in. So you really get a sense for the history that these two have.

The romance to this story was sweet and slow brewing. In the last letter that Noah wrote Grace, he implied that they would be friends only. So with squishing Grace’s hope of there being more, she’s really reserved around Noah and keeps throwing out the, “Oh course, what are friends for?”, which in turn makes Noah take a step back.

“As soon as we’re done here, I’d go and find the dictionaries and start defacing the word “friend”. I hated it and worse, I was the first to use it. I felt like I was getting slapped in the face with that stupid, shit-ass letter I wrote two years ago. Should I just come out and admit what a fuck-up I was? The whole point of waiting to come and see Grace was to present a non-fucked up version of myself.”

This isn’t your typical New Adult Romance where it’s raging hormones and sex for 200 pages. It’s a sweet story about a Marine and the pen pal who helped him get through some rough times, reuniting after his enlistment.

Will I be reading the next story in the Woodlands series? Definitely! I think Jen did an amazing job on her debut novel and I can’t wait to see what else she comes out with.

“The Marines may have made me a man, but Grace made me human.” -Noah

This Love
(University of Branton, #1)
By: Nazarea Andrews
Publisher: A & A Literary
Published: June 25, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

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She wants a summer job and a ride to a wedding.

He wants an assistant and a distraction from the mess his life had become.

They didn’t know they needed each other.

Avery Emili needs two grand. Two grand and a plane ticket–her sister is counting on her to get to Jamaica for her wedding. But the semester is over, and tutoring college freshman and high school students has dried up until the fall.

Atticus Grimes needs help–the messy split with his wife left the twenty-eight year old professor scrambling to keep things together as the semester winds down. Now he’s got a research grant he has to actually do research for and all he wants to do is drown himself in a tall bottle of bourbon.

When Avery sees his ad for an assistant, all she’s thinking is a summer job. But as they spend time together, in the office and out, both of them begin to realize something is there. Something that can’t happen–he’s a professor and she’s a student. And both of them have histories, pasts that won’t let go. Can two broken people pulled apart by expectations find a way to be whole?

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Between the Lines
(Between the Lines, #1)
By: Tammara Webber
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: April 29, 2011
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

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Reid Alexander is used to getting what he wants – and what he wants next is his newest costar, Emma Pierce. The universe is lining up nicely to grant his wish, until he’s confronted with two unexpected obstacles on location: a bitter ex-girlfriend and a rival for Emma’s affections.

Emma Pierce just got her big break after years of filming commercials and made-for-TV movies. Winning the lead role in a wide-release film – opposite the very hot Reid Alexander – should be a dream come true. But Emma’s heart is hiding a secret fantasy: she wants to be a normal girl.

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Twisted
(Torn, #2)
By: K.A. Robinson
Publisher: Atria Publishing
Published: May 7, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

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Chloe and Drake have found their happily ever after… Almost.

When Chloe’s mother comes back into her life with a bang, it sets off a chain of events no one could have ever expected.
Everyone has their demons, and Chloe and Drake’s hit them with a vengence.

Sex, drugs, money, a crazy ex, and Rock n Roll…. Can they survive it all?

Things are beginning to feel a bit… Twisted.

At the end of Torn, Chloe’s abusive, negligent mother shows up at her doorstep. We find out that Chloe’s aunt is battling cancer and doesn’t have much more time left. Her aunt told her sister (Chloe’s mother) that she wouldn’t see a dime of the money thatshe’s plans on leaving her unless she brings Chloe to her before she passes away. So the story starts off with Chloe going to her Aunt’s estate to not only see her aunt one last time but to convince her not to give her mother a penny of that money. Meanwhile, Drake leaves to start the band’s summer tour and leaves Chloe behind with her dying aunt, unpredictable mother, cousin [Danny] and his best friend/Chloe’s first [Jordan]. Yes, the Drama Llama comes out in full force during this book.

I was hoping that I would enjoy this story more since Chloe and Drake are finally together and there would be no need for cheating. However, so much drama takes place that it left my head spinning. Once the whole dying aunt thing was over, then we were dealing with a jealous ex/stalker, then Drake’s “bad-boy” ways, then Jordan throwing out the “I just want you to know that I’m an option too” card, then more of Chloe’s mother and more of Drake’s issues and around and around it went. Normally, I’m all for a little drama. After all, it’s what makes a story interesting but this was seeming more like a bad episode of Jerry Springer.

One thing I did like about this story was the interaction with the band. We seemed to get a little bit more band time than we did previously. Since, after all, Chloe goes on tour with them for a little bit. I would have liked to have seen a little bit more behind the scene’s when it came to the shows instead of the bus time but that just wasn’t in the cards for this story I guess.

Even though I had issues with the cheating in the first book and the fact that this book had drama bombs blasting all over the place, I still enjoyed the ride.

“Sex is for chumps. I have popcorn.”

Previous reviews from Torn
Torn

Left Drowning
By: Jessica Park
Publisher: Skyscape
Published: July 16, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:

Weighted down by the loss of her parents, Blythe McGuire struggles to keep her head above water as she trudges through her last year at Matthews College. Then a chance meeting sends Blythe crashing into something she doesn’t expect—an undeniable attraction to a dark-haired senior named Chris Shepherd, whose past may be even more complicated than her own. As their relationship deepens, Chris pulls Blythe out of the stupor she’s been in since the night a fire took half her family. She begins to heal, and even, haltingly, to love this guy who helps her find new paths to pleasure and self-discovery. But as Blythe moves into calmer waters, she realizes Chris is the one still strangled by his family’s traumatic history. As dark currents threaten to pull him under, Blythe may be the only person who can keep him from drowning.

Read More →

White Trash Beautiful
(White Trash Trilogy, #1)
By: Teresa Mummert
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: July 9, 2012
Genre: New Adult
Rating:

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Cass Daniels isn’t waiting for her knight in shining armor. She knows that girls like her don’t get a happily ever after. Not if you live in a trailer with your mom, work at a greasy spoon diner, and get leered at by old men. Maybe that’s why she puts up with Jackson—her poor excuse for a boyfriend, who treats her like dirt. Cass has learned to accept her lot in life. That is, until he walks into her diner. . . .

His name is Tucker White, and he’s different from any man Cass has ever known. Tall, tattooed, and bad-ass gorgeous, he’s the lead singer of the rock band Damaged. From the moment they meet, Tucker sees something in Cass he just can’t shake. Something beautiful. Something haunted. Something special. And he’s determined to find out what it is—if only he can get her to open up and let him in. 

Cass has been dealt a nasty hand in life. After her father left her and her mother to fend for themselves, she found herself living in a trailer park, working at the local diner barely making ends meet, with a heroine addicted mother and boyfriend. But everything changes when a new guy shows up at the diner. Not only is he nice and good looking but he continues to come back to the diner to see her. Pretty soon she finds herself swept up in the Cinderella fairy tale.

Cass was definitely an interesting character. She has a lot of fight left in her considering how long she’s been dealing with the abuse and I don’t mean being surrounded by addicts. Her boyfriend beats her and always talks down to her. She pushes it off as the drugs talking but deep down she knows that without him willing to get help and change, he will never be the guy that she originally fell in love with. So when Tucker shows up and genuinely seems to care about her even though he doesn’t even know her, she latches onto that little bit of hope.

Tucker was also an interesting character. We get to see him through Cass’ eyes. When he comes into the diner he immediately recognizes Cass as someone who is in need of help. It doesn’t help when her boyfriend starts man-handling her for money right there in the diner. So he makes it a point to keep coming back so that he can keep an eye on her. He takes it upon himself to be her protector.

“I know what it’s like, Cass, to feel like nobody gives a shit about you. I also know that sometimes we need someone else to make us feel like we’re worth something… to make us feel special, you know.”

I really enjoyed this story. I can’t say that I was overly surprised by what takes place in this book but it was a pleasure to read. I’m pretty excited that this is part of a series since I would love to know more of Cass’ story. Not only that but I will definitely be checking out the author’s other books. I like her simplistic writing style. She doesn’t try to dazzle the readers with crazy descriptions or fancy words that you need a dictionary for. 

“If I wanted to get my life together, I needed to be my own white knight for once.” -Cass