Day: April 13, 2015

Review: 99 Days by Katie Cotugno

Posted April 13, 2015 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

99 Days
Rowena’s review of 99 Days by Katie Cotugno.

Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone still remembers everything—how I destroyed my relationship with Patrick the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done.

Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn’t finished. I’m expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. “For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow,” he says, “I’m really glad you’re back.”

Day 12: Gabe got me to come to this party, and I’m actually having fun. I think he’s about to kiss me—and that’s when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who’s supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who’s never going to forgive me.

I’ve never read anything by Katie Cotugno before but this book sounded like it’d be a good read and I’ve read nothing but good things about the author online (on Goodreads mostly) so I went into this read pretty excited to read it. Plus, I really liked the cover so I was sucked right in.

This book follows Molly Barlow as she goes home for the summer before college starts (in 99 days). Molly is returning to the home where she’s an outcast. The outcast that cheated on her boyfriend with his brother. Everything wouldn’t have been such a huge deal if her author mother didn’t write about the whole ordeal in her next book that became a bestseller. Her boyfriend Patrick found out about it through the media and all hell broke loose.

Being back in town hasn’t been much fun for Molly. Her car has been egged, people have pointed and laughed at her and just made her life a living hell so she thought it’d be much easier to wait out the 99 days until she can leave home for college by hiding out in her room and watching documentaries on Netflix. The only person that has been remotely nice to her outside of her mother is her ex-boyfriend’s brother, Gabe. The guy she cheated on Patrick with. When she starts hanging out with Gabe again, she thinks that things aren’t that bad. But then Patrick comes back and things go to shit all over again.

99 days shouldn’t have been too long to keep it together, Molly. But holy cow, it was.

Molly’s character drove me bat shit crazy throughout this entire book. In the beginning, seeing the way that she was treated and feeling bad for the way things went down, I thought that Molly would make better decisions. I thought she would have learned her lesson that you can’t go around playing with people’s emotions but being young and dumb and completely real, Molly didn’t learn a damn thing. Watching history repeat itself when Patrick comes back to town made me so freaking mad.

It started off with so much promise too. Molly was remorseful for her actions. She never wanted to hurt anyone but shit happens and you live and learn, right?

Wrong.

In the end, I didn’t hate Molly but there were times while I was reading that I thought that I would. Parts of the book where I was so freaking frustrated that I would actually growl out loud. I adored Gabe and the way that he was with Molly. The way that he was mad that she got stuck with the blame for what went down that night. I loved that he was open and honest with Molly from the very beginning and when Patrick came back into the picture, it was Gabe that I felt bad for. It was Gabe that my heart felt for.

I know that Molly learned her lesson in the end but I didn’t really like how she was trying to make what happened the second time around on the two brothers fighting. I felt like she was trying to pass the buck and I wanted her to be genuinely sorry for her actions because a tiny part of me didn’t think she was. Her actions hurt so many more people than just Gabe and Patrick. She hurt Tess and Julia and Colleen. She wasn’t completely to blame for everything but I felt like she was trying not to accept her part in the whole mess and I wasn’t a real big fan of that.

I will say that this book was a compelling read. As frustrated as I got, I never thought to put it down. I never wanted to DNF the story. I just wanted Molly to wake up and stop being such a dummy. Eventually, she gets there but it took some time and I was glad that I finished it but still, she drove me nuts and in the end, I was still kind of low-key mad at her.

Grade: 2 out of 5

This book is available from Balzar + Bray. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


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Guest Review: Total Surrender by Rebecca Zanetti

Posted April 13, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Guest Review: Total Surrender by Rebecca ZanettiReviewer: Tracy
Total Surrender (Sin Brothers, #4) by Rebecca Zanetti
Series: Sin Brothers #4
Also in this series: Forgotten Sins (Sin Brothers, #1), Sweet Revenge (Sin Brothers, #2), Forgotten Sins (Sin Brothers, #1), Blind Faith (Sin Brothers, #3), Blind Faith (Sin Brothers, #3), Total Surrender (Sin Brothers, #4)
Publisher: Forever
Publication Date: March 31, 2015
Point-of-View: Third
Genres: Romantic Suspense
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

A fight he must win...

Piper Oliver knows she can't trust him. They warned her that the tall, dark, and sexy black-ops soldier Jory Dean would try to win her over with his steel-gray eyes and deadly charm, but she won't be conned by this man they call a traitor. All she has to do is figure out the science necessary to save his life, and she's done. Something isn't adding up, though, and she won't rest until she uncovers the truth-even if it's buried in his deep, dangerous kiss.

A passion she can't resist...

Jory will do anything to reunite with and save his brothers—even kidnap the gorgeous woman who's working to deactivate the deadly chip in their spines. But the forces determined to destroy his family won't let them go so easily. Keeping Piper alive is more than he bargained for—and so is his burning desire for her. But with every second bringing him closer to certain death, can he afford to lose himself in her hot and willing embrace?

Jory Dean is being held by the people (monsters) who created him and trained him – The Commander and his minion Dr. Madison. He knows he only has a few days to live and he doesn’t want to die in a cell. His captors have brought in Piper who is a computer genius to try to figure out how to deactivate the kill chips that are attached to his and his brothers’ spines. Unfortunately his chip was damaged when he was shot and there’s no way to deactivate it even if Piper could figure out a way to connect to it. Jory knows that he can use Piper to escape somehow but he’s grown attracted to her and wants to take her with him when he goes. One problem, she’s the Commander’s daughter.

Piper is attracted to Jory but she believes him to be a traitor to his country. (The Commander planted false information about Jory so that she wouldn’t know the truth about him.) Jory, however, is telling her different information and she’s not sure what to believe. She does eventually inadvertently help Jory escape and meet up with his brothers but by that point she doesn’t know what to believe. She DOES know that she cares about Jory and doesn’t want him to die so tries to help him and his brothers get the codes that will save their lives.

The fourth book in the Sin Brothers series was definitely no disappointment. Zanetti’s been working us up to Jory’s story and it was just as good as I thought it would be. Jory was just like his brothers – an alpha male with a soft heart – but he was different. He seemed, at least to me, more selfless than his brothers. They all have good hearts but Jory just seemed more so in some way. I really liked that about him and I liked that he cared so much about Piper and what she was feeling about the situation that she was in. Their romance was a bit strange but it was still very sweet.

There was another part of this book that I really liked as well and I guess it’s a bit of a spoiler but…Jory discovered that he’s not the last/youngest Dean brother out there. More are discovered and whether it’s a ploy to create further books for the author or not I really enjoyed this part of the book. The brothers that are discovered are trained but are still young enough to find wonder in life and the way the 4 older brothers accepted them really did it for me.

Overall it was a great book that was really hard to put down. I very much enjoyed the whole story and this book in particular.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Sin Brothers

four-stars


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