Tag: NAL

Review: Come to Me Recklessly by A.L. Jackson

Posted July 7, 2021 by Casee in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: Come to Me Recklessly by A.L. JacksonReviewer: Casee
Come to Me RecklesslySeries: Closer to You #3
Also in this series: Come to Me Quietly, Come to Me Softly
Publisher: NAL
Publication Date: April 7, 2015
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating First Person
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 445
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Casee's 2021 Goodreads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

His heart was turned off…

Until she turned him on…

Christopher Moore gave up on the idea of love years ago. Now, his life is an endless string of parties and an even longer string of girls. Enjoying the physical perks with none of the emotional mess, he's convinced everyone that he's satisfied—everyone but himself.

Samantha Schultz has moved on with her life. Finishing her student teaching and living with her boyfriend, she's deluded herself into believing she's content. But there is one boy she never forgot—her first love—and she keeps the memory of him locked up tight. She will never allow any man to break her the way Christopher did.

When Christopher's sister and her family move into a new neighborhood, Christopher is completely unprepared to find Samantha living at the end of the street. Memories and unspent desires send them on a collision course of sex, lies, and lust. But when guilt and fear send Samantha running, Christopher will have to fight for what has always been his.

After reading Come to Me Quietly & Come to Me Softly, I wasn’t sure that I was ready for the last book in this series. The first two books packed quite the emotional punch. I almost took a break, but I just had to read Christopher’s story. He was such an ass in the first two books. Other than his obvious love for his sister, there seemed to be very few redeeming qualities about him. I usually don’t like being wrong, but in this case it really worked out. This book is my favorite in the trilogy.

Christopher & Samantha fell in love when they were teenagers. Like a full-blown, forever type of love. It should have been weird, but it wasn’t. Sometimes you just know. Christopher knew that Samantha was the one for him. Neither his parents nor her parents could keep them apart. Then Zack’s mom dies and it all goes to hell. Samantha feels Christopher pulling away from her. She tries to be there for him, but he’s going through something that she can’t touch. Then she finds him cheating on her and that’s it for her.

Fast forward…Samantha is living right down the street from Aly & Zack. Aly & Samantha run into each other and the subject of Christopher comes up. The wound is still raw for Samantha, no matter how much time has gone by. She’s determined to stay away from Christopher and Christopher seems just as determined to stay away from her. Samantha doesn’t know why Christopher has a problem with her. He was the one that cheated on her. He left her, not the other way around.

I really like the reunited lovers troupe. There’s always some big emotional reason that the couple has separated which means that it’s a big emotional reunion. That’s how it was for Christopher and Samantha. They were meant to be together and nothing, not even time can keep them apart.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Closer to You

four-half-stars


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Review: Come to Me Softly by A.L. Jackson

Posted April 28, 2021 by Casee in Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: Come to Me Softly by A.L. JacksonReviewer: Casee
Come to Me SoftlySeries: Closer to You #2
Also in this series: Come to Me Quietly, Come to Me Recklessly
Publisher: NAL
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating First Person
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Casee's 2021 Goodreads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

From the New York Times bestselling author of Come to Me Quietly comes a scorching new adult romance in the Closer to You series.

A second chance at life…A second chance at love…

Jared Holt never thought he deserved either—until he found both in the arms of Aly Moore. Aly has loved Jared for as long as she can remember, and she’s more than ready for the future they’re making together. But Jared can’t help remembering his own family. And he’ll never forgive himself for what happened to them. How can he allow himself the very happiness he once destroyed?

To live a life worthy of Aly, Jared knows he has to stop running and finally put his past to rest. But when he decides to face his demons head on, he encounters more than he bargained for: a dangerous mix of jealousy, lies, and dishonest intentions. When those intentions threaten Aly, Jared loses all control, giving into the rage that earned him his bad boy reputation years before. And he’ll fight to protect her no matter what it costs…even if he destroys himself in the process.

This is the second book in the Closer to You series. Toward the end of Come to Me Quietly, Jared leaves Aly. And the very end of the book, he knows that he can’t live without Aly. He knows he’s not good enough nor does he think he deserves happiness after the accident that destroyed his life when he was sixteen. Jared has been doing his penance for killing his mother. Having someone good like Aly in his life has changed him. He still doesn’t think he deserves happiness, but now he knows that he can’t live without her.

Aly is devastated when Jared leaves her. View Spoiler » Now he’s back and he has an almost fanatical need to make her happy and to be sure that she never regrets taking a chance on him. Jared feels like he’s dishonoring his mother’s memory by being happy. It was so heart wrenching to read about Jared’s internal struggle. Jared just about broke my heart in this book.

Aly is sure that Jared needs professional help though he is having none of that. Jared is sure that all he needs in his life is Aly. He has his demons and being with her silences them. He wants nothing to do with therapy. Until he realizes that he could love the only family he has left. Aly and Christopher are all he has. Aly begs him to get help but he refuses. So she does the impossible. She asks him to leave. Holy hell, that was devastating. I could see these characters so clearly and they were on an emotional level that I don’t find very often. These two were born for each other. After Jared once again leaves Aly, he knows he has to decide which direction to go in his life; in both their lives.

I really struggled with reading this book. Not because this wasn’t a good book. Just like the first book, this one was amazing. It was just so emotional. There were times when I would have to put the book down after ten minutes or so because my heart felt like it couldn’t handle anything more. Jared and Aly’s story is a beautiful but tragic tale. The love each other deeply, but this book drives home the fact that sometimes love isn’t enough.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

Closer to You

four-stars


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Review: Come to Me Quietly by A.L. Jackson

Posted April 19, 2021 by Casee in Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: Come to Me Quietly by A.L. JacksonReviewer: Casee
Come to Me Quietly by A. L. Jackson
Series: Closer to You #1
Also in this series: Come to Me Softly, Come to Me Recklessly
Publisher: NAL
Publication Date: January 7, 2014
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating First
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Casee's 2021 Goodreads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Aleena Moore is content with her life. She has goals and dreams and an easy smile. She also has a secret she holds locked inside.

Jared Holt believes he doesn’t deserve to love or be loved. He destroys everything he touches. Haunted by the mistake that shattered his life, he’s fled from the memory of that pain.

Jared doesn’t know why he’s compelled to return, but finds himself drawn back to the place where it all began. The exact place where it ended. When he runs into his childhood best friend, Aleena’s older brother Christopher, he agrees to share Christopher and Aleena’s apartment while he looks for a place of his own.

Aleena is no longer the little girl Jared remembers from his past and evokes feelings in him he never wanted to feel again. Terrified of destroying her, he fights to keep her away. But her touch is something he can’t resist—the touch that sealed his fate.

Their pasts are intertwined and their futures uncertain. The only truths they know are the secrets they whisper in the night.

Jared Holt believes that he doesn’t deserve anything good in his life. Jared goes through the motions, but he’s been dead inside since the day he lost his mother. When he runs into Christopher Moore, his best friend while growing up, he can’t turn down his offer to stay with him and his sister. Jared doesn’t know why he’s come back to the place that haunts him. Then he sees her. Aleena Moore. Aly. The little girl that followed him around and he protected when she was younger is all grown up. Jared knows that it’s wrong to feel any attraction toward his best friend’s sister, but he can’t stop. Especially when they start meeting up in her room in the middle of the night just to talk.

Aly has always loved Jared. He left town when she was just fourteen, but she had loved him longer than that. Aly has loved Jared her entire life. She never expected to see him again, so when he turns up at the apartment she shares with her brother, she looks at it like it’s a gift. Until she starts getting to know him again, Aly doesn’t realize how scarred and tortured Jared is from the inside out. He blames himself for his mother’s death and has told himself that he doesn’t get to be happy. On the contrary, he needs to honor his mom the only way he knows how. By punishing himself. Night after night as they lay in her bed talking, Aly tries to get Jared to open up about that day so long ago.

As Jared and Aly become closer day-by-day, Jared realizes that he can never have what he wants. He can never have Aly. All he’s earned is a lifetime of misery. Aly makes him want to believe, but he knows he has to do his penance. Jared doesn’t get Aly and it kills him that he never will. When he leaves her, he expects to feel righteous for doing the right thing. What he comes to find out about himself is that he can’t give Aly up even if it means dishonoring his mom’s memory.

Oh my heart. It hurt while I was reading this book. Jared is one of the most tortured heroes I have read. He blames himself for something that happened when he was sixteen and has never recovered. He’s been in jail, lost his father, mother, and sister and if he doesn’t get his shit together, he will lose Aly. This book was so angsty. If you don’t like angst, I highly suggest passing this book up. I could only read for ten minutes at a time because this book was so incredibly emotional. A.L. Jackson has surpassed all my expectations, only getting better with each book I read.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5.

Closer to You

four-half-stars


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Review: The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James

Posted November 13, 2019 by Holly in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. JamesReviewer: Holly
The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James
Narrator: Mary Jane Wells
Publisher: NAL
Publication Date: April 7, 2015
Format: eBook, Audiobook
Source: Library, Audible Escape
Point-of-View: First
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Content Warning: View Spoiler »
Genres: Gothic, Paranormal Romance
Pages: 319
Length: 9 hours and 58 minutes
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Holly's 2019 GoodReads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars

The award-winning author of The Haunting of Maddy Clare and Silence for the Dead, presents another mesmerizing gothic story of intrigue...

London, 1925. Glamorous medium Gloria Sutter made her fortune helping the bereaved contact loved ones killed during the Great War. Now she's been murdered at one of her own séances, after leaving a message requesting the help of her former friend and sole rival, Ellie Winter.

Ellie doesn't contact the dead—at least, not anymore. She specializes in miraculously finding lost items. Still, she can't refuse the final request of the only other true psychic she has known. Now Ellie must delve into Gloria's secrets and plunge back into the world of hucksters, lowlifes, and fakes. Worse, she cannot shake the attentions of handsome James Hawley, a damaged war veteran who has dedicated himself to debunking psychics.

As Ellie and James uncover the sinister mysteries of Gloria's life and death, Ellie is tormented by nightmarish visions that herald the grisly murders of those in Gloria's circle. And as Ellie’s uneasy partnership with James turns dangerously intimate, an insidious evil force begins to undermine their quest for clues, a force determined to bury the truth, and whoever seeks to expose it...

The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James is available for the Audible Escape package. I downloaded it after finishing Silence for the Dead, because I wanted more from St. James and because I enjoyed the narrator, Mary Jane Wells, quite a bit. This gothic romance is perfect for the fall season.

Ellie Winter is a psychic Medium. When a rival Medium, Gloria Sutter, is murdered and her brother shows up asking for Ellie’s help in finding her, Ellie agrees reluctantly. She and Gloria had been friends once upon a time, but Gloria betrayed Ellie in a devastating way and they hadn’t spoken in years. If Gloria hadn’t left a note with her brother “Tell Ellie Winter to find me”, Ellie probably would have told him no. As it is, despite her anger and hurt over Gloria’s betrayal, she can’t walk away.

James Hawley is an investigator for the “New Society”. He, and his colleagues, try to verify or debunk psychics. He was instrumental in declaring Ellie’s mother a fraud, but something about their case has always bothered him. As the only verified true psychic – something he helped prove – Gloria had a lot of notoriety in London. Discovering if his findings are part of the reason she was murdered has James helping Ellie.

This is the second novel by St. James I’ve read. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first, but it was still a creepy, lovely tale. I quite enjoyed the setting – mid 1920s London – and the glimpse into the life of a true Medium who can see and summon spirits. Ellie’s talent in that regard came across well. I enjoyed her as whole, in fact. She was independent and strong, yet had a vein of vulnerability and loneliness running through her that made her easy to connect with.

I enjoyed the mystery of why Gloria Sutter was murdered, and by whom. I had the majority of things figured out, but still there were some twists and turns I didn’t see coming. This was a cozy, atmospheric Gothic novel not to be missed.

Rating: 4 out of 5

four-stars


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Guest Review: The Sound of Glass by Karen White

Posted November 9, 2016 by Tina R in Reviews | 1 Comment

Guest Review: The Sound of Glass by Karen WhiteReviewer: Tina
The Sound of Glass by Karen White
Publisher: NAL
Publication Date: May 12th 2015
Genres: Women's Fiction
Pages: 432
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-half-stars

The New York Times bestselling author of A Long Time Gone now explores a Southern family’s buried history, which will change the life of the woman who unearths it, secret by shattering secret.

It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward’s husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news—Cal’s family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal’s reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt.

Charting the course of an uncertain life—and feeling guilt from her husband’s tragic death—Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal’s unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff. This unknown legacy, now Merritt’s, will change and define her as she navigates her new life—a new life complicated by the arrival of her too young stepmother and ten-year-old half-brother.

Soon, in this house of strangers, Merritt is forced into unraveling the Heyward family past as she faces her own fears and finds the healing she needs in the salt air of the Low Country.

I absolutely adore Southern Women’s Fiction. Although I am not sure what originally got me hooked, I have become a die-hard fan. Any book in this genre will eventually find it’s way not only onto my TBR pile, but also into my heart. The Sound of Glass by Karen White is no exception.

I have many books by Karen White on my Kindle. On exact count, I have twelve. Unfortunately, The Sound of Glass is not one of them. I actually picked this one up on a recent trip to the library.

This book got my attention for several reasons. First of all, the author is Karen White. Nothing left to say about that fact. Then of course it is Southern fiction. Also, being a fan of the author as I am, you can’t help but notice that the majority of her books have gorgeous covers! They pretty much dare you to pull them off the shelf. The deal was sealed when I read the back cover. I knew I would be reading this book before the day was over.

The Sound of Glass is an exquisitely written story of the complex interconnecting lives of a family. It is chocked full of all the drama and raw emotion that you can expect when a vast array of injured and imperfect personalities come together. I found all the characters to be realistically portrayed and highly deserving of the compassion that the reader feels towards them. I finished the book knowing that this would be one that I would remember and recommend.

The Sound of Glass couldn’t be a more perfect title for this book. Just like the sensation of shattering glass, the story is explosive, unexpected and often composed of jagged and sharp edges. It is an exceptional portrayal of a dysfunctional family unit. I was truly affected by this powerful tale.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

four-half-stars


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