Take the title literally.

Life is full of uncertainty, so what happens when a what-if from your past collides with your present?

Kaitlyn Thomas, a weary wife and mother, is taking a much needed getaway with her friends. All she wants to do is relax and rejuvenate on her weekend escape to the beach. Having a drink at the bar with the girls sounds like the perfect way to unwind. That is, until Kaitlyn hears a familiar voice from the stage that shakes her to her core. She grapples with her memory until Chris King, the lead singer of the band, walks up to her and eliminates the questions in her mind.

Chris King…the misunderstood bad boy who once saved her in ways that no one else could. 

Kaitlyn’s friends beg to know the story behind this mystery man. Forced to revisit a painful past from which she has spent years trying to heal, Kaitlyn's recollection of Chris awakens intense feelings that she has kept buried deep inside her heart. Has time changed him, or is he still the same person Kaitlyn fell in love with so many years ago? 

Marriage vows are sacred, but temptation is a powerful thing.
Seeing Chris again has caused a war between her head and her heart. In the end, which one will win the battle? Facing a difficult decision, Kaitlyn just wants to be sure of one thing when she walks away from this weekend—no regrets.
********************************

You find out that the woman you have been in "love" with for over 10 years and had an one time hook up/affair with 5 years prior got knocked up and never told you about it, but you love her oh so much and she seems oh so happy that all you do is set up an education fund for said kid that is obviously yours and then walk away.  Fuck that shit.

Yeah, yeah.  He did it for the best because the kid seems happy and doesn't know any different, but hey guess what.  The kid deserves to know different. The dad deserves to know different. Especially if the only reason you didn't bother to let him know was because you and your husband decided to work things out.  No thank you.  At least give the dad, who you claimed to also love, have a fucking choice in the matter.  These story lines piss me off.  It pissed me off the first time I read a book with it, but at least the rest of that book was good enough to offset it even if I absolutely hated it and demanded a new ending (I didn't get it, but just throwing it out there that I still really want a different one) and she had the balls to tell both men, not just her husband.  Can't say that with this one.  I can't pinpoint any one thing that made me dislike this book, it was more of my overall feeling of it.  I never connected with the characters, and in turn just had to skim most of it to get to the end, which spawned above rant. It was just not my scene.

1.5 Stars.

I'm apparently still on a book reading/reviewing hiatus.  I'm currently using any spare time to mentally calculate exactly how much tequila I can get away with drinking while at Book Bash (which just so happens to be right after closing. Score) next month and still be able to function enough to avoid having to make the best friend carry me everywhere.  If I actually had the time, I'd start pre-staging now.  Alas, the Navy, home buying (I'm almost positive that they are going to ask me to provide my first born and a DNA sample next), moving and baseball season is taking away from pre-staging, much less book reading.  

Anyway, house buying is fun.  House buying while actively trying to deal with moving Navy style sans husband due to an insane boat schedule is super fun.  Woo.  Three more weeks plus Book Bash recovery time, and I'm going to read so much that I might as well glue my iPad directly to my hand to avoid any possible lapse in reading time.  

Meh

I was going to write a review, but then I saw that Pitch Perfect was on tv so I opted to watch that for the 2 millionth time instead.  3 out of 5 stars. 

Rock Angel Review

 *Arc received via Netgalley for an honest review. 

Shan is young, beautiful, talented, and addicted to heroin in Rock Angel, a novel that follows her meteoric rise to guitar goddess stardom in the 90’s. She is discovered in New York by a handsome, arrogant musical genius named Quinn, and sparks fly between them when he hires her as lead guitarist of his band. Although Quinn is accustomed to bedding a different groupie every night, he can’t ignore his deepening feelings for his new band mate. From gritty Greenwich Village clubs to L.A.’s Troubadour; gigging and touring the country to the cover of Rolling Stone, Rock Angel is infused with the passionate music and intense sexual chemistry of Shan and Quinn. Shan must work out her personal demons and learn to trust Quinn enough to love him, but still remain true to the music that has always been her salvation.
*******************************

I'm going to cut straight to the point with this one.  Rock Angel is one of the best books centered around music that I have read in a long fucking time.  It's not without it's flaws, but even then I was hooked to every moment. It hit those cords that anyone who lived and loved the music of the time would understand.  Though the music played a huge part into making this book, it was Shan, and in turn her relationship with Quinn (think Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore, but with a happier ending), that made this something special.

I don't want to do a full review this far out from the release date in September, so I'm going to keep this (relatively) vague.

The hardest hitting point with this book is Shan's heroin addiction.  Anyone who even paid even the slightest attention to music in the 90s knows how much it was a part of the music scene.  How many people it took and lives it ruined.  Shan's addiction throughout the book was handled in such a way that this was constantly on your mind.  You could feel her struggles with it on every page. You ached with her she tried to get clean..and when she relapsed again.  And you respected her because even despite this struggle, she never stopped trying.  Addiction is a bitch to kick and nothing in this book made you think otherwise. I respected that more than anything else.

Shan's addiction made have been the hardest hitting point in this, but the relationship between Shan and Quinn was the most impactful.  You walked with them through their first meeting, falling in love, their troubles (and there was a lot of them) and back again. Everything was laid bare through the music they wrote together and their everyday interaction.  Nothing was ever easy for them and they fought for what they had, which in the end made everything a little sweeter.

Rock Angel is something special.  Maybe it's just because the 90s had such a big impact on me, so a love story set in that time would mean even more to me. It wasn't just that though.  It's angsty and hard-hitting, while also being poetic and beautiful.  It makes you feel...to remember what it was like back then. I loved every sweet and painful moment.

So kudos to the author on this.  I think she really nailed this debut novel.  4 out of 5 Stars.

See Through Me Review

*ARC received from author via NetGalley for a fair and honest review. 

There's only one person Katie Flynn wants to see when she returns home. But she knows he won't be waiting for her. It's the reason she feels safe enough to finally come back.

She's wrong.

Ash Townsend isn't the same quiet boy from next door. He's tall, dark and demanding answers. He wants her, but he doesn't trust her. Who can blame him? When his own family tried to break him down, he still sheltered her in a town full of liars. And she repaid it by leaving him behind without a word.

Because she'll do anything to protect him. She has the scars on her wrist to prove it.

******************************

See Through Me did not live up to it's potential for me. There was enough there to make it an incredibly interesting story, but in the end, it just never fully formed as a story and ended all to abruptly. Yes, yes we get warned beforehand that there are two sides of the story, so to expect a cliffhanger. It wasn't a cliffhanger so much as screeching halt though. 

This book tells us the story of Katie and Ash, in present time and through flashbacks from their tween years on. They both had a rough childhood, in different ways, but found a way to find peace in their friendship and eventual romance. This entire book focused on that, with a little side bit of stalker(ish) drama thrown in. It was that drama that messed up this book for me. It reached that grey area where it was not enough to brush aside, but yet not fleshed out enough to understand why it was there in the first place. I assume that was to draw you into the second book in the series, but it didn't work for me. 

In the end, I just didn't have enough to go on, for anything really. So much happened, and yet none of it was fully formed for me. I wanted to like Katie and Ash, because I liked the idea of them together, but I never felt like I was able too. Maybe once we get Ash's story the everything will come together. Sometimes we really do need two sides of the story. 


2.75 Stars--(because I feel like being difficult tonight)

Update 

The author has decided to tweak the ending to give us more of a resolution at the end. Let me rephrase, not a resolution but ends the book at a different point so you have more of an understanding of what is going on. My biggest problem with the original book was that it came to a screeching halt. So much was thrown at you, but we had absolutely nothing to go on. The new ending changed some of that. It's still ends with a massive cliffhanger, which you are warned about beforehand, but at least you still have SOME clue about what is going on, which does help the overall feel of the book and makes me actually want to know more. I still want to read the next book before I form a complete opinion, but now I'm more inclined to do that than I originally was.  I'm bumping my rating up some for that, it's still only around 3 stars though. 

On a unrelated note, I have a lot of respect for an author who was willing to take the initial criticism of the book so respectfully. Even more so that she is willing to use that criticism to put out a more finished product.

Nope.

Broken, was just that. Broken. 

The dialogue was stilted and came off very juvenile most of the time. This just created so many problems with the book. The main characters had no chemistry. The dramatic aspects of the book lacked any kind of actual suspense. I think the worst part of this was that the storyline of the trauma that Bailey faced prior to moving to Chicago was handled terribly and very unrealistically. At least a year of trying to ignore and repress a supposed major sexual trauma and she goes to one short counseling session and she is okay? I get that this was a short book and the storyline was moving along in hyperdrive. Seriously, even Han Solo would have been impressed with the speed at which this book progressed. Anyway, she does continue with therapy, but it really bothered me how she had been struggling for that long and all of the sudden she is no longer broken and has no problem facing her ex. 

So. I can't say that this was absolutely terrible. However, it most definitely was not good. If there is some serious tweaking of the dialogue, pacing, and general "feel" of the book, there may be potential for the storyline.

My Rating 1 out of 5 Stars. 


Arc provided by NetGalley for an honest review. 

Dirty Angels Pre-Order

Karina Halle has the preorder for Dirty Angels, the spin-off of the Artist's Trilogy, up for $.99!  It goes up to $3.99 after it releases on June 15, so now's the time.  

 http://amzn.com/DirtyAngels

Songs of Submission Series Review

Do I really need to say much more?  No, no I don't. I will anyway though.  

Possible slight spoilers ahead..

The Songs of Submission is a serial of 7 novellas navigating the (somewhat) BDSM relationship between Monica and Johnathan.  It's been a while since I ventured back into this genre of book for a couple of reasons.  One was it got to be too "popular".  That's probably not the right word for it, but it seemed to be the go to topic for recent releases.  Two, the few books that I did read in the genre, it always seemed to revolve around BDSM being a repercussion of something being emotionally "wrong" with one or both of the people involved in the relationship.  I can't say that there isn't heavy emotional baggage that could be a potential reason for Johnathan's need for control, but I can say that Monica never sees it as something that she has to cure.  That alone makes this serial worth a shot for me.  Anyway.  

The biggest plus I can give this, was that it was hot.  Hot even for me and I'm actually fairly immune to sex scenes in books now.  I can read them, I can acknowledge the fact that they would be hot, but that acknowledgement is about the end for me.  This one actually had me attempting to create a bubble of actual personal space to keep my ever so wonderful children away from me while I read.  Did I eventually get tired of all of the sex scenes? Yes, but I read this entire serial in a day.  It probably would have been different if I read everything spaced out.  Too much of a good thing never works out to my advantage.

The biggest negative I can give was that it got a little redundant after a while.  Too much drama.  Too many lies.  Too many doubts.  Too many break ups(ish).   It just got a little hard to wade through all of the crap to get to the heart of everything.  It wasn't impossible though, so that is at least something.  I will also say that I didn't really care for Sing.  It was probably the strongest book, relationship wise though.  It just seemed a little, out of place maybe?  I guess after 6 books of doubts and struggles, seeing it all finally snap together for both Monica and Johnathan--in the face of a serious medical issue--seemed slightly like a cop out.  I would have rather they found that without such dire circumstances...

So, overall I really, really enjoyed this serial. It had it's moments of me wanting to slam my head onto the nearest hard surface, but for the most part it was intriguing with just the right amount of steam to keep me going.  

My rating--3.75 out of 5 Stars. 

Another Outlander Trailer too!

Outlander Premiere Date!

The Greatest Buzzfeed post ever.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kitties

Rocked by Taryn Elliott

Opening for their idols on their first tour, Oblivion is living the dream. Mostly. Frustrated at being shoved out of his mediator role by their new manager, Deacon McCoy loses himself in brutal workouts. He only comes up for air long enough to refuel—and to tease the deliciously cute chef who makes him crave a lot more than what she's offering on her serving plate.

As the child of roadie parents, Harper Pruitt has heard every pickup line twice. To her, musicians are one step above the scraps on her cutting board. All she wants is to get enough experience to run her own catering company, but Deacon and his bottomless stomach are too tempting to resist. He's far from the typical rock star and before long, she finds herself experimenting with him, inside and out of the kitchen. 

Apron - and panties - optional.

When Harper sees that Deacon’s dream band with his best friends may be turning into a nightmare, she can't walk away. Deacon's so much more than just a peacemaker and the man behind the bass. But she has her own dreams to chase...even if she's starting to think what she's building with him might be the biggest one of all

***********************************************

Rocked was a well written, intriguing, and hot with a capital H, book.  It was also incredibly drawn out and repetitive book too though, with an ending that left me wishing for something different.

Rocked is centered around the relationship between Harper and Deacon.  Harper is a former roadie and recently graduated chef with a jaded view of the rock 'n roll lifestyle.  Deacon is the bassist of the up and coming band, Oblivion, who isn't your typical just making it big rock star.  The two meet on tour, where Harper is just starting out on her career as a sous chef with the caterers for the tour. Insert sparks between the two here.

 Harper is really hesitant for anything more than a hook up.  She has been there, done that and came home with a t-shirt.  Deacon, however, pushes for more from the start.  It makes for an interesting dynamic between the two.  The biggest problem with this, is that this dynamic just ends up extremely repetitive after a while.  Honestly, there is only so much sex and so much relationship questioning (on Harper's part) that I can take.  I think that we could have done without a few chapters of this book and still wouldn't have lost the understanding on their relationship.  I can't really say that it messes up the book, per se, but that was primarily because I just skimmed a good chunk of the second half.

While the relationship between Harper and Deacon was interesting, I think the band itself was the thing that really made this book for me.  Oblivion is just starting to make it bad, so we really got to see their journey from getting discovered, to touring, to finally getting that record deal and all of the troubles and joys in between.  There is a prequel book that shows how the band got together, but I have not read it yet.  I'd say that it won't affect your understanding of this book, but I plan to check it out anyway just in case.  Anyway.  At times, the band kind of overshadowed Deacon's relationship, but that really isn't a bad thing. Especially since it was the relationship aspect that got so repetitive.

Overall, this book is definitely worth reading.  Be prepared to skim if you aren't into tons and tons of sex and drama, but give it a shot regardless.

3.5 Stars.

*ARC provided via Netgalley for an honest review.

See Through Me Review

*ARC received from author via NetGalley for a fair and honest review. 

See Through Me did not live up to it's potential for me.  There was enough there to make it an incredibly interesting story, but in the end, it just never fully formed as a story and ended all to abruptly. Yes, yes we get warned beforehand that there are two sides of the story, so to expect a cliffhanger.   It wasn't a cliffhanger so much as screeching halt though.

This book tells us the story of Katie and Ash, in present time and through flashbacks from their tween years on.  They both had a rough childhood, in different ways, but found a way to find peace in their friendship and eventual romance. This entire book focused on that, with a little side bit of stalker(ish) drama thrown in.  It was that drama that messed up this book for me.  It reached that grey area where it was not enough to brush aside, but yet not fleshed out enough to understand why it was there in the first place.  I assume that was to draw you into the second book in the series, but it didn't work for me.

In the end, I just didn't have enough to go on, for anything really.  So much happened, and yet none of it was fully formed for me.  I wanted to like Katie and Ash, because I liked the idea of them together, but I never felt like I was able too.  Maybe once we get Ash's story the everything will come together.  Sometimes we really do need two sides of the story.

My Rating--2.75 Stars (because I feel like being difficult tonight)

This.

This is what horror novels should strive to be.  Full of suspense, creepy, disturbing, but yet not having to rely on gore and overtly descriptive narratives for every aspect.   Those are good in their own right, but to have a book put me completely on edge despite not ever getting a clear sense of what is going on.  Well, that my friends is a horror story. 

“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it has stood for eighty years and might stand eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

4.5 out of 5 Stars. 

Link to purchase http://amzn.com/HillHouse

Not a Review of Rome by Jay Crownover.

So, I don't really have anything of major importance to say about Rome.  I didn't really love it, but I didn't hate it either.  It was just one of those books that was relatively entertaining while I was reading it, but it really won't stick with me now that I am done with it either.  The best thing that I can say is that we got to see more of Rule (Shaw too, but whatever) in it. One can never have too much of the tattooed and pierced wonder that is Rule in their lives.  It was, however, a huge improvement of the clusterfuck that was the "metal god" in purple skinny jeans, also known as Jet.  My brain still hurts from that one.  Anyhoo.  Rome. Good, but no Rule.


I will say that the set up for Nash and Saint's story seems like it could be one that I really dig though.  We'll see though I guess.  In the meantime it will be worth it just to see more Rule (sigh).

3 out of 5 Stars.

Link to Purchase  http://amzn.com/Rome

Side note.  Are tattoos while pregnant something that is acceptable in Denver?  That bugged the hell out of me.  My tattoo artist is a friend, but hell would freeze over before she would be willing to tattoo me while pregnant or breastfeeding...

Innocents by The Elizabeths Cover Reveal!

This is one of the books that I am most excited about this year.  I've actually read it before when it was the fan fiction story, Dusty.  I hated/loved it.  I'm pretty sure that my review was a huge rambling mess about how much I hated every single person in the book and how horrible it was.  But I could not stop reading it.  Thirty-eight chapters and over 1k pages, took me an entire day, a 2 hour power nap at like 6 am, and then on to finishing it after I woke up.  I then proceeded to pretty much lose my mind over the end and join twitter so I can make sure that the authors knew how much I hated them (in a good way.  Kind of).  Then I goaded my best friend into reading it also, because  misery loves company. 

Honestly, this book isn't for everyone.  When I say that there is not a redeeming character in the entire book, I'm not joking.  They all suck.  It was so well-written though and such a heartbreaking look into characters with serious flaws like addiction, narcissism, absenteeism, idiot-ism, abuse, among others, that I was hooked beyond belief to the story.  The two authors each bring something different to the writing, one who writes all of the shitty stuff and another to pretty it up.  It's a good combination. 

Anyway, the Elizabeths decided to break this up into two books for publishing, so Innocents is only the first half.  Good for the sanity, horrible for the patience.  So, if you are someone who is okay with reading a book that has absolutely no redeeming characters, all of whom you wish you could actually reach through the book to bitch slap, and actually like it, look for this on July 14, 2014.  

I'll be buying myself & the best friend a paperback copy so we can systematically torture ourselves one more time.