Cover Reveal - ALLEGIANT by Sara Mack (The Guardian Trilogy #2)

Happy Birthday Emma!!!

In celebration of this occassion Tara's Reads is happy to announce the release date for Allegiant!

That's right book 2 in the Guardian Trilogy by Sara Mack will be released on...drum roll please...
 

Dane's Birthday...
OCTOBER 6th !!!
 

Guardian was one of my favorite books of 2013 - 5 star read for me, so I am bouncing up and down excited to be a part of the cover release for the next book in the series. 
Here is a link to my review of Guardian:

http://tarasreads.blogspot.com/2013/06/guardian-guardian-trilogy-1-sara-mack.html

And because I LOVED this book so much, I am absolutely thrilled to be able to bring you the cover reveal and synopsis for it's sequel, Allegiant!!!!

I CAN NOT WAIT to read this book!

So without further delay...here is the beautiful cover...

 

Synopsis:
Last Summer, Emma discovered that true love never dies.

It can return.

It can give you hope.

It can pull you from darkness.

Until it’s ripped from you.

Again.

 

As her 22^nd birthday approaches, Emma Donohue finds herself back at school and utterly alone.  Hours away from family and friends, her solitary days are spent contemplating what never should have been.  James should never have died, but he did.  He should never have been assigned as her Guardian, but he was.  And she should never have allowed Dane to get too close to her heart.

 

But she failed.

 

Desperate to fill her time, Emma is intrigued by her mysterious new neighbor, Garrett.  She’s never met anyone quite like him before, and, curious, she attempts to discover his past.  Little does she know his presence will pull her into a world she could never imagine.  A world that follows and ancient doctrine.  A world built on loyalty, yet plagued by secrets and lies.

 

A world that will threaten everything – and everyone – she loves.

 

Ahhh...I seriously can.not.wait for this book. 

About the Author:

 

Sara Mack is a Michigan native who grew up with her nose in books. She is a wife and a hockey mom on top of being trapped in a windowless office forty hours a week. Her spare time is spent one-clicking on Amazon and devouring books on her Kindle, cleaning up after her kids and two elderly cats, attempting to keep her flower garden alive, and, of course, writing. She has an unnatural affinity for dark chocolate, iced tea, and bacon. 

 https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sara-Mack/377965205649175

Amazon Link to Guardian

http://www.amazon.com/Guardian-The-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00DMMZRXS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1377530164&sr=1-1&keywords=guardian+sara+mack

 

Barnes & Noble Link to Guardian 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/guardian-sara-mack/1116068366?ean=2940044635517




 



Richmond Author Signing

The Occasionalist Events Presents

 

The Richmond Author Signing

 

Come and visit your favorite authors on Saturday, December 14, 2013 at The Jefferson Hotel, Richmond VA

To see a list of authors attending this signing please visit the website www.theoccasionalist.com

Click on Events & Registration and select Richmond

Registration is required and Tickets are limited

Only register for one group timeframe

Please visit the FAQ's page on the website for additional information

 

 

See the video here:

http://vimeo.com/72771122

Wethering The Storm (The Mighty Storm #2) - Samantha Towle

Music journalist Tru Bennett has done the impossible: capture the heart of rock-star bad boy Jake Wethers. Now they’re busy planning a wedding and navigating their new life together in the US. Of course Tru misses London and her best friend, Simone, but living happily ever after with Jake in LA is going to be great…right?

Wrong. Even the bright California sun can’t whitewash the dark side of celebrity coupledom. Greedy music execs, merciless paparazzi, and Jake’s wild past are lurking around every corner. Making matters worse, Jake announces he doesn’t want kids, which just may be a deal breaker.

Tru loves Jake more than anything. But when a devastating crisis threatens to destroy everything they’ve fought for, the couple must face the hard truth: What if, this time, love is not enough?

“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.”

I loved The Mighty Storm, and I loved Jake Wethers.  It was a love at first read, move to my favorites right away and desires to hug Samantha, kind of love.  It’s because of that love, that I was a little nervous to read this book.  I know, crazy right? Samantha Towle is fabulous, Jake is AH-MAZING, so what is there to be nervous about, right? The thing is, I’ve felt so let down in other “can’t wait to read them” sequels, that it almost changes the entire series in my mind…I did not want that to happen with Jake. 

I picked this book up, and read it in one sitting.  I could not put it down.  I looked at it, said there is no way I’m going to get through 390 pages tonight, set my bookmark in the middle and started reading.  Well, there went dinner and getting to bed on time for work tomorrow, because I could not put it down.  I read it in one sitting, and fell even more in love with Jake than I had been before.  I was mad at myself when I was finished because I missed the story already. 

This Jake, was different than the Jake we had in TMS.  This Jake was more in control, he was happier.  He had his True Love and the world was right for him again, or as right as it could be.  There wasn’t anything else he needed.  “There isn’t anything I won’t do for you, Tru. Nothing I won’t do to make you happy. What I feel for you… it’s limitless. There is nothing before or after you. There is only you.” How could anyone not fall for this guy?!

Tru… well Tru was Tru.  She did things that made me shake my head, she frustrated me, not quite as bad as TMS, but still annoyed me…but it’s not like I didn’t get where she was coming from.  Insecurities are easy to come by when you are living in someone else’s world and that someone else is known as a rock-star, bad-boy, man-whore.  For some reason though, I still just wanted to reach through the book and say…you have Jake, woman-up and take control! And then in the instances where she did, I wanted to clap! I started to feel a little multiple personality disorder coming on.          

I loved that we got both Tru and Jake’s POV in this book.  It was necessary to tell the story completely and I LOVED IT! I loved that we got to see how passionate Jake was.  He didn’t hold back on his feelings for Tru, to her, about her, around her…"You don't complete me, Tru. You make me who I am. You make me better. I'd be nothing without you. Nothing. I've been there once before, and I'm never going back. I'm never losing you again."

I don’t want to say anything that can give away any of the plot, but if you loved TMS, then this story is a must read.  Tru may not “complete” Jake but she made him better, this story makes TMS better!

 

 

Into the Deep (Into the Deep #1) - Samantha Young

Live young. Live hard. Love deep.

Charley Redford was just an ordinary girl until Jake Caplin moved to her small town in Indiana and convinced her she was extraordinary. Almost from day one Jake pulled Charley into the deep and promised he was right there with her. But when a tragic incident darkened Jake’s life he waded out into the shallows and left Charley behind.

Almost four years later Charley thinks she’s moved on. That is until she takes a study year abroad in Edinburgh and bumps into none other than Jake Caplin at a party with his new girlfriend. The bad-boy-turned-good attempts to convince Charley to forgive him, and as her best friend starts spending time with Jake’s, Charley calls a truce, only to find herself tumbling back into a friendship with him.

As they grow closer, the spark between them flares and begins playing havoc with their lives and relationships. When jealousy and longing rear their destructive heads, Charley and Jake struggle to come to grips with what they mean to one another.

And even if they work it out, there is no guarantee Charley will ever trust Jake to lead her back into the deep 

Reading a Samantha Young novel is like being sucked through a portal from an Amy Bartol story.  I fell right through the compact and into Scotland.  This book gave me a little headache, a lot of heartache and my poor friend Cristin, a sore hand from having to hold mine all the way through… Samantha Young stole my heart, and I want it back!!! 

“Do you promise to take care of me for the rest of forever, Jacob Caplin?” His eyes were grave as he replied, “I promise.  For the rest of forever.”

Charley Reford is a tough girl.   She’s a smart-ass with a good heart and does what she wants to do, which is usually the right thing.  She not like a lot of girls, she doesn’t get involved in gossip and drama. 

Jake Caplin is the new kid in town.  He’s the smooth talking, reformed player, who gets Charley to open up and let him in – until he slams the door shut and breaks her heart. 

It’s been 3 ½ years since Jake broke his promise to Charley and left her broken and not quite the girl she was before he came into her life.  But Charley had set goals, and she was sticking to them.  She wanted  to go to college, do a study abroad year in Scotland and become a cop.  While the cop part is still be negotiated with the family that loves her, she is going to college and when Into the Deep starts, has just gotten to Scotland with her college roommate, Claudia.  She’s a world away from Indiana, and still trying to move on with her life.

After meeting an American hottie, Beck, with a party flyer, they decide to go out and try to make new friends before classes start.  It was almost instant, my connection to Charley.  I felt like I could feel what she was feeling almost right away, excitement about a new city and living out one of her dreams and getting to do it with her best friend by her side.  And then I felt the pang of heartache when Charley and Jake’s eyes meet across the party (especially since he was with his girlfriend).  I held my breath as she ran away from him, and the party, and I didn’t want her to turn around when he called after her.  I didn’t know what he did, but I knew he was going to break my heart – umm, her heart.   

This book takes us back and forth between the present in Scotland and the past in Indiana.  As we move through the story, we get to see what happened between Charley and Jake in the past, that has them reacting to each other the way they do in the present.  We could see and hear and feel the things only two people who knew each other inside out would know.  “Stop acting like you know me.” The muscle in his jaw ticked.  “A little hard to do…because I do know you.”  Thus commenced a death stare match.  We glared into one another’s eyes, neither refusing to give in, and then suddenly, memories of arguments ending in kisses flared behind my eyes.  I knew the moment Jake remembered too because the air between us wasn’t angry anymore…”  I felt like I was barely hanging on the entire time. 

Since they met Beck (Jake’s best friend), and were introduced to his group of friends (also Jake’s group of friends) the torture for Charley continued as she had to not only be around Jake, but around Jake with Melissa.  I’m telling you TORTURE! I felt like I was going through it too.  And while the guys seemed to love Charley, and Lowe was great, I just couldn’t let myself open up to the possibility that anyone could replace the kind of love that they had found, even though they were only 16 and even though Jake seemed to have found it with Melissa.  It was killing me.

But the description is right…once you’ve been broken so badly by someone, can you ever really truly forgive them and move on? Would it show him how much she moved on, if she could move on with one of his friends?

Samantha Young brings us the first piece of this incredible story, and I for one will be cursing her until we get book 2 in 2014. 

 

 

Donate to the American Heart Association for a chance to win signed books!!!!

I have had the privilege of teaming up with some amazing authors in an effort to raise money for the American Heart Association. 

Please click on the link below to see the books that are available PLUS a doodle from 

Dooodles by Christina!

http://authorssavinghearts.blogspot.com/

There are some awesome books to be claimed!

Indebted (The Premonition Series #3) - Amy A. Bartol

I hang my head in sorrow for just a moment when I know I am truly alone. I feel like I’m going to my execution, just as he had said. Then I move forward again. I hop a fence of fieldstone and cross a field dotted with Queen Anne’s lace. Goose bumps rise on my arms as I pass the cluster of windmills that I have seen in a dream. The scent is sweet in the field though, not the scent of heat, like it had been when it was forced upon me in visions. I gaze down the hill, beyond the small, whitewashed house that I knew would be there. The church looms dark and grim with its rough-hewn, timber façade, capped by tall, oblong spires reaching to the sky. Black, ominous clouds have collected above the roofline, as if Heaven is showing me the way. 

80% of this book was 4.5 – 5 star material for me.  It was a little slow going in the beginning but once it picked up, I had trouble putting it down.  Even when I had to put it down for those pesky things like going to work, making dinner, etc., I was still thinking about it.  So much so, that even my thoughts started to have a brogue.  Thank goodness my friends are patient with me as a I was throwing out “moin” “dem” and “da fellas” here and there.   

Once the book picked up, it was action packed and I loved it.  While the first book was mostly about Evie and her relationships, each book since has picked up more on the paranormal aspects of the story and with that more twist and turns that I still didn’t see coming.  You’d think by now I’d be better at it, but I’m always too focused on Russell and Reed…and I’ll admit it, even Brennus! That undead faerie is working his way into my heart too.  Damn you Amy Bartol!!! 

I was a bit frustrated by Evie in this book.  Her need to protect Reed and Russell causes her to be irrational and make what could be considered bad decisions.  She wants Reed to treat her like an equal, but she doesn’t communicate with him either.  I just wanted to shake her and yell at her, or really I wanted Zee to do it because I think he wanted to as well.   

On the flip side, this does help her “relationship” with Brennus, because he does listen to her and include her and… OH mo Dhia mo chroi bocht – Nil a fhios agam ce mhead nios mo is feidir liom a ghlacadh (I don’t know if that translates directly, and I know it’s missing accent marks, but it seemed more appropriate in Irish). 

The one thing I do love about Evie in this book, is that she is getting stronger and learning to use more of her gifts to protect her and her families.  (Yup! I said families – ugh!) I also LOVE that Russell is getting stronger too, still swooning even though I love Reed too, there is just something about Russell!  

Okay, then there is the thing that I really didn’t like…and that was the ending…and that’s mostly because there wasn’t really one! The story just kind of stopped.  Thank God I didn’t have to wait for book 4 because it is already out – but I can’t imagine if I was reading this at the time it was just released. I think I would have flipped, I feel for those that were in that situation.  I had to check twice to make sure I wasn’t missing pages on my Kindle.  Personally, I think there were places before it in the story that would have made for a better place to stop.  Luckily, the rest of the book more than makes up for it AND book 4 is already out so I have already started reading it.   

“I can feel ye in my bones.  I crave the innocence in ye; even as I want ta take it from ye, so dat I can teach ye whah lies beyond dat innocence.  I love ye, mo chroi,” he whispers, “I will love ye forever.”

The obsession continues…