4 SMOOCHES!
SYNOPSIS:
I don’t have a damn thing in common with the beautiful rich girl who walks into my bar; she’s southern class, fancy cars, and designer shoes.
I’ve got a drunk for a mother, a cheater for a father, and a reputation for trouble I’ve more than earned.
I look the other way, pretending I don’t notice how perfect she is. She wouldn’t give me the time of day anyway. Until she shatters that first impression and shows me she’s so much more—everything I never thought I deserved.
After a lifetime of being a disappointment, I want to prove to her that I’m better than my past.
We have one tragic thing in common, and the thread that binds us together will tear us apart as it unravels.
Are we strong enough to break through The Bars Between Us?
REVIEW:
This is my fourth time reading A.S. Teague. I absolutely loved her Undisputed series, a fighter series. The Bars Between Us is a standalone. Having read all of A.S. Teague’s books up to this point, I can honestly say that this talented author has a knack for stringing together beautiful, meaningful words. Her stories never fail to deliver a solid blow to the feels, they’re sexy, and they’re hard-won happily-ever-afters. The Bars Between Us was no different.
A fantastic example of not judging a book by its cover, The Bars Between Us is the story of two seemingly different people who took a chance and looked beyond the surface, and in doing so, found more than either of them bargained for in the other person. Bonding over a shared history of loss, grief, pain and abuse, Grace and Bronn connected instantly. The chemistry between them sizzled from their encounter, but even more than that, they found a kindred spirit in each other that both characters recognized almost immediately.
I did, however, have a few issues with this book that affected my overall reading experience, which is why I’m giving it four smooches instead of five. I’m a very dialogue and interaction centric reader. I found that there was a great deal of internal dialogue, bordering on too much, and as a result, I found myself longing for more interaction between the characters. There were scenes where the characters were in the same room, but the reader was in the head of one of the characters instead of experiencing some sort of communication between the two of them. There were several points throughout this story where the internal, single-character reflections went on a bit too long for my taste, and I found that those parts didn’t hold my attention and left me fighting the urge to skim over them. It did get to be a bit frustrating for me after a while, but thankfully, those passages were followed up by fantastic scenes (that more than made up for the previous scenes’ frustration!) between the characters that definitely got – and held – my attention. The bottom line is that I wanted more of Grace AND Bronn together, and less of Grace OR Bronn individually.
Ultimately, though, despite those issues – which, again, were a matter of my personal taste – I found The Bars Between Us to be a poignant and beautiful love story, full of passion and healing and hope. It was richly developed, and readers will find a gorgeous and very sexy love story within these pages. A.S. Teague’s The Bars Between Us gets four smooches from me.
~ Danielle Palumbo
