4 Smooches!

Synopsis

Josie Banks is a girl without a past.  After being found unconscious with no memory, she was shuffled in and out of foster homes where she suffered years of abuse. An experience that left her broken, damaged, and clinging to drugs and meaningless hook-ups to numb her pain.

When Josie disappeared years ago, she took a piece of Tristan with her.  She’s the girl he thought he lost forever—the one he’s never been able to forget.  Now a twist of fate has brought them back together, and he never wants to let her out of his inked arms again.  But Tristan is haunted by a dark past of his own.  On the run from ruthless criminals that shattered Josie’s world years ago, reentering her life puts them both in danger.

As Josie and Tristan’s lives become tangled once again, they find themselves unwilling and unable to escape the relentless pull that draws them together.  But in Season Vining’s Beautiful Addictions, will the past leave their love in ruins—or bind them together for a lifetime?

Reviews

Meet Josie, a broken young women with amnesia. Thrust into the witness protection programme and countless foster homes after her father was murdered. She has no recollection of how and why her father was murdered or anything from her past. To numb the pain of her forgotten life and the abuse she suffered in foster care she drowns herself in booze and drugs.

Then Tristan comes into her life, a boy from her past who was in love with the person she used to be ‘Mackenzie.’ Tristan is desperate to find the girl he loved within Josie while battling his own demons. Not only that Josie’s horrific past is now catching up to her and she is no longer safe hidden under the identity the whiteness protection programme gave her.

Parts me of me LOVED this story. It was full of suspense, passion, love, redemption,heart breaking story lines, characters I enjoyed reading about and a good plot.

I loved Josie. Some people may find her difficult to connect with but I felt her pain, I felt her heartbreak at how her life had turned out and I admired that, despite being broken, she was still strong by just surviving in the first place and by doing things such as helping out the other kids on the street with food.

Tristan is someone I have definitely added to by BBF list. I liked that he was slightly different to most male leads I read about. A bit of a geek but it suited him and he embraced it, and it was sexy on him. He was a bit more reserved but still had a powerful presence and I could feel his desperation for wanting Josie to come back to life and his love for her.

The plot was also really captivating. It dragged you in pretty much from the beginning. The first scene we have with Moloney hooks you in and you know something bad is going to happen to Josie and that her life is no longer a secret, that she is no longer safe. The story line between Tristan and Josie really broke my heart. When they are at the diner on one of their first meets and Tristan remembers the girl he loved and Josie has no recollection of it; the author really made me feel the sadness of their heart wrenching, unfair lives.

There were lots of surprises and twists and turns that kept you reading page after page. Different story lines like Josie and Tristan’s relationship, the crime involvement, whether her memory would return etc, all kept the story interesting and left me wanting more.

However the reason I can’t give it a 5 star rating is that there were just too many points of view. The chapters kept changing to different characters POV and even within a chapter, swapping between different people. Honestly it got confusing who’s POV I was reading and it was hard keeping up with many characters and what part they had to play within the story; Tristan, Josie, Monica, Moloney, Alex, Mort, Rob etc, I just felt like there were too many people and it was a bit hard to keep up.

The ending was as explosive as I knew it would be. When we get a look into some of the characters lives in the future it was both uplifting and heart breaking. I have to admit I shed a tear when we look at what Rob is doing.

I do have to state one of my favourite lines from the book;
“Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again”

Overall this was a brilliant dark and gritty story, from an author who’s work I haven’t read before but after this book I will definitely keep a look out for more.

Bethany

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3 Smooches

Synopsis

4 Smooches!

Synopsis

She thought she was stepping into fame:

Meeting Drezden Halifax should have been a dream. But dreams are supposed to be sweet, fragile things that whisk you away. Not monsters crafted from hard fingers, gritty vocal cords and a voice so powerful it could tear my guts right out.

Maybe my heart, too.

Becoming the guitarist for Four and a Half Headstones was everything I needed.

Too bad the band’s lead singer is doing his best to ruin everything I am.

He thought she would solve his troubles:

Lola Cooper, god damn Lola Cooper. She was the perfect guitarist, fingers that could summon a sweet song or punch a chord. She’s supposed to save my band, make us come out of this tour in one piece…

But I just want to tear HER to pieces.

No one should make me feel this way. One look at her, one smell, and I knew I’d have to have her. She does things to me that scare the shit out of me. Make me want to slam her on a wall and listen to her cries: eager or fearful, it doesn’t matter.

I’m a monster…
And I don’t even care.

Review

This book follows the story of Drezden and Lola. Drezden is the lead singer of the group Four and a Half Headstones. After deciding that the current guitarist isn’t cutting it and has messed up a time too long, he fires him and needs to find a replacement quick. Enter Lola, she auditions for the position and blows the group away earning her a spot on the tour.

Drezden is drawn to Lola, but he doesn’t know why and he certainly doesn’t welcome the feelings. Lola seems to have sparked something in him, “I need to get it together. It’s been too long since I’ve been around someone who pulled me in, that’s all. That’s all it has to be.”

Lola gets nervous around Drezden, she is drawn to him in the same way he is drawn to her. When she practices with the group for the first time, the nerves show and she doesn’t play as flawlessly as she did at her audition. Lola has a hard time concentrating on what it is that she is supposed to doing when she has to listen to Drezden sing. “The way he sings, I can’t concentrate. If Drezden had put his hands on my shoulders, he couldn’t have gotten any closer.”

The rest of the book, follows them as Lola tries to get use to all the attention the band receives while try9ing to get her feelings for Drezden under control. It also follows Drezden as he tries to fight the attraction that he has to Lola, Drezden doesn’t want to let her in, because he doesn’t want all the consequences that could follow. “I couldn’t risk the band over a f*king pair of pretty blue eyes that turned my blood to liquid silver. It was too reckless. For them…. And for her.”

This book is a will they won’t they book, it makes you want more. You need to know what will happen between Drezden and Lola and also how she will be when she actually gets on stage. Although the book was short, I am looking forward to the next book in the series. Well done Nora Flite on a great first book in this series.

Stacey

But It Now

5 Smooches!

Synopsis

To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. Friedrich Nietzsche.

Frankie…

The bitterness is consuming. It’s intensity slashes and claws at my insides, it’s hatred wrenching my soul as it curls and nurtures my need for revenge.

HIS torture only feeds my vice. I won’t let HIM break me, only strengthen me. The pain HE gives is welcomed, it’s rawness fuelling the loathing inside with each of HIS thrashes and tears on my pale skin, with every harsh truth HE breathes in my ear and with each of HIS crippling holds.

I have waited too long for this and I’ll never let the bastard win.
He will have to end me before I give in.
But now HE has a weapon against me. Something I swore throughout my life I would never let in;
Love.
Tate.

Tate…

Her strength astounds me. HE doesn’t seem to break her.
HIS relentless persecution and determination to bury her under his furious reign and brutality eats at my soul. It has found that dark place inside me, the pit of hell I had locked and secured away, and enriched it, demanded its flourish and ripened its ferocity. The family wrath.

She’ll never give in, and I pray every night as I guide her through the darkness that tomorrow will bring the light to her soul before it is consumed, finally, by the plague of HIM.
Evil.
Jude.

Jude…

She blossoms under my torture, the soft suppleness of her skin ripping and tearing as though her soul is trying to break free from the agony.
I’ll allow it, because I can. Because I need her soul. I crave the sustenance it feeds my rage with, my thirst for cruelty quenched by the sounds of her desolate screams and my hunger for blood, nourished by the slow drip of her life force at my feet.
She thinks I won’t break her, so does he. They underestimate the blood that slithers through my veins. It’s the blood that tenures those around me.
The bloodthirsty.
The Shadows of Sin.

Review

OK, So, holy freakin smokes!  This book surprised the hell out of me.  I knew I was going to like it, but I loved it so hard!  These two authors really outdid themselves with Fragile Truths!

The story started off a little slow for me and I was becoming impatient, but after finishing this book, I firmly believe that every bit of the back story is needed to fully appreciate and love these beautifully damaged characters and their story.  Frankie and Tate’s story starts out when they are very young.  Their youthful hearts really spoke to me and I loved these two for each other right away.

He helps her overcome a horrendous time in her childhood, and although they are separated for many years, he never stops taking care of her.  Upon their reconnection horrible and terrible things take place.  Some of it stomach churning and sickening.  Tate is still trying to protect Frankie but now the threats are up close and personal.  Tate must even protect her from his own family!

This book had so many twist and turns and unexpected events, I have whip lash.  I will warn you that it is very dark and abuse, torture, and talk of rape are thought out the book.  However, saying that, it was a magnificent love story with some really hot sex!  A simply brilliant book and I cannot wait for the next in this series.

Casting

Amie

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