The Aftermath by R.J. Prescott Release Day Blitz

I LOVE me some O'Connell and company!  These Irish and English boxers are smoking hot romantics with hearts.  Be warned, this series will cause swooning!  

I mean, check out these covers  - holy hotness!  And this excerpt:

It never occurred to me that mail was something to fear. Not until the day I came home and found Em sat on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees, and a ripped open white envelope on the bed behind her.

            “Sunshine, what’s wrong?” I asked. She swallowed hard and sniffed a few times like she was trying to hold back tears long enough to talk to me. I reached for the envelope, thinking it would give me some clue as to why she was so clearly freaked out.

            “Don’t,” Em croaked. “Please,” she added pleadingly. I knew then, as a tear rolled down her cheek, that whatever was inside had to be bad. Contained within a folded sheet of plain white paper were about a dozen or so photos. They were different sizes and all taken at different times, but Em was in every one of them. The earliest photo was of a smiling happy nine year old. Just a normal kid out riding her bike. When the next one showed the same kid, fast asleep in her bed, I felt sick to my fucking stomach. The older that Em was in the pictures, the more invasive they became and none of them looked like they were taken with her knowledge. The last photo was really grainy, like it had been through a window maybe, or within a really bad camera, but it showed in intimate detail, her frail, bruised body taking a shower.

            “Mother fucker,” I yelled, wanting to fucking hit something. Anything. I grabbed the envelope looking for some clue who’d sent it, like I didn’t fucking know. Frank was still in prison, pending trial, so someone on the outside must have sent this for him. The postmark on the envelope read London, which didn’t tell me much. The knuckles on Em’s hand were white where she gripping hold of her legs so hard.

            “Shit love. You okay?” I said, hating that she looked so fucking scared. She nodded unconvincingly, but didn’t answer. I gathered up the pictures and stuffed them back into the envelope, not wanting her to see them anymore, but I knew we’d need to give them to police as evidence. The idea of her being on display like that to the police and the prosecution lawyers was as bad as knowing what she’d been through. Sitting down next to her, I wrapped my arm around her tiny body and pulled her into my chest. She was stiff as a board and shaking slightly. Rubbing up and down her arms, trying to get her warm I waited for her to talk to me. That was the way of it sometimes with Sunshine. She needed to think shit over before she could get it off her chest.

            “I didn’t know about any of them. He’s been taking pictures of me for years. How could I not know? How could I let that happen?” she asked me.

            “You didn’t let anything happen. He’s a violent, abusive rapist who’s sick in the fucking head. He did what he did because he’s a fucking whack job. Nothing you said or did gave him permission to do this.” I could see by her face that the pictures shamed her. Fuck that. There wasn’t a single fucking thing for her to be ashamed of.

            “It was bad enough dealing with what happened, but he could have hundreds of these pictures and God only knows what he does with them. As if that’s not bad enough he knows where we live. Even in prison he can get to me. I’ll never be free of him will I?”

            “Sunshine, even if it means killing him, I swear he will never touch you again. This is just a sign of desperation. In a few more months he’ll be too concerned about how to pick up the soap in the shower without getting arse raped to worry about getting you back. He’s going away for a very long time and there’s fuck all he can do about it. This kind of shit just gives the barristers more ammunition against him.” I did my best to reassure her, but as I was as freaked out as she was. The fact that he could get hold of the pictures and post them from prison had me worried about what else he could do from the inside.

            She wiped her eyes and leant across to give me a quick kiss.

            “You’re right,” she told me. “A few more months and this will all be over.”  It had to be, because I hadn’t been exaggerating. If Frank came after her again, I’d kill to keep her safe.

O'Connell.  Sigh.  If you haven't read The Hurricane you seriously need to do so now.  It's heartbreaking, romantic and full of awesome.  I'll post my review of The Aftermath soon, but let me tell you -   My heart can't take it.  All the feels.  I mean ALL the feels.  

ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: The Aftermath

Author: R.J. Prescott

Series: The Hurricane, #2

On Sale: August 2, 2016

Publisher: Forever

Formats: Trade Paperback & eBook

Price: $14.99 USD (TP) / $3.99 USD (eBook)

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Now available in Trade Paperback!

Cormac "The Hurricane" O'Connell's star is on the rise. Billed as the most promising young boxer of his generation, his new career is taking him to places he never dreamed. But O'Connell only needs one thing in life: his wife.

In her final year of college, Em cannot follow him around the world but together they make it work. Just when everything they ever wanted is on the horizon, the past resurfaces to haunt them, and O'Connell realizes that justice might not be a part of his happy ever after. He couldn't protect Em once before, but in the aftermath of the hurricane, he will make sure that never happens again.

THE HURRICANE SERIES

The Hurricane, #1

The Aftermath, #2

Series Page on Goodreads

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today bestselling author R.J. Prescott was born in Cardiff, South Wales, and studied law at the University of Bristol, England. Four weeks before graduation she fell in love, and stayed. Ten years later, she convinced her crazy, wonderful firefighter husband to move back to Cardiff where they now live with their two equally crazy sons.

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Left Drowning by Jessica Park

* * * 3/4

Weighted down by the loss of her parents, Blythe McGuire struggles to keep her head above water as she trudges through her last year at Matthews College. Then a chance meeting sends Blythe crashing into something she doesn’t expect—an undeniable attraction to a dark-haired senior named Chris Shepherd, whose past may be even more complicated than her own. As their relationship deepens, Chris pulls Blythe out of the stupor she’s been in since the night a fire took half her family. She begins to heal, and even, haltingly, to love this guy who helps her find new paths to pleasure and self-discovery. But as Blythe moves into calmer waters, she realizes Chris is the one still strangled by his family’s traumatic history. As dark currents threaten to pull him under, Blythe may be the only person who can keep him from drowning.

I have been eagerly awaiting to have this book in my possession. I don’t know if it’s the striking cover or just the premise of the story that got to me. It happened to be a Kindle Daily Deal recently which made my day!

Blythe is in a drunken stupor on our initial encounter with her. She’s a college senior now simply going through the motions until she graduates. She has managed to maintain a safe distance from everyone, avoiding relationships of any sort. She feels that she doesn’t quite deserve happiness or a social life since her parents died in a fire years before. The fire that took them and irrevocably changed her and her brother’s lives, is something that she blames solely on herself.

After a particularly disastrous and awkward drunk-dialing to her brother, she decides that she needs to sober up and develop a different perspective on life.  This is the same day that things change suddenly when one of her peers Sabin, introduces himself to her in the most spectacular of ways. His is a very colourful and animated personality that normally Blythe would run from. But she is charmed by his audacity and over-the-top mannerisms. There you go. She has finally made a friend. Even she is surprised that this is as much human contact as she has had with anyone in the four years she has been at college.

When she meets Chris, Sabin’s brother, it’s an inexplicable, instant attraction. She uncharacteristically introduces herself to him and ends up divulging her personal loss to him. For some reason, she can do this with him and feel safe. Chris quietly lets her grieve. There’s just something about him that allows him to be her safe haven though she finds it hard to understand the connection between them. It’s a series of false starts with them as they figure out what they mean to each other and what they want.

Blythe’s circle does grow and she gains new friends. Coming out of her self-imposed isolation to find herself being happy is almost mystifying to her. This is probably the part of the story I enjoyed the most.

There is about a three-chapter section where things get very hot and heavy where I felt I stepped into "Fifty Shades of Grey Lite". I didn't particularly care for it at the time because it felt distracting to me. Now that I’m done with it I suppose I understand why things were described in such detail. If Blythe has been this numb for the last few years since the tragedy, then it’s valid that when she’s with Chris that everything about them, both physical and emotional, would be a new sensation for her.

As for the rest of the story, as Blythe continues her journey, she realizes Chris and his family will need her strength to help them through the terrors that they had endured as children. The mysterious connection she shares with Chris becomes clearer the deeper they delve into the past that’s haunting them all.

Left Drowning has its emotional highs and lows. Their pasts are so twisted and horrific, it’s understandable they’d all feel demoralized as young adults.  All the characters are pretty awesome but sadly vulnerable, especially Sabin whose larger-than-life personality is just masking his own pain. All of them are stuck in their own hell and it's Blythe who helps to pull them from it.

I mentioned at the beginning that I was eager to read this and I'm glad that I was not disappointed. Jessica Park has written a sweet story that's messy in parts but also full of happy moments too!

~ Bel

The Redemption of Callie & Kayden (The Coincidence #2) by Jessica Sorensen

* * * *

The dark secret Kayden has kept hidden for years is out. Worse, he's facing charges for battery. The only way he stands a chance against the charges is if Callie speaks up, something he'll never ask her to do.

Callie knows Kayden is going back to his dark place and desperately wants to save him. But saving him means admitting her secrets aloud. Callie and Kayden are stronger than they think, especially when they're together. Together they move forward, face their demons, and finally start to heal from their traumatic pasts.

It’s pretty much out there that I adore Jessica Sorensen. I fell in love with her Ella & Micha series and the previous Callie & Kayden book left me in such a state that I was almost mad at her for that. Almost. The Redemption of Callie & Kayden did not fail me.

The events in the last book left Kayden fighting for his life in the hospital and Callie a complete mess. Picking up the pieces aren’t as easy. In Coincidence the two of them danced around each other so beautifully even if Callie was slightly awkward with the attention from Kayden. 

In Redemption, there’s so much pain and guilt, they don’t even know how to behave around each other. Kayden is worse off feeling hopeless and broken. All his insecurities are magnified so much that believes he’s no good for Callie and he doesn’t deserve her.  Callie is devastated to see Kayden spiral down and talk about getting a back bone! She stands up to him and reminds him that she still loves him no matter what.  She realizes that the only way to help Kayden heal and move past this means coming face-to-face with hers. She needs to be just as brave as she is demanding of him.

Everything that I love about Sorensen’s books is still here. It’s an uneasy ride for the two of them but once again with their friends Luke and Seth, they make progress. The chemistry between them is still there and I won’t lie, I enjoyed it. Aside from that, it’s how Sorensen addresses both their issues with sensitivity and honesty that makes this another winner.

~ Bel