In Too Deep Blog Hop (Review & Excerpt)

Blurb:

Gracie has just finished her freshman year of college in Memphis when she takes a job at a local pizza joint in her home town of McKenzie, Tennessee. She is the epitome of innocence when she meets Noah. Noah is unabashedly handsome, intriguingly reckless and just cocky enough to be sexy. Gracie’s instincts tell her to stay far away from him and based on the stories she hears from her co-workers he leaves broken hearts in his wake. But still, she can’t explain her fascination with him.

Noah puts aside his bad boy ways when what he thought was a summer crush has him unexpectedly falling in love. But soon after Gracie transfers to UT Knoxville to be with Noah, their unexpected love becomes riddled with anger, deceit and humiliation.

Jake, Noah’s former roommate and Gracie’s best friend, can no longer be a bystander. Gracie’s world falls out from beneath her and when she breaks she turns to Jake for strength. As Jake talks her through a decision she’s not yet strong enough to make, together they uncover a truth so ugly neither of them is prepared for its fallout. Will Jake pull her to the surface or is Gracie Jordan finally In Too Deep?

My Review

4.5

((All the emotional aspects make up for Gracie's tendency to make me want to slap her. I know girls like her. Once I may have been similar to her))

Gracie is drowning.

I wondered what it felt like to hold on to someone you knew wouldn't let you go-Gracie

Come on, we've all been there. That moment when you think you have everything under control, that you really can handle everything that's going on regardless of the flashing warning signs going off around you. Still, you try to deny it, to hold on to what you wish was really happening versus what's really going on. It's no different for Gracie in In Too Deep. The title and blurb caught my attention and I knew I had to read it. I loved the cover and everything the photo represents. In Too Deep tore me to pieces and had me struggling to contain my emotions. All three of the characters we're so distinct and broke my heart in different ways. Even though sometimes I wanted to deck Gracie or shake her, I could honestly relate and for me, that took the story to a completely different level. Now, I understand how my best friend felt back then when I was kind of like Gracie.

I love the way Michelle developed all the characters and was able to create such vivid and dynamic relationships with her debut novel. Things didn't just effect Gracie but rather the entire cast was dealing with their own fears, doubt and insecurities weighing them down. Turning the page became almost like an addiction because I had to know what happened next or if anyone was going to feel better. There's so much hope inside the pages that I almost couldn't stand it when I thought maybe there wasn't going to be the ending I had hoped for. Michelle did a great job depicting Gracie and I appreciated that she was a struggling student in her early twenties which helped me connect with Gracie, making her more realistic. The story isn't all hearts and butterflies, it has a raw intensity that takes the reader from hopeless to hopeful. If you're looking for an amazing read that will tug on your heartstrings and make you face or think of things you haven't before, then I'd definitely recommend In Too Deep to you. This isn't for someone looking for a fairy tale or anything equally as sweet. This is a gritty, raw, emotional read that in the end, you'll need a few moments of silence to let everything begin to set in.

Excerpt

My phone buzzed.

Jake: Gracie?

I turned off my phone. The doorbell rang before I even had a chance to feel guilty for not answering. I threw the covers over my head and lay there, eyes wide open. It rang again.Can someone please get the door? I’m too busy feeling sorry for myself to get up.

Ding dong.

I groaned as I pulled myself from under the covers and flung my legs off the edge of my bed. The UPS man was going to get an eyeful because I didn’t even have the energy to pull my sleep pants on. The super huge t-shirt I wore to bed was longer than some skirts I had. I would just have to reach around the opened door, sign something on his little clipboard and throw the package on the hall table before jumping right back into bed. No one was home. I could have slept all day. Stupid delivery guy.

But when I rounded the corner into the foyer, I could see Noah through the side window to the right of the door. My heart slammed its next beat so hard I was sure someone standing in front of me would have seen my ribcage lunge forward.

“What do you want?” I said the words on my side of the window. He didn’t need to hear me, he had to be expecting something like that. He knew I wouldn’t be happy to see him. I was pissed that he was at my door. Flashes of my birthday night coursed through my mind one by one. I winced and squeezed my eyes closed hoping to wring the images from my head.

“Gracie, I know you don’t want to open the door, but I need you to listen to what I have to say.” He was talking louder than he needed to for me to hear him. I was instantly annoyed. I shuddered.

“So talk.” If I kept a locked door between us, I could walk away whenever I’d had enough.

“Can I please come in?”

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll talk through a window if that’s the only way you’ll listen.” He waited a couple seconds like he thought I’d have a change of heart and open the door. When he saw that was not in his cards, he started talking. I leaned my forehead against the cool glass and watched his lips form words that proved introspection, self-awareness and a level of thought so deep I could do nothing but hold my breath and wish he wasn’t doing this to me.

“Gracie. I haven’t had a solid example of how to show love or how to accept it. At least not the depth of love you are willing to give. I don’t know how to reciprocate that without feeling terrified. I never expected to fall so hard for you. I never thought I could love someone so hard it hurt. But I can. I do.

“Gracie. When you look at me and I know you can see all the way into my soul, my first instinct is self-preservation. I instinctively push you away so you won’t climb deeper into me. Your heart is so big, Gracie, it could swallow me whole, and that scares the shit out of me because I shouldn’t be worthy of that kind of love. I don’t deserve you. I guess in a twisted sort of way, I push you away to save you.”

The window steamed from the warm breath escaping between my lips. I remembered the conversation I had with my mom. She said only if it was of their own volition could someone truly make a change. I couldn’t believe what was happening in front of me. A huge part of me didn’t want it to be happening because Noah and I proved to be a disaster. I knew I couldn’t handle one more blow from him. My sanity was already climbing the walls. But, as if they had minds of their own, one hand turned the deadbolt and the other opened the door. Cool air across my thighs reminded me I was still only in a t-shirt. I motioned for Noah to follow me back to my room. I needed to put more clothes on so he didn’t ruin his heart-felt apology by making a move on me. He sat on my bed and I pulled sweats off the hook on the back of my door and slid myself inside them. I sat down next to him. He took my hands in his.

“I am head over heels in love with you, Gracie. I have been since the night you kissed me after the fireworks. I’ve always thought that shock between our lips was a sign that you were the one. I’m terrified of that. If I let myself truly feel the level of love I know we are capable of, then what happens if you leave me? I don’t know how to handle that kind of pain. I am sure I’ve never felt something that severe.”

“Noah, you just described what you have done to me, over and over and over. You have split my heart wide open so many times because, unlike you, I don’t know how to guard my heart. I opened it to you almost two years ago, and I’ve been giving you all I have ever since. I can’t turn it off, I don’t know how. So, when you pierce me with your hateful words, the pain is palpable. It takes me to my knees.” There was no holding back the tears. I didn’t even try to. I was done walking on eggshells. Again.

That’s when he did something I never thought I’d see. He fell into my lap and cried like a baby. I had taken all the pain he had inflicted on me and threw it straight to his heart before he had the chance to get that wall back up.

About the Author

Michelle Kemper Brownlow has been a storyteller her entire life. Her debut was on the high school cheerleading bus granting requests to re-tell her most embarrassing moments for a gaggle of hysterical squadmates.
Earning her Bachelor’s degree from Penn State University in Art Education and then marrying her very own “Jake,” she moved to Binghamton, NY where she taught high school. After having two children she quit work and finished her Master’s degree in Elementary Education at Binghamton University.
The Brownlow family of four moved to Michelle’s hometown of Morgantown, PA while the children were still quite young. A few years after moving, her family grew by one when they welcomed a baby into their home through the gift of adoption. The family still resides in PA, just miles from where that high school cheer bus was parked.
Michelle has been an artist for as long as she can remember, always choosing pencils and crayons over toys and puzzles. As a freelance illustrator, her simple characters play the starring roles in numerous emergent reader books published by Reading Reading Books.
“Writing is my way of making sense of the world. When I give my characters life on the pages I write, it frees up space in my mind to welcome in new stories that are begging to be told,” says Brownlow.

Extras

IN TOO DEEP hit three genre-specific best seller lists on Amazon the day before its release.

IN TOO DEEP’s sequel, ON SOLID GROUND, will be released sometime in December 2013.

Easy tag line: The day he said, “I love you” should have been the day she said, “Goodbye.”

Sapphire Star Publishing: http://www.sapphirestarpublishing.com/michellekemperbrownlow

Stalk Her Here

My blog: http://michellekemperbrownlow.blogspot.com

Twitter: MK_Brownlow

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The Innocent by Kailin Gow Cover Reveal

Check Out The Innocent

Author:  Kailin Gow

Release Date:  August 27, 2013

Blurb

What started out as revenge has turned into passion. Serena Singleton, the innocent music grad student, must now deal with a past that is consuming her future. She deals with it in the only way she knows how by falling heads first into the web of power and deception. Has she cast Sebastian Sorensen, her handsome and brilliant professor aside for the powerful and controlling billionaire Price Turnsby or has she found a way to keep them both?

Sebastian Sorensen wants Serena more than ever, and he's willing to fight for it, even against a powerful foe like Price. But no matter how much he fights, is Serena lost to Price's charms and sexy ways more than she appears?

Follow book two of the sexy Protégé Series where nothing is as it seems.

About the Author

Kailin Gow uses her author platform to bring awareness to issues affecting young adult and women. She has appeared on national radio as a regular guest on topics such as body image, self-esteem, dating and sexual relationships, bullying, and more; often brought up in her fiction books for young adults and women.

She is a graduate of the Annenberg School for Communications Masters in Management program in journalism, marketing and publishing at the University of Southern California.

Stalk Her Here

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KailinGowBooks

Her website: http://kailingow.com/

Her Publisher's Site: http://www.theedgebooks.com

Official website and blog: http://www.kailingow.wordpress.com

For exact dates of new releases, announcements, contests, giveaways, street team information, and more, sign up for the EDGE newsletter at http://www.theEDGEbooks.com

Entanglement by Dan Rix- Review time

 

*He actually changed the cover right before I posted my original review over on Supagurls and it was a great decision. This one relates to the story so much more and it's more intriguing in my opinion.

Blurb

"...the scientific explanation is quantum entanglement, whereby the boy and girl—even when separated by great distances—react instantaneously to changes in each other's states..." —Dr. Casler Selavio, on the entanglement of halves.

In a world like ours, humans are born in pairs. When a newborn boy takes his first breath in the coastal town of Tularosa, the exact time is noted, recorded in the Registry, and later compared to the birth times of other newborns around the globe. There will be one identical match—his half. They will meet on their eighteenth birthday and they will spend their lives together. Except this time, there is no match.

Hotheaded heartthrob Aaron Harper is scheduled to meet his half in twenty-nine days, and he doesn’t buy a word of that entanglement crap. So what if he and his half were born the same day and share a spooky psychic connection? Big deal. After breaking one too many teenage girls’ hearts, he’ll stick to brawling with the douchebag rugby players any day.

Until the day a new girl arrives at school and threatens everything he takes for granted.

Cold and unapproachable, Amber Lilian hates the growing list of similarities between her and the one boy she can’t read, Aaron: born the same day, both stubborn, both terrified of meeting their halves. . . . All the more reason not to trust him. That she would rather die than surrender herself as her half’s property is none of his damn business. But once lost in Aaron’s dangerous, jet black eyes, she’s already surrendered more than she cares to admit.

Tangled in each other’s self-destructive lives, Aaron and Amber learn the secret behind their linked births and why they feel like halves—but unless they can prove it before they turn eighteen, Aaron faces a lifetime alone in a world where everyone else has a soul mate . . . and he’ll have to watch Amber give herself to a boy who intends to possess not only her body but also a chunk of her soul.

My Review

4.5 Stars

I was attracted to the story from the beginning; Dan Rix wasted no time diving head first into a plot that kept my head spinning. It was well thought out and the world Rix created in Entanglement and the concept was intricate and suspenseful. I was engulfed by the first few chapters and drawn into Aaron Harper’s world where halves are determined when you’re born. There’s no choice, you have no say and on your eighteenth birthday you meet the other half of your soul. Except Aaron doesn’t buy the “halves” concept and neither does the new girl he meets Amber Lilian. 

Entanglement is full of complex characters and a web weaved with secrets, destinies, tangled life lines and two teenagers fighting for their rights and each other. Both Aaron and Amber are trapped in their own downward spiral of self-destruction when they meet, each of them giving up for their own reasons. I loved everything from the fast pace, intricate characters, and  the detailed concept Rix created. Oh, how the story began unfolding at an alarming rate after they meet as they continue stirring up more trouble than they could imagine trying to save each other before it’s too late. Aaron Harper or number eleven is a strong willed, teenage heart throb that any girl will fall for and there’s something about his character that sucked me in and I wanted to know more, to see what made fueled his temper. Amber is feisty and just as engaging, she fights everybody the entire time, she never gave up and was just as smart as Aaron and they complimented each other. The snappy dialogue and complicated relationships and circumstances kept me guessing. The supporting characters were a delight because I was never sure who was good or evil and if anybody (or who I expected) was going to step in. Dan Rix’s use of their roles and ambiguity about their true loyalties made the story even more thrilling and detailed.

*Seriously this is how I felt with almost every turn of the page. I probably even made the same face.*

I really enjoy stories like this where at the end everything comes together smoothly and blends until you’re convinced you just witnessed the whole thing literally. Entanglement was full of those wonderful awkwardly amazing moments that steal your breath and demand you keep reading until the wee hours of the morning and I even found myself holding my breath scared to keep reading.

*and then of course there was this face and my begging that what I was reading wasn't really true and that it was a trick.

At one point I thought the entire book changed and as I kept reading I realized Dan Rix did introduce something that changed everything and the need to finish the book was undeniable. I tuned everything out from my step-mom to the radio in the background and all I heard was the words as I kept reading. Completely lost in the story and fidgeting with excitement. My heart is still throbbing from the explosive ending to Entanglement.

My favorite line and I highlighted a bunch was “the task is not to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees.”

Ward Against Darkness by Melanie Card Cover Reveal

Today Melanie Card and Entangled Teen are revealing the cover for book 2 in The Chronicles of a Reluctant Necromancer Series, WARD AGAINST DARKNESS. Also enter below for a paperback of the book or an eBook!

On to the reveal!

Blurb:

The last thing Ward de'Ath wants is more trouble. On the run from both the law and the criminal underworld, Ward and Celia flee Brawenal City only to stumble into the mansion of a powerful evil necromancer. And when Ward discovers the man possesses a dangerous grimoire, his duty leaves him no choice. He can't allow the necromancer to keep the grimoire. But the mansion is filled with monsters--human and undead--and Ward has no way of telling who's friend or foe. The only person he can trust is Celia who dominates more of his thoughts and feelings everyday. But there are still laws in the way of anything but friendship. She's still dead and he's still alive . . . for now.

Goodreads/Amazon/Barnes & Noble/The Book Depository

About Melanie:

Melanie has always been drawn to story telling. In fact, she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t telling a story in her head or on paper. In grade school, they had journal writing time which she turned into story telling time, weaving tales of magic and adventure that mimicked the fairy tales and myths that she loved to read. It was there, with the help of two very special teachers, that she nurtured this love and started her journey as a writer.

She writes fantasy, paranormal romance, and everything in between, seasoned with a good dash of adventure and mystery. Join her on my tales of magic, adventure, and romance.

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