ARC Review: Sweet (Contours of the Heart #3) by Tammara Webber

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: April 27, 2015
Publisher: Self-Published
340 Pages

He’s the love of her life, but he doesn’t know it.
She’s his one moment of sacrifice in a lifetime of survival.

He was damaged and wild, but resilient.
She’s always been obedient. Now she’s restless.

Home for the summer between college and med school, Pearl Torres Frank knows two things: Boyce Wynn is the embodiment of everything she should run from, and everything she wants to run to. Rebellious and loud. Unconcerned with society’s opinion of him. Passionate. Strong. Dangerous.

And one more trait he hides from everyone but her:
Sweet.

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From the moment Boyce pulls Pearl out of the water when he was seven, he’s only been sure of one thing: Pearl was the girl for him, but he could never have her. They were a part of two different worlds, but what no one knew was that that they shared a secret friendship that ran much deeper than either of them wanted to admit to the other.

Boyce Winn grew up in an abusive home. His mother left when he was little, leaving him with his older brother and drunk father. Boyce’s older brother tried to protect him as much as he could, even joining the army to make a better life for the two of them. Unfortunately, fate was never kind to Boyce and he loses his brother in action. When we meet Boyce in Sweet, he’s dealing with the loss of his father – or rather, the newfound freedom he has. His life is finally his own and he has it set up pretty sweet, that is until his mother shows back up.

Pearl Torres Frank grew up in a neighborhood close to Boyce with her single mother. But when her mother marries a local doctor, her life does a complete 180 and suddenly she has the life of privilege. Everything she’s ever wanted is at her fingertips. Coming home after graduating college, she’s set to attend medical school in the fall, if she would just pick a place to go. Problem is, that’s not what Pearl really wants to do.

Told in both the past and the present, we get to really see the relationship between these two over the years. And wow, what a history. How they even kept their friendship a secret is beyond me. The electricity that’s between them anytime they were together just explodes off of the page. Their chemistry undeniable. While Boyce helps Pearl discover that she can fight for control of her own life, she helps him come to terms with his past and to be open to the future.

While this is considered part of a series, you honestly don’t have to have read the first two to understand this story. Honestly, it took me about 1/3 of the book to realize the connection to the others because I was so invested in what I was reading. (It also made me want to go reread Breakable to see more of Boyce & because I honestly don’t really remember them from it.)

Tammara Webber is just one of those authors for whom I would drop anything to read. Her books have an easy balance of romance and drama, with some lighthearted moments that just make you swoon. If you haven’t read her work, I highly recommend that you jump on that real quick. 

 

ARC Review: Breakable (Contours of the Heart #2) by Tammara Webber

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: May 6, 2014
Publisher: Penguin
368 Pages

He was lost and alone. Then he found her.
And the future seemed more fragile than ever.

As a child, Landon Lucas Maxfield believed his life was perfect and looked forward to a future filled with promise — until tragedy tore his family apart and made him doubt everything he ever believed.

All he wanted was to leave the past behind. When he met Jacqueline Wallace, his desire to be everything she needed came so easy…

As easy as it could be for a man who learned that the soul is breakable and that everything you hoped for could be ripped away in a heartbeat.

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To say that Tammara Webber is one of my favorite authors is a bit of an understatement. I absolutely adore everything that she produces and was super excited to get my hands on another one of her books. Breakable is the follow up to Easy, the story of how Jaqueline and Lucas met and fell in love. While Easy focused more on Jaqueline’s POV, Breakable shows us what was going on with Lucas. But that’s not all, we also get a look into the early life of Lucas when he went by Landon. 

Basically, this is two stories rolled into one. Each chapter is either a Lucas chapter (present day) or a Landon chapter (past). I tended to lean more toward the Landon chapters as I’m not much of a fan of retellings from a different POV. The Landon chapters were just so heartbreaking and raw. This little boy’s life was altered completely in such a way that the only way he knew how to deal was to not. He lost his mother and his father, although physically present, checked out the same day his mother died. The only good thing about his childhood became his grandfather. His grandfather practically raised him and was the only one who believed him. Had it not been for him, I’m sure we would have met a different Lucas later on. 

But that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the Lucas chapters as well. It was nice to see meeting Jaqueline through his eyes after knowing her part. Although, I have to say that there were times where Lucas came off a little bit stalkerish with how obsessed he became with Jaqueline. He was almost better as the mysterious boy in class. 

Webber’s writing is just brilliant and I love the way she tells a story. She really knows how to make the reader fall in love with her characters and really care what happens to them. While the tales may fall on the side of dramatic, the situations are realistic and things that happen in everyday life. She breaks my heart in every book that she writes and I absolutely adore her for it and will continue to read anything she puts out. Was this book needed? No. But am I glad to have it? Definitely. 

I received an copy of this novel from the publisher for my honest opinion and review.

Teaser Tuesday: Here Without You (Between the Lines #4) & The Waking Dark

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading!

To participate, all you have to do is:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can ad the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

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"A month ago, I woke up with Reid in my narrow dorm bed, and it was like a dream - spending an entire night with him next to me. Burrowed under the covers, back pressed to his warm chest, his arms surrounding me - I wanted to stay there forever."
Chapter 18, Page 137
Here Without You (Between the Lines #4)
by Tammara Webber

"It was one thing to imagine the people you'd grown up with calling you a monster. It was different to actually hear them."

Chapter 7: Of Their Shadows Deep, 37% e-ARC

The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman

What are you reading this week?

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Book Review: Good For You (Between the Lines #3) by Tammara Webber

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: June 2012
Publisher: CreateSpace
332 Pages

Reid Alexander's life is an open book. His Hollywood celebrity means that everything he does plays out in the public eye. Every relationship, every error in judgment is analyzed by strangers. His latest mistake totaled his car, destroyed a house and landed him in the hospital. Now his PR team is working overtime to salvage his image. One thing is clear—this is one predicament he won’t escape without paying for it.

Dori Cantrell is a genuine humanitarian—the outward opposite of everything Reid is about. When his DUI plea bargain lands him under her community service supervision, she proves unimpressed with his status and indifferent to his proximity, and he soon wants nothing more than to knock her off of her pedestal and prove she's human.

Counting the days until his month of service is over, Dori struggles to ignore his wicked magnetic pull while shocking him with her ability to see past his celebrity and challenging him to see his own wasted potential. But Dori has secrets of her own, safely locked away until one night turns her entire world upside down. Suddenly their only hope for connection and redemption hinges on one choice: whether or not to have faith in each other.

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“When you finally figure out what you really want, everything else pales in comparison.”
Hands down, my favorite book of the series. Tammara Webber, you are my hero.

Source

 

It’s no secret that I love Reid. From the beginning of the series, he just stood out to me. Yes, he was an egotistical, self-centered ass, but there was just something about him that drew me in. In Good For You, we get a Reid who has pretty much hit rock bottom. After a late night of partying, he crashes his brand new Porsche into a house. Because of his Hollywood status and his lawyer father, he gets off with a fine and some community service – helping build a house for the family he displaced.

While serving out this sentence, he meets Dori. Dori is everything Reid is not – selfless, a humanitarian, etc. She’s often labeled the “good girl” by everyone around her including Reid. But there are secrets of Dori’s past that she wants to keep hidden. Secrets that could destroy her if anyone ever found out.

I liked Dori from the beginning. She was spunky and completely unaffected by Reid’s Hollywood status – well, she wasn’t completely immune to the fact he was gorgeous. She talked back to him, didn’t fall for his lines and pushed him.

There are a lot of YA books out there that deal with a girl changing the evil ways of a playboy. What impressed me about Good For You was that Reid chose to save himself. Dori didn’t change him, she just helped him see the different roads he had before him. She caused him to start questioning the world around him and actually forced him to figure out what he wanted. All of the changes Reid undertook in this book, he did himself – for himself.

“I've changed since I've known you. Not because you made me into someone else - but because you showed me a path I'd never paid attention to, and I chose to follow it.”

Webber is a genius at character development and I can’t wait to see what else she has in store for us with this series.

 

 

 

Book Review: Where You Are (Between the Lines #2) by Tammara Webber

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release date: October 19, 2011
Publisher: CreateSpace
306 Pages

Graham Douglas doesn’t do romantic relationships, but he was knocked for a loop when he met Emma Pierce on the set of his last film. As they grew closer, he did everything in his power to keep from falling for a girl being pursued by superstar Reid Alexander. Now home in New York, his life is once again under control, until Emma appears and shows him how not over her he is.

Emma Pierce is forsaking an up-and-coming Hollywood career to embark on a life she’s only dreamed of—the life of a regular girl. After spending months burying her feelings for the two night-and-day guys who vied for her heart while filming her last movie, a twist of fate puts her in a coffee shop in the middle of Manhattan with the one she still misses.

Brooke Cameron was a fresh-faced Texas girl when she arrived in LA. Now she’s a beach sitcom star turned conceited heiress on the big screen. Having just survived three months on location with her ex—Hollywood’s reigning golden boy—she’s older and wiser and has set her sights on her close friend Graham. The only thing standing in her way is the girl he can’t forget.

Reid Alexander can sum up his life in one word: boring. Between film projects, there’s little going on outside of interviews, photo shoots, and the premiere of the film he finished last fall. The next-to-last thing he expects is to get a second chance with Emma, the girl who rejected him. The last thing he expects is for his still-bitter-ex to be the one to offer it to him on a platter.

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Let me just start by saying, I adore Tammara Webber's writing. I love how she can go from something completely heartbreaking and angst filled with Easy, and then turn around and give us sweet and happy and fluff. The Between the Lines series is just that, pure fluff and I love it.

In the first book we are introduced to the main players: Reid, Emma, Graham, and Brooke. All four come together while filming a movie. Reid is Hollywoods It boy, Emma is the newcomer, Graham is the indie actor, and Brooke is the, well, the stuck-up Hollywood starlet who went from star to sidekick.

In Where You Are, Graham and Emma are working at keeping their relationship alive (and secret) from the public. The problem? Brooke has suddenly decided that Graham, her longtime bestfriend would be perfect for her. She enlists the help of Reid to break the two of them up, playing on Reid's inability to say no to rejection.

Graham and Emma's relationship is sweet, like toothache sweet. Towards the beginning, it was a little too much. I was like, no one is this perfect. But towards the end when all the drama was unleashed, I came to really love their relationship with each other.

Reid still remains my favorite character in the series. He's such an ass, but I love him. Reading his POV is hilarious. Also, I think he may be the character with the most depth. Weird, I know. But he's the only character who really goes through changes and grows as each book progresses. I feel so bad for him and just want him to have someone who can see what a great guy he is underneath the exterior.

Brooke needs to take a long walk off a short pier. I feel no sympathy for her. She's conniving liar who throws a fit when things don't go her way. I'm sorry Princess, but you can't just wake up and decide someone is perfect for you AFTER you see that person happy with someone else. She uses everyone around her. No wonder she has no real friends, she's completely fake with everyone. It's going to take something major happening for her to ever be in my good graces.

This series is the perfect read if you just want something fun. I cannot wait to read the third one!