Becca – Z. Elizabeth

Synopsis

THE STORY YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW…

When Kyle Calloway died, he took a part of Nell with him. She wasn’t the only one left to pick up the pieces, however; Kyle’s death left a gaping hole in the hearts and lives of his parents and his older brother Colton, and ultimately broke the will of the girl he loved.

THE STORY YOU NEVER IMAGINED…

Becca de Rosa is Nell’s best friend. When Kyle died, Nell was so devastated that no one could reach her, not even her best friend Becca. As she tries to help Nell through her grief, Becca’s own life is thrust into turmoil, and everything she knows is changed.

Jason Dorsey asked Nell out the week after her sixteenth birthday, but that date never happened. Instead, he ended up going out with Nell’s best friend, Becca. He had no way of knowing, then, how that one date would send him on a life-long journey with Becca. He had no way of knowing the tragedies and triumphs he would experience, or that in Becca, he might find the love of a lifetime.

THE HEARTACHE YOU’LL NEVER FORGET…

5 / 5 stars

My review of Falling into You is HERE

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My Review

By now you should know my favourites. The ones that completely stole my heart, ripped it out, made me a sobbing mess, had me falling in love with their story, having my heart pieced back together and left an outstanding impression to me. That was what Falling into You did to me. It showed raw pain, dealing or more like trying to deal with grief and falling in love. To say it’s a great book would be an understatement….

BUT then came along Falling Into Us and I can’t tell you how much this book stole another piece of my heart. I sat wondering why it had taken so long to finally get round to reading this book and I actually couldn’t think of any. But it’s okay because I did get around to it and I did completely, head over heels demolish every single page and every single line that was in the book.

I read it on the way to work, back home from work and then into the evening. It PAINED me to put it down during work and even when I jumped into the shower, Jason and Becca were constantly on my mind. I needed to know more about them, finish up their story, and see how their lives pan out. I really cannot tell you how much this book just made me forget the outside world.

There will always be one book you will read and you are like “why hasn’t this been in my life sooner?” And I’ve got to say, this is the book. I may, just a tiny bit love this book more than Falling Into You, but only a little bit because I adore Colt and Nell’s story. To say both couple lead different lives, it’s hard to really compare the stories because they all go through heart break and pain but Jason and Becca’s just stole my heart a bit more.

Becca is an amazing character. She is smart, like super smart, she is Nell’s best friend, she’s overcoming a stutter which still appears when she is nervous or excited and she is gorgeous, but that is overshadowed because of Nell. Her parents are strict on her, especially her father, she’s in all these classes, constantly doing homework and hardly ever has any freedom. Her freedom is poetry which she keeps locked away from anyone.

She’s always had a crush on Jason from afar but hes always liked Nell. But when Nell stands him up and she tells him to call Becca, well then we get to know what they did on their ‘date’ as we know they went out in Falling Into You.

I did adore Becca. You could feel her frustration at her parents – she just wanted freedom. Not to be shackled. She also fees frustrated and angry at being second best to Nell when Jason asks her out but you can pretty much see from the get-go that these two have so much more than he and Nell would ever have. And that is where the story begins. Throughout the years, you see her progress from a shy and soft spoken girl into a confident and outspoken women. Being with Jason truly helped her throughout the many trials and heartbreak she faced over the years, the love she had for him, the way she knew he was the one for her. She helped him as much as he helped her and I loved watching her progression throughout the book and the years. She was so comfortable in her own skin and around Jason. That is exactly how it should be.

I loved Jason. He’s not the person he showed other people. He didn’t have the greatest home life, but he was strong, and the way he handled his childhood shaped him into the person he grew up to be and the person we all fall in love with. He’s special and I think that’s why Becca has a soft spot for him, despite the fact he was gorgeous too. He chose the path in life to not be his father and I applaud him for that. Along with the help and love of Becca, he could do anything he put his mind to. She was there with him through everything, much the same as he was with her. They both go through horrible things but they bring each other back to life, because of the strength of their love.

Jason is such a sweetheart when Becca goes through the most painful thing to happen in her life. He’s patient, he never leaves her and he breaks through to her, gets her to speak to him. He holds her, loves her and lets her know he’s not going anywhere. He truly is a special guy and you can utterly see why they were the ones for one another. They just balanced each other out, they loved each other so much and although their journeys weren’t easy, they had each other to power through and be right by each other’s sides.

You watch they grow from insecure teenagers to confident adults, who know exactly what to do, what to say, how to love and how to help each other. You watch them talk things through, complement one another and talk about their future, always including the other. Their relationship and their bond is so strong, nothing can part them.

If you are looking for some Nell and Colton, then they do appear in this book. You get to see more of their relationship, their cuteness and see their relationship develop even more. They are still so awesome together. You do relieve the moment Kyle dies, and the tears did appear again. Even though you know it’s going to happen, it’s still as painful as when you read it the first time.

Falling into Us will tear you apart. It will make you cry, make you smile, throw your kindle away because you don’t want to relive that moment, make you giggle and smile and sigh at the cutest of Jason and Becca. I wasn’t worried at all when Jasinda said she was writing a second book that included these two, because I knew it was be great. And it bloody well was.

I would recommend reading Falling into You first, then Falling into Us. Read about Nell and Colton, then Jason and Becca and come back and tell me all your FEELS. Because you will FEEL a hell of a bloody lot!!

Synopsis

Becca Chandler is suddenly getting all the guys all the ones she doesn’t want. Ever since her ex-boyfriend spread those lies about her. Then she saves Chris Merrick from a beating in the school parking lot. Chris is different. Way different: he can control water just like his brothers can control fire, wind, and earth. They’re powerful. Dangerous. Marked for death.

And now that she knows the truth, so is Becca.

Secrets are hard to keep when your life’s at stake. When Hunter, the mysterious new kid around school, turns up with a talent for being in the wrong place at the right time, Becca thinks she can trust him. But then Hunter goes head-to-head with Chris, and Becca wonders who’s hiding the most dangerous truth of all.

The storm is coming.

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Review by Natasha Bowyer

Storm is the first full length novel in the Brigid Kemmerer’s Elemental series, and boy is it so much more than it says on the front cover. A fact which I truly love.

When The Book Lover’s requested guest book reviews, it was the first book I thought of; why? Because it is just so ridiculously awesome I struggle to put it into words. It was the last book that I had to read three times in a row (without taking a break) and it was the last book I read which I thought about for a long time after.

I picked up the novel thinking it was going to be a quick paranormal romance that I could just whizz through in a couple of sittings, oh how wrong could I be. Firstly it is not paranormal; it is something far more fundamental then that and has a subject matter which leaves you with a small voice in the back of your mind weighing up the odds of whether it could actually happen. I am talking basics – Earth, Wind, Fire and Water i.e. the Elements. Secondly the quality of writing far outweighs it from other books in the similar YA/NA category. It is fast, it is deep, it is gritty, it touches on subjects that push the boundaries on what is normally considered safe for the genre and target audience, the dialogue is sharp and witty, it uses adult language (good grief teenagers who swear who would have thought of such a thing?!) And it has sarcasm by the bucket load – bet you’d never guess I am huge fan of sarcasm.

More importantly than all the above it is a romance that is so painfully realistic in its portrayal that by the end of the novel you can’t help but sit there and grin like a lunatic as you find out just how it is going to end.

I am not going to deny that the serious smattering of outrageously hot guys did little deter me from the major book crush that developed during my obsessive reading of the novel. The Merrick brothers have well and truly won me over and I live in vain hope that one day I may get stuck in a storm with at least one of them, my preference would be for Chris our leading man in this series instalment.

Told from two points of view this is the tale of Chris and Becca and oh my is it a good one.

Becca Chandler has problems, and they are evident from the first page, the reader does not know that shape or form that they take but finding our main protagonist at a self defense class can only be an opening to a major plot line – which as it turns out ends on the heart rate inducing side of the drama scale.

Becca’s problems only get worse when she interrupts Chris Merrick being beaten up by a couple of menacing youths. Making a split second decision she steps in to help and manages to save Chris from the pummelling and gets him home to his house where we are introduced to the rest of the parentless Merrick brothers, First there is hot but grouchy Michael, then there is hot but short tempered Gabriel, and then hot and kind Nick – do you see where I am going with this?! They all think Becca knows something, which she doesn’t and well neither do we. These boys are paranoid, mistrustful and outright rude and bad mannered which adds the suspense and mystery that Kemmerer starts to build from the very first pages. The Merrick’s have a secret one that has torn through their family and they don’t want anyone knowing about it.

From the moment we glimpse inside Chris’ head it is acutely clear that Chris has a thing for Becca – or Becky as he likes to call her just to wind her up – and it is in this fact alone that Brigid Kemmerer completely had me over a drooling barrel of chrushness. She completely gets writing from a guy’s perspective, and from being inside Chris’ mind you get to see all the thoughts and feelings which he has but does not show on the surface. What he says and what he does are two completely different things, as the reader in the know you can’t help but enjoy the privileged position that you are in. At the point in the novel where Chris thinks he has lost in the battle for Becca’s attentions you can’t help but feel the pain of the guy, it is all there in his thoughts but you watch him acting out with the cool indifference of a teenager and it makes it all the more poignant.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, because I truly can’t ask you enough to read it for yourself, you won’t regret, it but let me just give you a little low down without any spoilers.

There is an amazing support cast, not only the (hot) brothers, but Becca’s best friend Quinn plays a role, there is the arrival of the mysterious and aloof boy with the tattoo’s – Hunter who takes an instant liking to Becca much to Chris’ concern, there is Becca’s Dad who pitches up at a strange time and then there are the baddies who are quite frankly menacing.

The story line itself is complex and clever. Becca has a rep and you feel you kind of know why but it is never spelt out for you. Everyone talks about her but she just ignores it and carries on with everything. When you find out exactly what happened to start the rumour mill churning it makes you have to re-read it just to make sure you got it right the first time, especially when it becomes clear that it is going to happen again.

It is a story about family bonds and that even the most dysfunctional family have emotions that tie them together one way or another.

It is a story about regret and remorse and how you live with it.

It is a story about facing your demons and defeating them.

And most importantly it is about accepting someone into your life and setting out to save them no matter what the cost.

Read it. You won’t be sorry you did.

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Natasha has a book out in the Fall under the name ‘Anna Bloom’ which is titled ‘The Uni File – Year One: The Art of Letting Go.’
The synopsis of the book goes as follows:

“Lilah McCannon is determined to prevent history from repeating itself. Already well on her way to reliving her mother’s life as a bored upper class housewife—privileged, yet still somehow pathetic—Lilah shocks her parents and her fiancé with an abrupt change in course: enrolment at Roehampton University. Although it’s not quite the institution she would have hoped for, it is the only one to accept a desperate application from a young woman in the throes of a mid-twenties breakdown.

Lilah’s diary the “Uni File” follows Lilah’s pursuits throughout the academic year and chronicles her search for independence and identity, her connection with young and charismatic roommates, and her attempts to abide by a set of self-imposed rules, each of which is broken in one hilarious fashion after the next.

When Lilah catches the eye of the lead singer of a popular local band, he forces her hand on her “No Boys” rule. Romance and true soul searching ensue, as do a string of comically embarrassing episodes and poignant encounters with family, friends and fellow students as Lilah studies “The Art of Letting Go.”

You can find Natasha at:-
http://annabloomwrites.com/
Twitter – @Annabloombooks