Are you ready to meet Rhys & Fi in the newest romantic
stand alone by S.L. Jennings?
Book Description:
From International Best Selling Romance Novelist, Hope Hughes, comes a gripping, heartfelt tale of two lovers, fighting for the freedom to…
No. Scratch that. Too cheesy.
…two people, torn apart by the tumultuous tides of life, only to discover refuge in…
WTF? What does that even mean? DELETE.
…two people, confused as shit as to where they should be and who they should love and none of this means a damn thing because it’s all lies!
Lies.
I’m not Hope Hughes. I’m not some fierce woman romance machine. Hell, I’m not even a woman.
I’m a liar.
And while I refuse to believe my own BS, deceit masked in heartfelt phrases of love and devotion, I want to make her believe them. Because maybe—just maybe—if she can find the soul within my words, she’ll also be able to find the truth scribbled on my heart.
You see, I once lived for the perfect plot twist.
I just never expected to actually live it.
This is my story. Well, maybe her story. I just wish I could make it our story.
The one I’m still writing.
Buy Links:
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1Q5sd5j
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1TOBX3t
iBooks: http://apple.co/1S2GcJ4
Nook: http://bit.ly/1O05C2w
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1O05Gzp
Excerpt:
“Yeah, but…” Her eyes grow wide and glossy as she tries to sift through all the reasons why that theory shouldn’t apply to her. In the end, she relies on her heart. “You said I wasn’t like those other women…that those other women weren’t me.”
I should tell her she’s right. I should put her out of her misery and reassure her that the last ten years were as real and meaningful to me as they were for her. That even though I may sling gift-wrapped bullshit for the general public, only she knows the true, honest parts of my heart. But with my tongue possessed by the taste of her rejection, I play the petty card, and do just the opposite.
“I guess I was wrong, especially considering yesterday’s events. Maybe you’re no different from them. And maybe you were right about me…that I do sabotage with sex to keep people at arm’s length. Because in the end, that’s all I want anyway, right?”
“You don’t mean that.”
I nod. “Yeah. I do.”
“So what are you saying?” The hurt is so thick in her throat that I can barely hear the words.
I suck in a breath, and scrub a hand over my forehead. “You were right about me. About us. We shouldn’t have done…what we did. And we can’t move on and pretend that it didn’t change us. What’s done is done.”
“I agree,” she nods, with a tinge of hope in her voice.
“So, maybe we should just see this for what it is—the end. You’re starting your life with Joshua and moving away, and I’m going on with mine.”
“Wait, August. No, that’s not—”
“You didn’t actually think we’d be able to keep this up, did you? What, you thought we’d turn out to be the modern day Cathy and Heathcliff? I’m not some swoony, literary hero, Fi. I’m not here to rescue you from your shitty love life that stems from your shitty childhood.”
“I never said you were—”
I’m rambling, spewing verbal diarrhea all over her blue cashmere, but I can’t stop. I can’t shut off the bile that has been choking me since this morning when she disclosed her impending nuptials. “You have Joshua. He’s the one you chose. He’s the one you want. You made that perfectly clear. So what the fuck do you need with me?”
“I thought we were friends, August. I thought you and me were—”
“Well, I guess you were wrong. Friends don’t fuck each other and then five minutes later get engaged. And why would you want to be friends with some empty, misogynistic prick like me anyway?”
“I-I didn’t mean,” her voice cracks, and the first tear escapes. She quickly dashes it away, refusing to let me play witness to her weakness. But I’ve already seen it. I share that very same weakness that has her bottom lip trembling. I’m just too much of a coward to show it.
“Look, I’m sorry. I think we just need a break.”
“A break. Yes,” she nods, dashing away tears. “You’re right. We both said things we shouldn’t have. Let’s just take a few days to…”
“No. A break from this,” I clarify, gesturing between us. “From us. This isn’t working anymore.”
“You’re being melodramatic, August. We’ve had fights before. We’ve said things we didn’t mean, and we always were able to work it out.”
I shake my head and look away, refusing to acknowledge the dejection on her face. “But I meant everything I said.”
Our Review:
***ARC received for an honest review***
“I once lived for the perfect plot twist. I just never expected to actually live it.”
Friends to lovers is one of my favourite plots, you cannot beat that eureka moment, that hesitation, the reticence when best friends finally decide to blur the lines and take that leap of faith that no matter what, their friendship will not change.
Rhys/August was a quick witted, intelligent author who hates love and romance, not too shabby for a man that writes erotic romance under a female pen name, yes you heard right…he writes romance! Rhys’s views on love and romance is tainted and he doesn’t believe in it one iota, hence his manwhorish ways, but it these dalliances that make great fodder for his books. However, it is his best friend Fiona that provides all the drama with her failed relationships. However, Rhys was dominating the genre and he hadn’t a clue how he had done it.
“That’s all life is – beauty and heartbreak. I just narrate it”
Fiona was a hopeless romantic and had been planning her wedding since she was a toddler, she was a hearts and flowers person and was just waiting for her knight in shining armour to come along and whisk her away, with a huge wedding and her 2.4 children and a house with a white picket fence.
“I guess the most epic romances are still tucked away within the pages of her favourite novels, safely swathed in inked lies and faded paper promises. Forever fictional. Just like love.”
Both Rhys and Fiona were voracious readers and between these two there were so many laugh out loud moments. They knew everything about each other, could finish each other’s sentences and had that relationship that everyone was envious of. Even though they were the opposite sex these two had so much in common and their friendship ran through their veins. Fiona was Rhys confidante, she knew everything, she was his only beta reader and he trusted her implicitly, even some stuff she didn’t need to know.
“Love for a lifetime? Sounds more like a judge just brought the gavel down on my balls and gave me a life sentence.”
Rhys really did live with his head in the clouds when it came to Fiona, he had always wanted to be an author, but more than anything he wanted to write something that his best friend would be proud of, he wanted her to fall in love with his words, subconsciously though, he wanted her to fall in love with him. If only Rhys could see that.
“You have the heart of a heroine, but this world is full of villains where romance is tragedy and love is merely comic relief.”
SL Jennings delivers a humorous, heart felt story that will have you smiling and laughing one minute and crying and sobbing the next. I loved the satire, the novel take on the genre and all the one liners that go with it, from movie quotes to the classics the words just flowed off the page. This was one of those books that I didn’t want to finish, I could have read about these two for a lot longer. But this is not all smiles and laughter, as with any transition from friends to lovers there are problems and issues and Rhys and Fiona are no different. I could have battered Rhys at times, I shouted many a time at the kindle “wake up and smell the coffee,” I cringed, I cried and I cussed but that is testament to the emotional involvement I had with Rhys and Fiona, you cannot help but want these two to work. For a fun, romantic and slightly angsty read this is a great book and one that I would recommend.
“She was his muse, his soul mate. She was the beauty in his world of heartbreak.”
About the Author:
S.L. Jennings is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of contemporary and paranormal romance, reality TV junkie, obsessive coffee drinker and collector of crazy.
Giveaway:
Mystery Box w/Signed Paperback
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