{A Kelly M Review} Just For now by Abbi Glines

Title: Just For Now
Series: Sea Breeze #4
Author: Abbi Glines
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Publisher: Simon & Shuster

Synopsis

The day Preston Drake figured out that wealthy women paid well for a set of tight abs and a pretty face his life turned around.The run down rat-infested trailer he had shared with his alcoholic mother and three younger siblings was now only a place he visited to pay the bills and stock the pantry with food.

He no longer worried about his family starving or living without electricity. The money he made entertaining rich older women more than covered his family’s needs and his own. He had it all figured out. Except…

There was this girl.She was as innocent as he was tainted.

Amanda Hardy wished her knees didn’t get weak when Preston walked into a room. She hated the fact her heart raced when he flashed his smile in her direction. He had a different girl in his bed every night. He was the kind of boy a smart girl ran from. So, why was she coming up with ways to get close to him? Even when it was obvious he wanted to keep her at a distance.

Maybe her heart knew something the world didn’t. Maybe Preston Drake was more than just a pretty face.

Warning: For Mature Readers Only: Contains Sexual Situations, Language and Underage Drinking

Abbi Glines has done it again. By that I mean writing another book that keeps you so compelled that you basically forget to breathe while reading it. Ms Glines is absolutely one of my all time favourite authors of all time. She is one of the best story creators that I know of. The other day I told Kayleigh of K_Books that it doesn’t matter which genre it is that this woman writes, you read it without a doubt. You drop everything immediately and get comfy and read until the last page. I get sucked into every single one of her stories and even when I have finished it, I am still in the world in which the story takes place. I am still right there with every character experiencing everything they are going through. If you love stories that make your emotions go all topsy-turby and smooshes your insides then any Abbi Glines book is for you.

Just For Now is the fourth book in the Sea Breeze series and it did not disappoint. Even though my favourite story so far was Cage and Eva’s in While It Lasts, Just For Now helped me to create a special bond with Preston. So far in every book he has been described as a player because of his extreme hotness and the fact that he has a different girl basically every night and doesn’t care how he breaks their hearts because honestly he is Preston Drake so why should he? That is SO not the case. We find out a very dark secret that he has been hiding so that he is able to care for his three very young siblings since his mother is a good for nothing drunk and can’t even look after herself let alone her children. So he basically became a male prostitute in order to care for them and it is a secret that not even his best friend Marcus Hardy knows.

He has been in love with Marcus’s little sister, Amanda, for a very long time but knows he will never be good enough for her so he does everything possible to make her hate him, little does he know that she has the same feelings for him and has been trying to get him to notice her forever. In the beginning they sleep together but Preston is drunk and thinks it was all a dream so naturally Amanda thinks that it meant nothing to him and tries her best to move on. The entire story is about two people afraid to trust each other for fear of being hurt again and also about finding love in the unlikeliest of people.

This story made me smile, go awwwwwwww and cry my heart out in separate occasions. I felt like such an emotional mess and just had to sit back a few times and process everything that I have just read. I honestly love this book so much and I am very satisfied about the ending for Preston and Amanda as well as for Preston’s siblings.

It is a definite must read for everyone and also for those who have lost hope that they do not deserve love because of things in their past. 

{A Kelly M Review} While It Lasts by Abbi Glines

Title: While It Lasts
Series: Sea Breeze #3
Author: Abbi Glines
Genre: Adult Contemporary

Synopsis:

Maybe driving home after a few (or more) shots of tequila had been a bad idea, but hell, he did it all the time. The cops had to have been freaking bored to have pulled him over. He wasn’t even swerving! That’s Cage York’s story and he’s sticking to it.

Unfortunately, his baseball coach isn’t buying it. Cage has a free ride to the local junior college for baseball -- or he did, until he’d gotten a DUI. Now, Cage has to decide: does he drop out and give up his dream of getting noticed by a college in the SEC, and possibly making it into the Major Leagues -- or does he give in to his coach’s demands and spend his summer baling hay?

Eva Brooks planned out her life step by step when she was eight years old. Not once over the years had she lost sight of her goals. Josh Beasley, her next door neighbor, had been the center of those goals. He’d been her first boyfriend at seven, her first kiss at ten, her first date at fifteen, and her first tragedy at eighteen. The moment she’d received the phone call from Josh’s mother saying he’d been killed along with four other soldiers just north of Baghdad, Eva’s carefully planned life imploded in the worst way possible.

Cage isn’t real happy with his closet-sized bedroom in the back of a foul smelling barn, or his daily interactions with cows, but he knows that if he doesn’t make his coach happy then he can kiss his scholarship goodbye. Only a sick and twisted man would decide his punishment was to be working on a farm all summer. No hot babes in bikinis waiting to meet a Southern boy to make her vacation complete. Just him and the damned cows.

Oh -- and an uptight, snarky brunette with the biggest blue eyes he’s every seen. But she doesn’t count, because as hard as he’s tried to charm her out of her panties - he’s pretty sure she’d rather see him hung from the rafters than let him get a taste of her pretty little lips.

Another contemporary review. I know, shocking right? But Abbi Glines is one of my favourite authors, whether it is paranormal or contemporary. She excels in both genres in my opinion and I have fallen deeply in love with every single one of her characters, but I must say that Cage York has been my ultimate favourite of her contemporary book boys. If there ever was a broken boy, it is Cage. He made me love him in Because of Low but he stole my heart in While It Lasts.

The story starts off where Cage has to go work on a farm because he got a DUI and could lose his baseball scholarship. Now he needs to do hard time working on the farm run by his coaches’ brother. Now him working on this farm didn’t bother me at all, and I’ll tell you why. Imagine you live on a farm and  upon looking out on the fields you notice this god of a man with long-ish black hair, tattoos AND A MOTHER FUDGING NIPPLE RING!!! And just like me your ovaries will explode when confronted with a sight like that. Calming down now.

This is where he meets the heart broken Eva who is mourning the loss of her best friend and fiancé. Eva does not like Cage at all because she knows he is a player and uses girls like he feels like it and because she is attracted to him which is kind of ironic. She also feels like she would be betraying her fiancé if she has any type of feelings towards another guy.

She avoids Cage like the he is the Black Death. He ends up calling her his invisible fairy since she makes sure that he never sees her when she brings his food and drinks and towels and sheets. They end up forming this weird relationship between friends and friends-with-benefits.

What is different about this story is that the guy actually falls in love first and the girl is reluctant about admitting her feelings. Luckily they do end up being a couple and Cage takes her home to meet his friends and we get a small glimpse of the wonderful hotness that is Krit. I so hope Abbi Glines writes a Krit story. Anyway Eva gets confronted by all Cage’s past relationships and past behaviours and of course she freaks out and so does Cage because he is already in love and cannot bare losing her.

when they return their relationship takes a turn for the worst and they end up having to face difficult obstacles in the form of Eva’s manipulation by those views around her and in the form of her father who does not want Cage anywhere near his precious little girl. In all honestness I was only concerned about how Cage feels and just wanted them to be together so that he could be happy again, Cage is my life. That is all

This is a story with lots of heart break and frustration, so if you don’t like smashing your books against walls I suggest you take a generous amount of calming medicine.  Abbi Glines has done it again and thank goodness her story about Preston is coming out soon!!!

{Review} While it Lasts by Abbi Glines

Title: While it Lasts
Series: Sea Breaze #3
Author: Abbi Glines
Self-Published
Release Date: July 31, 2012

Amazon   Barnes&Noble   Goodreads   

Facebook   Twitter   Blog

Synopsis:

Maybe driving home after a few (or more) shots of tequila had been a bad idea, but hell, he did it all the time. The cops had to have been freaking bored to have pulled him over. He wasn’t even swerving! That’s Cage York’s story and he’s sticking to it.

Unfortunately, his baseball coach isn’t buying it. Cage has a free ride to the local junior college for baseball -- or he did, until he’d gotten a DUI. Now, Cage has to decide: does he drop out and give up his dream of getting noticed by a college in the SEC, and possibly making it into the Major Leagues -- or does he give in to his coach’s demands and spend his summer baling hay?

Eva Brooks planned out her life step by step when she was eight years old. Not once over the years had she lost sight of her goals. Josh Beasley, her next door neighbor, had been the center of those goals. He’d been her first boyfriend at seven, her first kiss at ten, her first date at fifteen, and her first tragedy at eighteen. The moment she’d received the phone call from Josh’s mother saying he’d been killed along with four other soldiers just north of Baghdad, Eva’s carefully planned life imploded in the worst way possible.

Cage isn’t real happy with his closet-sized bedroom in the back of a foul smelling barn, or his daily interactions with cows, but he knows that if he doesn’t make his coach happy then he can kiss his scholarship goodbye. Only a sick and twisted man would decide his punishment was to be working on a farm all summer. No hot babes in bikinis waiting to meet a Southern boy to make her vacation complete. Just him and the damned cows.

Oh -- and an uptight, snarky brunette with the biggest blue eyes he’s every seen. But she doesn’t count, because as hard as he’s tried to charm her out of her panties - he’s pretty sure she’d rather see him hung from the rafters than let him get a taste of her pretty little lips.

*For Mature YA and Adult Readers. Contains mature language and sexual content.

Have any of you read anything by Abbi Glines? The Vincent Boys, The Vincent Brothers, Existence, Predestined, Because of Low, Breathe? Anything? If not, make it your mission to pick up any of these books, though I highly recommend the Sea Breeze Series - Breathe, Because of Low, and While it Lasts. Everything Abbi writes, borders on amazing. Pure and simple. She's got her bad boys down to a fine art and gosh, Cage York is so bad, he makes me wish he were real. He IS the bad boy I would fall for, hands down!

"No; my daddy didn't teach me anything but that his fucking fists were bigger than my momma's and how to skip out on your family," I replied with a sneer in my voice.

If you've read Because of Low, you know exactly how bad Cage is. He grew up in a house where his dad beat his mom and then deserted the both of them. Low is the only person in his life who never left him, but when Marcus entered the picture, Cage feared loosing her too. But she would never leave him. Ever. And Cage on a ranch, with cows...funnier than you can imagine.

Those damn cows came running when I showed up with the feed. They actually knew it was chow time and I had the goods. It was also scary as shit to have those sons of bitches running at you like they were going to trample you.

Really, it was no surprise that Cage ended up with a DUI. The boy partied more nights than he stayed at home. Wait? I'm actually not sure he ever spent a night lounging around at home. He had girls galore, often more than one at a time. He never bothered to get a phone number because he knew he was never going back. Not a single one of them held Cage's attention for more than a few hours. Until his baseball coach sent Cage to a farm to bail hay and chase cows - or hell, as Cage sees it. However, there is one angel who might save his summer, IF he can get her attention, but Cage isn't used to trying.

I absolutely loved seeing the so-bad-he's-sinful Cage fall in love for the first time. I loved seeing him work to garner a girl's attention. And I loved watching him screw up. Let's face it, it was bound to happen. 

Eva's not any typical girl. She's dated the same guy all her life, until he died fighting in Baghdad. Now, she's alone and not looking for love. She's got her overprotective dad and her fiance's brother, Jeremy. It's been nearly two years, and she hasn't removed her engagement ring. Cage is absolutely the wrong choice for her. No doubt about it. But something about his southern charm and the way he seems to genuinely care, has her running toward him, when she should be running from him...every girl should run away from Cage York. Even he knows that.

Okay, so if you're not hooked by the prologue, read a chapter or two more and you will be in love. Seriously, the prologue had me in tears. A hell of a way to capture the readers attention... But then Cage's antics had me captivated until the very last page. I wanted to skip ahead and read the end because I had to know, but I reminded myself how humorous the book would be all the way through. Oh, and did I mention HOT AS HADES?

"You're the drunk," she stated.
It wasn't a question. So, I din't reply. Instead, I flashed her a smile that I knew affected any female's panties and took a step toward her. "I got a lot of names, baby," I finally responded.
Her eyebrows arched, straightened her stance and shot me the coldest glare I'd ever witnessed. What was this chick's deal? "I'm sure you do. Let me guess: STD, Loser, Jackass, and Drunk just to name a few..."

Ah...if there were ever a match for Cage, it is Eva. She's already got his number, and I'm not talking phone. I loved her wittiness and her bravado when it came to Cage's advances...at least in the beginning. She absolutely wasn't putting up with his shit. Just the kind of girl Cage needs.

The naughty girl inside me, that I honestly didn't know existed, bent my head down and looked up at him through my lashes as I flicked it with my tongue.
"Ah, shit," he whispered but it almost sounded like a moan.
Encouraged by his response I flattened my tongue and ran it up and over his hard nipple.

Needless to say, things progress, not without a few bumps in the road though. The thing I adored about Eva was her take charge attitude. No matter what the circumstances were. 

Abbi chose to write While it Lasts from both Cage's and Eva's POV. I honestly don't think there was any other way. To get the full impact the reader has to know Cage's side, but they also have to see the heart-ache and insecurities of the person getting close to Cage. As a fictional character, he's easy to love, but as a trustworthy boyfriend, I'd say it would be nearly impossible to ride out the Cage York hurricane. I have a thing for broken boys, and Cage is 150% broken. Yes, I know it's impossible, but he is. Eva's also broken and watching the two of them mend each other tugged at my heart and brought me close to tears once or twice.

Highly recommended! But only for mature audiences!