Monday, May 5, 2014

RELEASE DAY BLITZ ~ Rush Too Far by Abbi Glines ~ Review






Rush Too Far:
A Rosemary Beach Novel




By: Abbi Glines














Synopsis:


Rush has earned every bit of his bad-boy reputation. The three-story beach house, luxury car, and line of girls begging for time between his sheets are the envy of every guy in Rosemary Beach, and Rush handles it all with the laid-back cool of a rock star’s son. All he needs are his best friend, Grant, and his sister, Nan.

Until Blaire Wynn drives into town in her beat-up pickup truck with a pistol under her seat. The Alabama farm girl instantly captures Rush’s attention once he discovers that the angelic beauty is his new stepsister, but he vows to keep his distance. Even if she needs his help. Even if he craves her.

Because Rush knows why Blaire is all alone in the world, forced to ask for help from the father who abandoned her three years ago. And he knows if he gets too close it will destroy Nan, who has a secret connection to Blaire.

He has every reason in the world to stay away from her. Find out why he doesn’t.

Review:


First, I have a confession to make: I’ve never read any of the Rosemary Beach Series. Fallen Too Far has been on my Kindle TBR list for a while now. Some of the reviews I read didn’t really describe a story I wanted to read. If I wanted to read a story about a dumb nineteen-year-old, I could just ask my family to retell some of my hijinks. I’m sure they would have plenty of material to pull from and it would be free. (As much as I would like to think I was way more intelligent than the naïve female characters that are populating New Adult books, I know I wasn’t. Hence the need for fantasy.) I’ve never read an Abbi Glines’s book, truth be told. When the opportunity to read and review Rush Too Far came up for Naughty and Nice Book Blog, I was the one with an opening in my schedule. So, I figured I could read the book & see if it could be read as a standalone. If it couldn’t, I wouldn’t hold that against the book.
From the beginning I was pulled into Rush’s story. My biggest concern going into the book was I would be reading about this misogynistic asshole hell bent on corrupting an innocent young woman. (Being innocent at the age of nineteen is a little hard to believe, unless you grew up Duggar.) Luckily, those weren’t the characters I encountered.

Even the first encounter between Rush and Blaire, where Rush begins his jackass act, is touching because the reader knows he’s doing for the sister he loves. Maybe not having Blaire’s version in my head allowed me to be open to Rush’s plight. I had a lot of sympathy for Rush. He was torn between protecting the girl he’s always loved and the girl he was falling in love with. Rush had to own up to the pain he’d inflicted on Blaire. I could understand his motivations in the decisions he made before he met Blaire.

Seeing Blaire through Rush’s eyes was refreshing. Yes, she was somewhat innocent, but not in the way that you felt she had no clue about the way the world worked. Blaire seemed to be a genuine person. She’d been dealt a shitty hand in life, but she wasn’t going to let it keep her down. Now, since I haven’t read Blaire’s POV, I can’t speak to what her thoughts were, but I didn’t find her to be gullible or easily fooled.

In the end I was pleasantly surprised with Rush Too Far. I had a little chuckle when Rush tells Blaire to look in Destin for a more reasonably priced place to live. You know the place the character is living must be ultra-swanky when the character says Destin is a reasonably priced place to live. Reading about the honkey-tonk on the Alabama state line jingled a few memories. I liked the little touches that Ms. Glines put in her book from the area around where she lives. If you haven’t given the Fallen Too Far (Rosemary Beach Series) and don’t mind a little bit of a spoiler, give Rush Too Far a chance. You might change your mind about giving the series a chance. I certainly did.

Reviewed by LIZ.


EXCERPT:


They say that children have the purest hearts. That children don’t truly hate because they don’t fully understand the emotion. They forgive and forget easily.

They say a lot of bullshit like that because it helps them sleep at night. Such sayings make for good, heart-warming clichés to hang on the walls, to bring out a smile in people passing by.

I know differently. Children love like no other. They have the capacity to love more fiercely than anyone else. That much is true. That much I know. Because I lived it. By the age of ten I knew hate and I knew love. Both all-consuming. Both life-altering. And both completely blinding.

Looking back now I wish someone had been there to see how my mother had sown the seed of hate inside of me. Inside of my sister. If someone had been there to save us from the lies and bitterness she allowed to fester within us, then maybe things would have been different. For everyone involved.

I never would have acted so foolishly. It wouldn’t have been my fault that a girl was left alone to take care of her ailing mother. It wouldn’t have been my fault that the same girl stood at her mother’s graveside, believing that the last person on earth who loved her was dead. It wouldn’t have been my fault that a man destroyed himself after his life became a broken, hollow shell.

But no one saved me.

No one saved us.

We believed the lies. We held onto our hate, and I alone destroyed an innocent girl’s life.

They say you reap what you sow. That’s bullshit, too. Because I should be burning in hell for my sins. I shouldn’t be allowed to wake up every morning with this beautiful woman in my arms, who loves me unconditionally. I shouldn’t get to hold my son and know such a pure joy.

But I do.
Because, eventually, someone did save me. I didn’t deserve it. Hell, more than anyone it was my sister who needed saving. She hadn’t acted on her hate. She hadn’t manipulated the lives of our family members, not caring about the outcome. But her bitterness still controlled her while I had been delivered. By a girl…

No, she wasn’t just a girl. She was an angel. My angel. A beautiful, strong, fierce, loyal angel who had entered my life in a pick-up truck, carrying a gun.


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Rush Too Far:
 A Rosemary Beach Novel


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