Friday, December 18, 2015

BLOG TOUR ~ SWEET SOUL by TILLIE COLE




BLURB

One shy lost soul.
One silent lonely heart.
One love to save them both.

Life has never been easy for twenty-year-old Levi Carillo. The youngest of the Carillo boys, Levi is nothing like his older brothers. He isn’t dark in looks or intimidating to everyone he meets. In fact, he’s quite the opposite. Haunted by a crippling shyness and the tragic events of his past, Levi spends his days with his head buried in his books, or training hard for his college football team. Too timid to talk to girls, Levi stays as far away as possible and completely on his own… until he saves the life of a troubled pretty blonde, a troubled pretty blonde that might just be the exception to his rule.

Elsie Hall is homeless. Or at least that’s all anyone ever sees. Everyday is a fight for survival on the cold streets of Seattle, everyday a struggle to find food and keep warm. Alone in life—a life that’s dangerous and cruel—her will to keep going is an ever-losing battle. In her world of silence, Elsie has given up hope that her life will contain anything but constant struggle and pain… until the beautiful boy she has severely wronged comes to her rescue at precisely the righ t time.

New Adult novel—contains sexual situations and mature topics. Suited for ages 18 and up.


REVIEW:

Sweet Soul is the 5th book in Tillie Cole's Sweet Home Series.  We finally get the story of the 3rd and final Carrillo Brother.  I cannot tell you how much I love this series.  I rarely cry reading a book and I have ugly cried reading Tillie's Sweet Home Series.

Levi is the quiet one, the one who studies, the one who plays football and comes home and keeps to himself.  Levi is a 20 year old college student and a great guy but he can't bring himself to communicate with people.  School, family and football is his life.  He lives in his brother, the Seattle Seahawk Austin Carrillo's pool house.  He loves his brothers but he has had a really rough life.  All of them did and they loved and lost their mother to a debilitating disease.  A disease that made Levi watch as a young boy kill his mother day by day.  This really marked Levi, he has a lot of guilt and emotional issues.  

One day Levi is leaving the showers after practice and sees a girl, clearly homeless going through his bag stealing his wallet.  When she realizes he is in the room she books with his wallet and his most prized possession, his mothers rosaries.  He doesn’t care about his credit cards but he is distraught over his mothers rosaries.  To him that is still having a piece of her with him.  But at the same time he can't get that girl out of his head.  He is angry with her for taking his rosaries but he understands her desperation.

Levi's brothers are worried about him, they feel intense guilt on the actions they caused to make Levi turn in on himself.  Their actions as teens trying to survive in a brutal world caring for a sick mother.  The push Levi to get out, go to a college party, be a normal college kid.  Levi feels his brothers guilt and wants to make them feel better and decides he will go.  He gets there and realizes this just isn't his thing.  He walks the streets so his brothers don't realize and he finds a girl being attacked in an alley, low and behold it is the girl who has his mothers rosaries.

She doesn't talk, Levi can tell she is really sick, he tries to help her and a love is born.  You can see it immediately, he is drawn to her, you can see the change in him.  She makes him come out of his shell simply by his need to help her and make her better.  I will not elaborate on Elsie's story, because the story is Elsie's story and it is a wonderful one, one of self love, self acceptance and self confidence.  One of finding the good in a bad situation, one in finding your love, finding your happiness and working to get there.


Sweet Soul is exactly what the title says, it is an extremely sweet book.  It is a sweet love story.  But it is SOOO much more.  I cannot express to you the true to life events that Tillie tackles with grace and understanding.  Her books have real life problems, emotional and otherwise.  I love seeing this group of characters grow, when we met Levi earlier in books he was a little boy and now he is a man.  A man on a mission to live his life with his girl.  I am not for wishy washy girls, I want someone strong, even if they have no idea how strong they are.  Tillie is the queen of that heroin, where they have no clue what their strength is, they learn little by little throughout the years.  I love getting both POV's, I loved Levi and I love Elsie and while you can absolutely read this book without reading any of the others I would say please at least read Sweet Fall, it will help you appreciate the side characters much more. 5 huge stars.



Excerpt:

Elsie grabbed her pen and paper; I took her hand. I walked her out of the pool house to the kitchen door. I opened the door, and Elsie walked through. When she glanced over her shoulder, I said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Elsie smiled and walked up the stairs to her room. Just as I was about to shut the door, Lexi appeared from the darkened dining room, a sleeping Dante in her arms.
I opened my mouth to say something when Lexi beat me to it. “Dante woke up for a feed a while ago. I was in the dining room when I saw Elsie run by and leave. I panicked at first thinking she was running away, then I saw you by your pool house. Saw you let her inside.”
My face was on fire as Lexi spoke, rocking my nephew in her arms. I didn’t say anything, but I clearly didn’t need to. “You like her. A lot,” Lexi stated. Unable to lie to my brother’s wife, I nodded my head.
Lexi moved closer. “You’re taking her out tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
Lexi nodded, then went to walk back up the stairs. Before she did, she turned round, and looked like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself. Needing to know what it was, I questioned, “What?”
Lexi looked in the direction of the stairs, in the direction Elsie went, and she said, “I think she’s been through more than we can understand, Lev. I’ve tried to talk to her every day, but she avoids conversation completely.” Lexi sighed and added, “I think she’s really broken inside. Severely. I think there’s something dark in her past that’s haunting her.”
My heart ached, and just as I turned to go back to my room, I whispered, “Then we’re the same. That’s what makes her so special to me.”
Lev…” I heard Lexi hush out softly, but I was out of the door and into the pool house before she could react.
My mind raced with what Lexi said, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t already see. Elsie didn’t speak, she was too timid and shy.  She’d lost her mamma, like I had lost mine. And I could see she was lonely, just like me.
Taking off my jacket, I walked to the table to clear away the mugs, when I saw a piece of paper was lying on the top. I wondered what it was. Suddenly I recognized Elsie’s handwriting.
Moving round the table, I dropped to the seat. The paper was folded in two, my name written across the top.
My heartbeat picked up speed as I opened the paper. At first I was confused by the centralized column of words, then my heart burst apart when I read a poem that Elsie had written:
Alone and lost, appeared this saint,
With pretty gray eyes, darkness can’t taint.
He stole her from cold, from blustering storm,
Kind and gentle, he took her from harm.
Fearful of dark, he created her light,
A jar of gold, chasing demons of night.
Telling stories of love, he brought to her life,
A moment by his side: no pain, no strife.
He gifted her poems, a gesture on whim,
With every word read, she could see only him.
She counted the days until he returned home,
The boy with his light, the girl not alone.
Invisible to all, a shade wandering in dark,
He brought back her faith, with his pure kind heart.

I love poetry, Levi.
Thank you for the book.
Elsie x







AUTHOR BIO - SHORT VERSION

Amazon & USA Today Best Selling Author, Tillie Cole is a Northern girl through and through. She originates from a place called Teesside on that little but awesomely sunny (okay I exaggerate) Isle called Great Britain. She was brought up surrounded by her English rose mother — a farmers daughter, her crazy Scottish father, a savagely sarcastic sister and a multitude of rescue animals and horses.


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