Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Forever Red (Bama Boys, Book #1) by Carina Adams




BLURB:

Not afraid to speak his mind or make a scene, Nathaniel Kelly has made a name for himself as country music’s ultimate bad boy. 

Covered in tattoos, singing songs about drugs, drinking and heartache, Nate acts more like an out of control rock star than the grandson of one of the genres most influential and legendary stars. Every man wants to be him. Every woman wants just one night with the hard-rocking country rebel. 
Except me.

I just want to know that the boy I used to love is happy and that I didn’t break his heart in vain. That’s why I buy every magazine that even mentions his name; at least, that’s the story I tell myself. 
When my friends gave me a birthday present any fan would die for, I was suddenly face-to-face with the man I never thought I’d see again. My body wasn’t supposed to react to him the way it did. And, Nate sure as hell wasn’t supposed to look at me the way he used to. 

Can someone you loved as a teenager really have a hold on your heart twelve years later? Is it ever too late to say you’re sorry and make up for past wrongs? 

I’m about to find out.

REVIEW:

I am a fan of second chance love stories and this is definitely a good one to read.  This is my first book of Carina's and I will be looking out for more in the future.  When you have a second chance love story there is usually more of a connection for me, I don't know if it is how the story goes or it just makes more sense to me and I can understand the connection, there are already feelings involved even if in the beginning they are anger and hate because that usually then turns into understanding and a deeper friendship to love and to me that is the perfect road to take to get to love, this is just a preference of mine.

Lia and Neil meet in high school, he is a new kid and she is the trailer trash.  At first it was sort of a game for Lia that quickly change to a close friendship with Neil.  Their friendship blossomed into love.  When they graduated Lia knew that Neil could go places and she was going to do what she could to allow him his future.  Neil on the other hand did not want to allow this to happen, he loved Lia with all he had. In order for Lia to give Neil his future she knows he is destined for she allows him to think she betrayed him with the one thing that would make him walk away.  Lia then moves on with her life away from Neil and all she has known.  That does not mean she doesn't still love him with all of her being, she never moves on she never forgets him and she buys everything that has his name in it.  She has followed his career and believes that what she has done was right because he is the hottest Country Music Star and has the life she saw for him, even if it wasn't where she thought he would go but he still made it, he still has a life he would not have had if she held him back with her.  She had to do what she did, she had to love him enough to let him go. For the BIG 3-0 Birthday her friends surprise and take her to his concert  where she will come to face her past. 

Neil cannot believe it when he sees the girls he has loved his whole life, and he never had a chance to have the conversation to know what really happened back then.  He isn't' going to let her walk away from him now, not without an explanation at the least.  At least now Lia is willing to explain, she has to right?  But can he understand, can he get that she had to do that for him.  Can he get that she did do it for him and it wasn't her playing games.  Can he get past it and move on?  Can they move on, I mean it has been a long time but they have grown up right?

I will admit that I had a hard time at times following the book between past and present.  Early on they are Neil and Lia then in the present day they are Nate and Cece, that I felt was odd, I mean I get that he is now a star and has a stage name but even Cecelia changed from going by Lia to Cece, obviously the name matches her given name but I didn’t think it added to the story or helped it.

I loved the characters, I felt Lia was great at being honest about her feelings as a teen when she met Nate as an adult at the concert but then she hid her true feelings now.  I would have liked her to be the one to be up front and honest, for her to be the one to move forward and give their friendship/love a chance but Nate was the one who saw her for who she is and what she did and how she was being.  He was such a great character and person.  I loved him.  I did love Lia too, I understood why she did what she did and she had a crappy childhood but I would have liked to see her growth a little quicker.  This is really like reading two books, the past and the present and that is kind of different then others.  I mean other books have flashbacks but Carina really dove into the past and we got a lot of the back story and that was nice and refreshing.

This is definitely a 4 star read for me, I loved the book and will recommend to anyone.


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