MAKE YOU MINEby TIA LOUISE
A promise written on a coaster.
A lost night in a dark room.
Grayson Cole was my brother’s best friend.
He was all of my firsts.
Then he went away...
Drew Harris was just a kid, a senior in high school, my best friend’s little sister.
They said she was too young to know her feelings.
I was too old to have them, so I left to join the military.
Four years passed.
Loss, injury, angry words I can never take back…
I’m home, but I’m not the same.
Neither is she.
Now she’s a woman with flashing blue eyes, long blonde hair, and gorgeous curves.
Still, she’s the same sweet smile, the same sassy mouth…
I could never say No to her before.
I should for her sake.
She deserves better than what I’ve become, scarred and damaged.
“They told me to stay away from you.
I went away to try… God, I tried.
Now everything has changed. I’m back, and
I’ll do whatever it takes to make you mine…”
This book had all the makings of a slam dunk for me: little sister of a best friend/military romance/second chance. I was all in! Going in with a smile, it started out really easy. The buildup to a relationship that made me smile and I just knew that I was going to fall in love with a story and it's characters. Well, dangit...it didn't play out like I had hoped. I know I am having a rough go of things lately and I am getting to the point that I don't know when to actually continue and push on in the story, or call it quits and cut my losses. I hate DNF'ing a book, but I hate when I feel like I am wasting my time even more. While this one has some decent parts, it also has some very long drawn out boring sections as well, and I wasn't enjoying it as much as I could be. I think the hardest part is, when I start picking out things I just don't like....I start noticing them more frequently, and then it's downhill from there. I hate struggling through a book....
The Characters: I loved the heroine in the beginning. She was strong and sexy and smitten and I related to her secret love. I loved it. LOVED it. She had a good head on her shoulders and she was very strong-willed and decisive on what she wanted in life, and that just so happened to include Grayson. I certainly do NOT blame her.
"His gaze was possessive, and my body answered with feelings I'd never had before."
The Hero was an amazing man. He really was. I liked his tenacity and his strength, his determination to prove he was a good enough man for her. It was the very reason I fell in love with him. And I feel he did just that, yet he was warring with his childhood fears and realities coming true. That was awful to feel and read. But, for me? He had nothing to prove and I loved him from the get-go. Good, upstanding young man with a heart of gold and a deep love for his woman many men lack the emotional ability to carry out.
This book started out with a great visual for my heart to connect with, because when it came back as a memory to mourn, my heart hurt just as Gray's had. I fell in love with this forbidden love and I enjoyed their secret rendezvous and stolen kisses - ultimately, it was very dreamy and sweet. I love to read about these kinds of love because the desire is worth more than the fear of possibly getting caught. Their love scenes? Sexy. They had infinitely sexy times and I loved how he loved her and how he took care of her. His smiles and his hug from behind with his nose in her hair....or behind her ear? Ahhh.....it was what smiles and dreams are made of. It really was sweet and sexy in that aspect.
But wait...why is this a DNF review, Bee? The honest breakdown in the story for me was the writing and the style. It started off really well, but by the time I got to 48%, I was starting to wane a bit in my enthusiasm. I was also quite shocked I was only at 48% into the book because it felt like there was no way there would be 52% more of a story to tell. The heroine and her ridiculous comments started to bug me. The constant negative mental discussions being had when a physical conversation was necessary was dragging it down for me as well. I feel like there was a lot of internal babbling in each of the characters' minds and also felt there was more tell and less show and I wanted to "see" this all play out. I wanted to feel it. I wanted to go on their journey and feel that pain. I wanted the words to flow with ease because the actual story itself was great. It just didn't read that way for me.
And, to be real: I most definitely did not like when the sole description of a woman's sexual being was described as a core; sliding into her core, her slippery core, her throbbing core, her tingling core, her clenching core. Let's come up with some new ways to describe her.....core.
I also had issues with some of the transitions because they were really rocky in some areas, or in some cases not fleshed out really well. When you are going to describe something in detail, it would help if you detailed it in completion and not make the going to/coming from more detailed than the coming from/going to. Make it equal, or don't detail it so significantly because it's a jarring flow at that point. I struggled with this throughout the entire book, and knew it was bugging me. A fully, well-versed story or a surface scratcher can work, but halfway between the two doesn't work for me.
Having just recently read a book with a harrowing account of their characters' military service, this one paled in comparison. I don't normally compare books because I know each author writes/tells a different story - and that's not what I want to convey with this comment, but I am having a difficult time explaining why this one didn't work for me emotionally....it was just a glaring difference of how emotionally connecting writing can be from one author to the next. It's sometimes difficult to describe, and for that, I'm sorry.
I hate being a negative nelly when it comes to reviews of books I've read - and I feel like I've been doing it quite a bit recently, but I am trying to find new reads just like anyone else. You may absolutely LOVE this book, but - happily - my opinion is clearly not an indication of how well received the book has been since it's getting some really positive reviews. It just didn't work for me. It wasn't an awful book - not even a bad book, it just wasn't worth my time to continue reading when I already had so many hangups with it the farther along I went. I just want an amazing, heart-clenching, mind-boggling, deep, soul-stealing love to read....that's all.
"Not all dreams turn out the way you hope."
~BEE
PURCHASE LINKS
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~MEET TIA LOUSE~
Tia Louise is the USA Today best-selling, award-winning author of 20 sexy romance and romantic suspense novels.
After being a teacher, a book editor, a journalist, and finally a magazine editor, she started writing love stories and never stopped.
Louise lives in the Midwest with her trophy husband, two teenage geniuses, and one grumpy cat.
~CONNECT WITH TIA~
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