Blog Tour and Giveaway: Trouble: Samantha Towle
Genre: Stand alone New Adult Romance
Mia Monroe is running. Running from a person she doesn’t ever want to find her. Running from a past she doesn’t ever want anyone to know. Desperate to find a future, that yesterday, she could only dream of having.
Jordan Matthews likes easy. Easy women. Easy life.
Then he meets Mia.
She’s damaged, troubled and has more baggage than any person can carry. But the more Jordan gets to know Mia-for the first time in his life-he finds himself wanting to try hard for something… for someone… for her.
And then life isn’t so easy anymore.
Jordan is everything Mia shouldn’t want. A whole bunch of dirty hotness, tattooed, cocky bad boy, who made his money at poker tables and picked his women up in bars. Yet, Mia finds herself falling for him. Then the past Mia was running from, quickly starts to catch up with her. Because that’s the problem with running… you have to stop sometime.
And when you stop, you get caught.
All Mia has ever really know was how be beaten down, controlled, and abused. Once she decides enough is enough, she heads off in search of someone from her past. She finds herself in Colorado at a family run hotel and meets the owner's son, Jordan.And that's when I see the broken in him. Not broken the way I am, but there's definitely something.
She just wants to be free. She is not interested in another "relationship" or allowing anyone to control her life in any way. He is not interested in real relationships at all. He does not get close to women and has a fear of attachment based on some situations in his own past.
She is a woman with a hard past trying to be more assertive and live her own life. He is a bad boy trying to reform. He uncharacteristically finds himself more and more drawn to the mysterious young woman staying at the hotel. There are several circumstances that bring them in close contact and a mutual like, friendship, and attraction develops. They are playful, flirty, a bit guarded, but fun. Jordan finds himself caring about her needs and she thrives with his compassion and how he treats her. They have a good rapport and chemistry. But they both have past issues that have shaped them a continue to affect them. They both have vices and coping strategies. Together they bring out the best in each other, help each other open up, make a strong connection, and begin to have strong feelings that they are not sure how to deal with. But they both have secrets, fears, and insecurities under the surface.
Sometimes that's all it takes. Just one person to turn everything on its head. Remind you of the person you were. Mia makes me want to be the person I was before all the shit.
Noone has ever spoken to me or treated me like he does. Like I'm a person who matters. That I count for something. It make my heart feel warm and alive in a way it never has before.
Life has not been easy for either of these two and they are about to face another challenge. Are they strong enough to face it together or will it be too much for them to handle?
This is more than a story about romantic love between the couple. It is about self discovery, self worth, acceptance, and facing the past. They both had issues to face and the fact that they were both broken in some ways made it easier for them to relate at times but also complicated it at others. This book started out pretty dark and some of it was really hard to take, but then the tone changed and it added more humor, romance, and fun.
I really came to like both Jordan and Mia. I enjoyed both points of view, especially Jordan's. His rationalizations with himself were so funny at times. He was supposed to be this tough guy, but underneath he was really sweet, protective, and loving. He had just never let anyone get to him before. He was trying to move on and find his own way as well. And Mia had a quiet strength about her. She survived a lot and was just trying to move on from it and find herself. She definitely had issues and was an avoider and runner, but she had her reasons. And yes it was frustrating at times, but it did not stop me from liking her. And the dog, Dozer was another character in his own right. He provided comic relief. I also liked Jordan's best friend, Beth. It was nice to see a male and his female best friend, truly just be supportive friends that truly cared about each other especially with Jordan's checkered past with women.
So this book was sweet, fun, and romantic while also having a darker side with danger, secrets, and violence. It was angsty, painful and emotional, but also lighthearted and fun at other times. The characters had a lot to face both individually and together. They were not easy topics, but they were handled in a real and honest way. It was a complete stand alone story with a resolved ending.
Thanks to Samantha Towle for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
When I started reading Trouble, I was in a strange headspace. This was the second book in a row I picked up where the heroine was the victim of domestic abuse. Knowing I was in for some heartbreak made me approach this one a little hesitantly.
Mia's history of abuse was one of those stories that hurt to hear about. The pattern she found herself in was one that could lead no where good. Through a series of events, she finds herself running from home in search of answers to questions she didn't even know to ask.
Jordan has lost or disappointed everyone he loves. He is not a man who dates women, he only has sex. When Mia shows up at his father's hotel, wearing sunglasses at night, he knows there is something different about her. There was just something about Jordan from the beginning that made him sympathetic and the kind of guy any girl wants to know.
I liked the two of them for each other almost immediately. We know what Mia is running from, but when Mia shows up at Jordan's hotel, we don't know much about him at that point. There was just something about that meeting and the subsequent conversations with his best friend and his father that had me immediately hoping they would have a happy ending. Jordan had a patience and sense of understanding when it came to Mia and told him he needed to take thing slow with her, a big change of pace for him.
The addition of Dozer, Jordan's dog, to the story line was a great ice breaker. His immediate connection to Mia adds a bridge between Mia and Jordan, and he causes a few well placed bits of comic relief for Mia and Jordan later in the story as well. Beth's character too, adds a great counter to Jordan, both as a best friend and as a sisterly influence. She acts as his conscience at times, and continually pokes and prods as a sibling might do.
I was happy to see this was not a case of insta-love. They don't fall in to bed on their first meeting, nor did Mia immediately put behind years of abuse when she met Jordan. There was a definite process to her healing, with hiccups along the way, which made it much more realistic (if a little bit truncated) and easier to stay connected with the characters and their individual histories.
This book surprised me. I expected to enjoy it. What I didn't expect was to find as many surprise elements throughout the story. The background stories that come out explain a lot about both main characters while fueling important present day plot points, both immediate events and character reactions. This is a well woven story of hurt and healing that had me by turns cheering for and aching with the characters along the way.
Thanks to Samantha Towle for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Samantha Towle
Samantha Towle began her first novel in 2008 while on maternity leave. She completed the manuscript five months later and hasn't stopped writing since. She is the author of The Mighty Storm, The Bringer and the Alexandra Jones series, all penned to tunes of The Killers, Kings of Leon, Adele, The Doors, Oasis, Fleetwood Mac, and more of her favourite musicians. A native of Hull and a graduate of Salford University, she lives with her husband, Craig, in East Yorkshire with their son and daughter.
Giveaway
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5 ebook
copies of TROUBLE
3 comments
Would love to win a copy!
ReplyDeleteWould love to read this book! Sounds fantastic!
ReplyDeleteWould love to win a copy! :)
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