Promo Review: One Wild Night and This Wicked Rush: Jessie Evans
One Wild Night
Wild Rush prequel
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(Can be read before or after THIS WICKED RUSH, Wild Rush Book 1.)
One night can change your life...
"Come on, Caitlin, let me help you get what you need."
The way he says it, it’s about so much more than money. It’s about the way he makes my skin hot and my lips tingle, it’s about the way he makes my heart race and banishes the exhaustion that’s been my constant companion since I quit school to be a full-time surrogate parent. It’s about the flicker of hope he lights inside me. That flame isn’t much bigger than a candle right now, but I can sense how easy it would be for it to grow, to rise higher and higher until it sets my world on fire.
I’m standing at the threshold of a moment that will change my life, and not necessarily for the better. I know that, I know it with everything in me, all the way down to the marrow of my bones.
But still I nod. And take his hand. And let him lead me out into the night.
One Wild Night sets up the premise for This Wicked Rush. It chronicles the night Gabe and Caitlin meet and Gabe convinces her to help him on a pawn shop robbery. There is an immediate connection between Gabe and Caitlin that he intends to explore further, but he has to figure out a way to make her look beyond their shared past.
This was a quick introduction to the characters and situations that will be explored further in This Wicked Rush. Caitlin’s dire situation is established and it was hard not to sympathize with her plight. Raising 4 children as a 20 year old dropout on 2 dead end jobs isn’t easy on it’s own. Add in an alcoholic father who doesn’t work and spends money faster than Caitlin can earn it on her own, and a no win situation is born. Gabe offers Caitlin a way out, if she’s willing to take the risk.
As a stand alone, I would say this was just ok. As an introduction to the series, it was a great quick foundation to add insight and weight to this one scene. If it was bundled into a larger novel, it would get lost in the other overarching events of the story, where as a separate novella there is room to explore the back and forth feelings Caitlin experiences about her family situation and the possibility of a solution.
Thanks to Jessie Evans for providing me with a complimentary copy in return for an honest review.
This Wicked Rush
Wild Rush book 1
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“You know what I like, Caitlin. You know I want you to beg for it.”
Gabe
I’ve never been the kind of person to give up on something I want. Now, I refuse to take no for an answer. I want this girl. I want to help her, and sleep with her, and steal things with her, and make her laugh the way she did right that night in her friend's car. We’re going to have a summer neither of us will ever forget, and by the time we go our separate ways, she’ll have enough money to go to college, and I will have had her…every way I want her.
Caitlin
I’m starting to forget why it’s a bad idea to get in any deeper with a boy who is a walking, talking contradiction. A boy who has a taste for breaking the law, a wicked way with words, and a confident touch that leaves no doubt he’s way more experienced than I am. I’ve spent my life putting aside my own needs and cleaning up after other people’s mistakes. Now, I want to make a mistake of my own.
I know I’m playing with fire, but for Gabe I'm willing to beg to be burned.
THIS WICKED RUSH is an edgy, sexy, boundary-pushing read intended for readers over the age of seventeen. The book features graphic love scenes, violence, strong language, and thieves in love. Read at your own risk.
"A steamy, high-octane love story that will have you wondering how far you'd go if you stopped playing by the rules. And may even make you want to step over the lines.” –New York Times Bestselling Author, Lauren Blakely
I liked This Wicked Rush more than I anticipated. After reading the novella, I wasn’t sure I was going to like Gabe all that much, no matter how much I sympathized with Caitlin’s situation. I was relieved to find the feelings I struggled with in One Wild Night were not repeated. Initially I was hesitant to love this, not just because of my feelings after One Wild Night, but also because I couldn’t imagine Gabe and Caitlin’s activities not catching up to them and blowing back on their families.
Caitlin can’t catch a break. The 20 year old high school dropout has been working 2 jobs and struggling to keep her 3 brothers and niece fed, clothed, and housed for the last three years. Her father is less than useless, avoiding home, spending his meager disability check before it can go to caring for his children. When she connects with Gabe, he offers her a way to lessen her burden and find some hope that things will get better. The only problem is it takes illegal activities to find that relief.
Gabe, the handsome boy who used to goof off in the seat behind Caitlin in study hall, sweeps in with a plan to perform Robin Hood like acts, tipping the scales of lawbreakers and monsters who have gotten away with their crimes to help Caitlin afford to go back to school and raise her family. I spent much of the book trying to figure out what his game was. He is a rich kid with a trust fund, yet he feels the need to steal from others? But as he continues his plans with Caitlin, there are hints that something else is going on in his decision making process, and he is feeling things he refuses to acknowledge.
I loved Caitlin’s siblings and niece. She was so devoted to them that she had given up everything she might have been if she had stayed in school. But to save them from foster care, she gave it up, and never complained or let them know they were anything but the most important thing to her. Watching Gabe interact with them also
I read this waiting for the other shoe to drop. Would it be Gabe’s secrets or something to do with one of their robberies? Until it happened I wasn’t sure which way the story would go, and that anticipation kept me reading with rapt attention. The tension provided by the illegal activity adds to the plot movement nicely, in addition to the progression of the relationship between Gabe and Caitlin.
As the first in a new series, this does end with a doozy of a cliff. It almost looked like there would be some resolution, but a big piece of information was dropped at the end that left a lot of unanswered questions for One Perfect Love. This was a fast paced read that kept me moving forward from the time I started until there were no more pages to turn. It was not always an easy read, but completely engrossing and challenging in the best possible way.
Thanks to Jessie Evans for providing me with a complimentary copy in return for an honest review.
Jessie Evans
Jessie Evans gave up a career as an international woman of mystery to write the sassy, Southern romances she always wanted to read.
She's married to the man of her dreams, and together they're raising a few adorable, mischievous children in a tree house in the boonies. She grew up in rural Arkansas, spending summers running wild, being chewed by chiggers, and now appreciates her home in a chigger-free part of the world even more.
When she's not writing, Jessie enjoys playing her dulcimer (badly), sewing the worlds ugliest quilts to give to her friends, going for bike rides with her house full of boys, and wandering the woods, glass of wine and camera both in hand, on the lookout for Bigfoot.
A southern girl, born and bred, Jessie loves writing Southern romances with just the right amount of sizzle, and hopes you'll enjoy her stories set in the fictional town of Summerville, Georgia. Especially the "Always a Bridesmaid" series!
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