Blog Tour: The Difference Between Somehow and Someway: Aly Martinez
The Difference Between Somehow and Someway
(The Difference Trilogy #2)
Aly Matinez
Aly Matinez
Release date February 24, 2022
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The world gave me everything.
After surviving a plane crash, I was lucky to be alive. It was a harsh truth, but one that changed my perspective on how fragile life could be.
So when a fellow survivor caught my eye, I owed it to myself to take a chance and follow my heart.
Bowen Michaels was guarded and broody, but I saw through his well-formed armor. Much like me, he was broken and lost, but together we found our way through the darkness.
For a brief moment, wrapped in his arms, it felt like maybe he was right about fate and we’d been destined to find each other all along.
But when buried secrets of the past erupt, igniting us both, it was hard to believe we’d been fated for anything other than failure.
The world gave me everything.
And then it took it all away.
Spoiler Free
This is the second part of Remi and Bowen’s heartbreaking journey. We bounce between the past and the present...before everything changed and after. We see how things progressed in certain ways and how some choices were made. But in the present, all bets are off and Bowen is determined that if Remi wants him then he’s going to stand by her no matter what.
At the end of the last book we learned some shocking news, but Remi was still in the dark. Bowen still has secrets. She’s keeping her own secrets. Every freaking person is keeping secrets! And little by little they start to unravel.
Even though things seem to be in a good place for Bowen and Remi, there is so much that could affect their tentative happiness. It’s only a matter of time before it gets messy.
Even though things seem to be in a good place for Bowen and Remi, there is so much that could affect their tentative happiness. It’s only a matter of time before it gets messy.
As love continues to bloom and flourish, this dark cloud seems to be waiting to bear down on them and disrupt their progress.
Remi and Bowen are survivors in so many ways. And they are both full of tenacity and strength but also damaged at the same time. Bowen is such a strong and caring hero, but also vulnerable and desperate. I felt sorry for him at times and happy for him at others. Despite the lies he’s told, he is willing to sacrifice for her as needed and is determined not to lose her again. But this is a different fight...and he might actually be fighting more than he even realizes.
This installment kept me just as enthralled as the first one. I could not put it down! There are plenty more surprises and twists along the way. It makes you cycle through all the feels. This story has so many layers to it, so many secrets, and such precarious dynamics. I felt like I was just waiting holding my breath as all the hits started coming. It ends on a surprising cliffhanger and I cannot wait for the final book. But I will admit I was kind of proud of myself for figuring out some of the twist in this one, but it still surprised me how some things played out. It amazes me how this author can always throw in some things that send my mind spinning.
Once again, Aly Martinez has written a second-in-a-trilogy book that has me questioning my usual feelings about the middle of trilogies. Usually? They feel slow and plodding and one of those necessities that has to happen between the beginning and end of a trilogy. This one did not feel like a regular necessity, but a treat full of surprising twists in Remi and Bowen’s story.
There were several very surprising twists in this installment. I was close to figuring out a big one, but even thinking I had it solved did not lessen the impact of the full reveal. Remi and Bowen are each keeping secrets and there are bound to be twists and turns as those secrets come to light (because they always do, don’t they?!).
This is one of those series that once you get beyond the first book it is best to continue without a whole lot of new information. All I can say is if you are considering this trilogy, you must! (Just make sure to start with the first book!) I cannot wait for the finale in the trilogy to see where Remi and Bowen’s story continues to take them - because there are still many secrets to fully reveal.
Teaser Graphics from Author's Facebook page
The world owes you nothing.
It took losing the woman I loved and facing the paralyzing task of moving on without her for me to truly understand that.
Consumed by regret and razor-sharp memories, I’d resigned myself to a life of loneliness until a survivor from the same plane crash that took my fiancée stormed into my life.
Remi Grey was chaos and sunshine, fire and freedom. With her in my arms, I began to believe fate had other plans for me.
But as secrets of the past exploded around us, it seemed the only thing fated about our relationship was that I had been destined to lose her from the start.
The world owes you nothing. But for Remi, I would risk it all. No matter the cost.
Excerpt from The Difference between Somebody and Someone
Book 1
“Sorry, is my mood killing your buzz?” I asked.
Her blue eyes sparkled in the glow of the airplane reading light. “It really is.”
I shook my head and went back to mindlessly flipping the pages of a magazine I’d bought at the terminal back in Colorado. I’d picked it up with hopes it would be a distraction from the cyclone raging within me on our way back to Atlanta. The minute she ordered that drink, I’d known it was a lost cause.
Her hand came across the armrest and landed on my thigh. “Bowen, stop. It’s not a big deal.”
It was the truth. Compared to everything we’d been through, our house could have been swallowed by a sinkhole and it wouldn’t have been considered a big deal.
Honest to God, I was lucky to still have her at all. It had only been nine months since we’d met, but we’d lived a thousand lives in that time. Unfortunately, that also meant we’d died almost as many deaths.
Terrifying, tortuous, agony-filled deaths.
We’d also found love though—immeasurable amounts of it.
I stared down at her engagement ring. I’d cashed out a huge chunk of my savings account and still had to open a line of credit with the jewelry store to buy the three-karat princess-cut ring. The payment was roughly the same as I paid for my truck each month, but the tears in her eyes as she’d sat in her hospital bed, clutching it to her chest the day I proposed, made it all worth it.
She was worth it. Every day, every tear, every worry-filled minute shaved off my life.
I’d do it all again.
If only I weren’t so helpless to save her. I loved that woman. Whole heart. Whole soul. Bend me, break me, crack me open and she would have been there. No matter how bad it got, she was always a part of me.
I wasn’t sure anymore if she could say the same.
“Bowen,” she whispered, just as she’d done so many times before. It was a plea. One she knew I’d answer no matter the situation. No matter how mad I got. No matter how much I feared losing her again.
My gaze instinctively lifted to hers.
She smiled and the sight caused an ache in my chest. It was a lie.
God, I missed her smile.
“Baby, I’m okay.” She tilted her head to her drink. “I hate flying. That’s all this is.”
That was a lie too.
My shoulders fell and a loud breath tore from my burning lungs, but I let myself pretend, my mind going back to a time when it could have been the truth.
I thought of the nights we’d shared multiple bottles of wine and made love, laughing and moaning under the covers until the sun crept across the horizon. She’d rested peacefully in my arms. No nightmares. No crying in her sleep. No insomnia. Just even breaths, her head on my shoulder, and her body wound around mine so tightly it was like a second skin.
But that was the past.
The unreachable, insurmountable past.
The plane jerked, forcing me back to the present.
“Shit.” She moved her hand off my thigh to grasp her drink as it sloshed all over her. “Crap, crap, crap,” she chanted, using a cocktail napkin to dry the dark-red pool of tomato juice on her white pants.
For a moment, I sat there and watched her struggle. It wasn’t the most chivalrous thing to do, but I was all out of grand gestures.
She unbuckled her seat belt and lurched to her feet, her phone along with a handful of ice cubes from her lap falling to the floor. “Damn, this is going to leave a huge stain.”
The plane jerked again and she stumbled forward, crashing into the seat in front of her before I could catch her arm.
“Dammit, sit down before you get hurt.”
Ignoring me, she bent over to fish her phone from under the seat. “Hit the button for the flight attendant. I need some club soda and a lemon. STAT.”
“No, what you need is to sit down.”
I gave her arm a tug and dragged her down to the seat. Using the tip of my boot, I swept her phone toward her. Aforementioned lack of chivalry aside, I was no contortionist; leaning over to pick it up was out of the question.
She folded her upper body over my lap and blindly patted around the floor. I fought the urge to run my fingers through the back of her hair. In the beginning, it would have been a no-brainer. I’d have curled forward and suggestively whispered in her ear, “Since you’re already down there…”
She would have grinned up at me, her whole face filled with mischief as she traced a finger over my zipper, ignoring anyone who dared to watch her as she replied, “You mean down here?”
I’d have grabbed her hand and made her stop even though I was the one who had started it. She had no filter. She always took it one step too far. I’d loved that about her when we’d first met. It was fresh and exciting, a far cry from the stuffy women I’d dated in the past.
But now, she was in the past too.
We were in the past.
Aly MartinezWebsite | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram | Amazon | BookBub | Facebook Reader Group | Aly's Newsletter
Originally from Savannah, Georgia, USA Today bestselling author Aly Martinez now lives in South Carolina with her husband and four young children.
Never one to take herself too seriously, she enjoys cheap wine, mystery leggings, and olives. It should be known, however, that she hates pizza and ice cream, almost as much as writing her bio in the third person.
She passes what little free time she has reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a super-sized tumbler of wine by her side.
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