NEW REVIEW: Beautiful Burn (The Maddox Brothers Series #4) by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Burn by Jamie McGuire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Links:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1Lp6JYg
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Fresh out of college, Ellison Edson has fallen through the cracks of rock bottom. While staying in her family’s vacation home in Colorado, her behavior has finally gained the attention of her parents—but not in the way she hoped. Cut off from the millions she’s always taken for granted, and left alone to fend for herself, Ellie spirals further out of control, making a mistake she can’t take back.

Like his twin brother Taylor, Tyler Maddox is a member of the Alpine Hotshots, fighting wildland fires on the frontline. As arrogant as he is charming, Tyler’s nomadic lifestyle makes it easy to contain his relationships to one night. When he meets Ellie at a local party during off-season, her extreme personality and dismissive attitude fascinates him at first, but as his feelings deepen, Tyler realizes that the crippling inner demons of the woman he loves might be the strongest enemy any Maddox has ever faced.

A leap of faith...

I am going to be gratingly honest when I say that after the first few chapters, I was done. Done. Ellison was not a character I wanted to read about. I had no desire to continue. However, I decided that I needed to stop and decompress before doing anything rash. So I did. I set the book aside, and after much deliberation decided that Jamie McGuire has more than earned my trust over the years. I owed her some blind faith. It was time to take a leap.

So I lept.

I lept right into Tyler Maddox.

Next to Travis, I am almost certain that Tyler has to be my favorite Maddox brother. Yes, I just went there. There was a unique softness to Tyler that I never picked up on with any of the other brothers. Yes, they all have huge hearts wrapped in tattoos, but Tyler was different. Tyler is different. He didn't need a woman to tame his wild Maddox ways. He had already grown into that man. In Tyler, being a Maddox wasn't a characteristic, it was a quality.

Ellie took a lot more time to win me over. I realize now that Jamie McGuire very much intended for me to feel all sorts of hostile disdain for Ellie in the beginning. We were suppose to see her at her worst, and it was bad. So bad, it made me not want to read anymore. Definitely a new meaning to the phrase, "rock bottom." I'm so glad I didn't give up. Her growth was amazing. However, since the book encompassed such a huge amount of time, requiring large time gaps between scenes, it was sometimes hard not to see her initial transition as rushed. I kept on having to remind myself about the passage of time.

This was a reoccurring problem for me throughout the book. The big gaps sometimes gave the essence that something was missing, and I missed it. I missed the in between.

I guess it's always a problem of wanting more.

Speaking of more. My absolute favorite part about this novel was the time Ellie spent with the Hotshots. I cherished every moment. I would have loved more, more, more of this. There was so much this book had to include, so I understand things having to be scaled down, but I would have loved more scenes of Ellie and her boys. More scenes of Ellie at the fires. Seriously, I could read a whole book about Ellie and the Hotshots. When they all stood up for her at the bar, I died. I seriously died in a gooey puddle on the floor, and I might have even clapped. I just loved everything about this, them....the whole thing. Loved!!

The end was a bit rushed for me and I seriously could have done without the whole Paige drama, but Tyler and the Hotshots made everything worth it. Tyler's unconditional heart is what made this book so special. Hell, Ellie even won me over in the end, but it was Tyler that held everything together. I'm so glad I lept.

READ ON!!

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Something Beautiful release day GIVEAWAY!

Something Beautiful by Jamie McGuire

Links:
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America Mason, a sassy undergrad at Eastern State University, is in love with a Maddox--Shepley Maddox. Unlike his cousins, Shepley is more lover than fighter, but a road trip to her parents' home in Wichita, Kansas could mean the next step, or the end of everything.

This novella is a great little accessory to the Beautiful series. Even though America has never been one of my favorite characters, I was so excited to get more Shep. Readers will get to experience a bunch of Shepley and America firsts. Their first meet, their first date, their first.....bow chica wow wow. And wow! Not what I expected. This book also encompasses a very large span of time by flowing through some of your favorite scenes from other Beautiful books, but you also get to experience a whole new story unique to Shep and America. A very intense and dramatic story. It's a fast paced ride, so hang on. It must be said though, my absolute favorite thing about this book was the occurrence of more Travis and Abby. I held on tight to these special gems scattered throughout the novella, cherishing more time with the characters that started it all. If you are a fan of this series and are looking for more, you found more!

READ ON!

GIVEAWAY

*One winner will receive a signed ARC paperback of Something Beautiful

*One click easy rafflecopter entry

*Several ways to earn bonus entries

*Will ship anywhere in the US!

GOODLUCK!

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NEW REVIEW: Beautiful Sacrifice (The Maddox Brothers #3) by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Sacrifice by Jamie McGuire
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Buy Links:
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iBooks
Barnes & Noble
Kobo



About the book
Falyn Fairchild can walk away from anything. Having already left her car, her education, and even her parents, the daughter of the next governor of Colorado is back in her hometown, broke and waiting tables for the Bucksaw Café. After every shift, Falyn adds to her shoebox of cash, hoping to one day save enough to buy her a plane ticket to the only place she can find forgiveness: Eakins, Illinois.

The moment Taylor Maddox is seated in Falyn’s section at the Bucksaw, she knows he’s trouble. Taylor is charming, breaks promises, and gorgeous even when covered in filth—making him everything Falyn believes a hotshot firefighter to be. Falyn isn’t interested in becoming another statistic, and for a Maddox boy, a disinterested girl is the ultimate challenge.

Once Falyn learns where Taylor calls home, everything changes. In the end, Maddox persistence is met with Falyn’s talent for leaving, and for the first time, Taylor may be the one to get burned. 

My Review
I'm going to tell y'all a secret. A big one. A true one. A shameful one.

I really wasn't all that excited about reading Beautiful Sacrifice.

Don't get me wrong. I lurve me some Jamie McGuire. She's an instant one click. I have ecstatically followed the Maddox brothers series from day one, but for some reason the twins have never quite broken away from the periphery. They were funny in previous books, great secondary characters, but I couldn't quite bring myself to see them as anything else. Did I want to see them as anything else? Could they be anything else? I was apprehensive.

Apprehension be gone!! Jamie McGuire always manages to prove me wrong in all the best ways. I was wrong.

I think the best thing about this series, what keeps me coming back for more, is how each unique story is intricately woven with not only the stories that have come before it, but the ones that are to come. By doing that, Jamie McGuire is able to enrich a story that has already been published. Something I've already read, suddenly has new meaning. The story is always evolving, growing, changing. It has a life of its own.

Taylor definitely broke away from the periphery and became a solid main character, but most importantly, a solid hero. I enjoyed his character so much that I have this overwhelming need to go back and reread everything from Beautiful Disaster forward, in order to catch things about Taylor I might have missed, things I probably wasn't paying much attention to. Things I might not remember. I am now seeing the twins in an all new light.

Falyn was a solid main character, and reminded me a little bit of Abby. Her story is heartbreaking. She did manage to frustrate me at times, but minor nuances about her character were easy to overlook when supported by a strong (hot & sexy) hero such as Taylor. Did I mention that he's a firefighter? *Swoon* I loved the slow build of their relationship, but wish we could have seen more moments of their friendship in the beginning. Somewhere in the middle it did seem to slow down a bit, but it did pick back up and finished strong. That Jamie McGuire sure does know how to write the hell out of an epilogue.

Beautiful Sacrifice has me impatiently anticipating Tyler's story, but at the same time I'm a little scared to let these brothers go. By my count, there's only one brother left. Unless. Unless........Jim is a man. Men have penises. Penises make babies. Distraught men sometimes use their penises and accidentally make babies. Half babies. I mean, the babies are whole babies, but he could have made a half brother...or two. Three? Maybe babies he didn't know about. Troy? Trever? Tim? Tristan? They're out there Jamie!! Go find them ;-)

READ ON!

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NEW REVIEW: Beautiful Redemption (The Maddox Brothers # 2) by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Redemption 
by Jamie McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

LINKS:
Special early release 1/25/2015: iBooks
Release Date 1/27/2015:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

SYNOPSIS 

If A Maddox boy falls in love, he loves forever. But what if he didn't love you, first?

No-nonsense Liis Lindy is an agent of the FBI. Deciding she is married only to her job, she breaks off her engagement and transfers from Chicago to the field office in San Diego. She loves her desk. She is committed to her laptop. She dreams of promotions and shaking hands with the director after cracking an impossible case.
Special Agent in Charge Thomas Maddox is arrogant, unforgiving, and ruthless. He is tasked with putting away some of the world’s toughest criminals, and he is one of the best the Bureau has to offer. Though, as many lives as he’s saved, there is one that is beyond his reach. Younger brother Travis is faced with prison time for his involvement in a basement fire that killed dozens of college students, and the media want a conviction. Travis’s only savior is his unusual tie to the mob. In a deal that will spare his brother, Thomas has agreed to recruit Travis into the FBI.

Liis is stubborn, defiant, and yet somehow softens Thomas’s rough edges, making her the perfect agent to accompany him to the ceremony. Posing as a couple, they must travel to Travis & Abby’s beach vow renewal and give him the news, but when the pretending ends, she finds herself wondering if they were pretending at all.

In the second installment of the Maddox Brothers books, experience firsthand the mysterious world of the elusive Thomas Maddox, and how good love can be when you’re not the first, but the last.

MY REVIEW

Ever since Jamie McGuire first announced she planned on doing a Maddox Brothers spinoff series, I wanted Thomas. From the very start I saw something there, something intangible. In Beautiful Disaster, you could almost sense “it”, hiding beneath the surface, something so much more than just a solemn and cynical nature. He intrigued me. I wanted to know more because I knew there was more.

I even remember voting on Jamie’s Facebook page (way back when) for which Maddox brother she should do first. (Pretend I inappropriately capitalized on the perfect double entendre of “which Maddox brother to do first”). No surprise, I voted Thomas, but then we got Trent. At first I was bummed on a cracker, but after reading Beautiful Oblivion  (click here for review) all was forgiven, and I patiently waited for what I hoped would come next.

It came!

It came!

IT. CAME.

This was the missing link. So far, each story has been its own individual beautifully crafted puzzle piece. Each one printed with a unique depiction. But obviously they all came from the same puzzle, the same picture. Beautiful Redemption flawlessly connected them all together; it formed one complete image. Each piece perfectly linked by this story.

I found this fascinating.

The author intricately wove, and seamlessly connected Beautiful Redemption with the entire Beautiful Disaster/Maddox Brothers series. I believe here in America we call that talent. I think here in the literary world we call that Jamie McGuire.

Well done.

Liis is an extremely strong female character coming out of a failed relationship, realizing that her profession will continue to prevent any new love in the future. She’s okay with this, prefers it even, or so she thinks.

(Enters Thomas)

I think Thomas’s character may be the most compound of all the Maddox brothers. He possesses a heartwarming sensitivity that he constantly shields with a rough and strong exterior, a defense mechanism used to guard his vulnerability. There is something so attractive about an asshole with heart. His loyalty and absolute need to protect those he cares about is just one of the many complex layers of this perfectly complicated character. God I love him!

What I also loved about this book was the almost painful progression of the story. Painful in the most amazing way. Jamie McGuire knows how to write tension; it ‘s something that bleeds from every single page, of every book she writes. In Beautiful Redemption, she instantly gratifies us in the very first chapter, but strategically takes it away with a predictable yet entertaining twist in order to build the sexual tension she’s most famous for.

Though I loved the delicious tension, the push and pull may have been carried out a bit too long which may have robbed from other aspects of the story that I selfishly wanted more of. Though the bad guy drama ends with a bang, I was hoping for a little more of it to be part of the plot, perhaps some more action to compliment the relationship aspect of the book. The ending is great and it escalates to an Everest-like peak, but it was too quick. It wrapped up too fast. Maybe I just wanted more.

I always want more!

But the great part about wanting more is that by my count, we’ve got two brothers to go. I can’t wait!!

READ ON!

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