Veer by Alyssa Rose Ivy

I was excited to take part in the blog tour from Xpresso Book Tours by Giselle

Title: Veer
Author: Alyssa Rose Ivy
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: November 29th, 2012
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 286
Format: Electronic Copy
Acquired: From Author
Interest: Series
Others in the Series: Derailed
Age Group: Adult

Only when you let go can you learn to live.

Between the death of her mother and pushing through law school without her best friend, it's been a tough year for Becca. Needing a break from Boston, she moves to a tiny coastal North Carolina town for a relaxing summer. After bumping heads repeatedly with a local cop, she realizes her summer will be anything but quiet.

Three years after a career ending injury ruins his chance to play Major League Baseball, Gavin has a distrust of northerners and lately girls in general. He wants nothing to do with a girl who is only in town for the summer.

When the two give in to their impossible attraction, they realize that they may just have found the key to freeing themselves from the ghosts of their pasts

This is the sequel to Derailed and this book focuses on Molly's best friend from Boston, Becca. I was surprised, to be honest, that Ivy went this way with the story. Becca had one scene in the novel and was hardly mentioned after that first chapter, so it was a little of a surprise. I know she has a third book coming out, which focuses on Ben's brother Jake, and it feels like it would have made more sense to do Jake, but that's just me.

Becca felt really new and I liked that. I don't like how every guy seemed to be attracted to her. I don't understand what is with this obsession with attractive women, but it just irritated me. Why couldn't she be average? Why can't the guy fall for the average girl? This will be for another day, but it was just something that occurred to me.

Anyways, Becca carries a lot of package, like everyone else in town. Her mother just died and she has secrets that take a toll on her. The pairing with Gavin was a little unexpected. In the first book Gavin came off as a jerk, to me anyways, and I found myself rolling my eyes thinking about him. It was interesting the way he opened up in this book. Like the first there was a lot of talking and not much character building, but for Gavin I would say there was a lot of building.

For the most part things moved pretty fast between the two, especially for the short time they knew each other. But like the previous book this showed a lot of promise and I was really glad I read it.

Again, my own complaint is too much dialogue and not enough action and development. But if there is one thing that Ivy is really good at is writing about heavily emotional subjects.

I would read this book again. And the first. It was quick, cute, and quirky. It highlighted small town dramas and big time secrets, and put the characters in a wonderful new light. It also showed a whole different side to Jake that I really liked.

This was a wonderful read.

Derailed by Alyssa Rose Ivy

I was excited to take part in the blog tour from Xpresso Book Tours by Giselle

Title: Derailed
Author: Alyssa Rose Ivy
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: September 23rd, 2012
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 260
Format: Electronic Copy
Acquired: From Author
Interest: Series
Age Group: Adult

When you're lost, sometimes the only place you can go is home.

Broken over the death of her fiancé, Molly leaves law school to return to her childhood home in North Carolina. Expecting to lay low until she can figure out what else to do with her life, she finds herself in the arms of her high school sweetheart, the boy who represents everything from the past she tried to leave behind.

Looking for an escape, she instead finds a way back to the girl she almost forgot existed and a future she never dreamed possible.

I was really expressed by this book. Let me get that out of the way.

This book was not what I was expecting. I thought that it would be something different but it turned out to live to it's name. Molly surprised me a lot. There were moments when I wanted to be angry with her and go on her but I didn't because in a lot of ways I could understand her reactions to certain things.

And Ben was such a sweetheart, I mean, I want my own Ben.

What I didn't like about this book and the sequel is the way she formats the conversation. I was reading this on my iPad, so obviously the page formatting is either more or less, but sometimes I felt like I was reading full pages of nothing but conversation and it was like, can I get something more? I felt like there wasn't enough character revelations through conversations. I like it when characters talk, but this much was too much.

Overall, I think I like this book. I was angry a lot at Molly's best friend. I probably couldn't handle her friend for anything and every time she showed up I just wanted to say, "No, no, no!!" And I just hated her.

There was a lot of emotions behind Molly, a lot of stuff that was built up and I was glad that she had someone to lean on throughout the way.

Besides some characters that could really, really, really use some help, I found myself getting well into Molly's head and enjoying the story. Molly was funny, she was smart, and she really found herself when she needed to focus on who she was. And the supporting characters gave the story a lot of flavor.

This was a great read to be honest.