Friday, October 21, 2016

BLOG TOUR AND REVIEW -- Carmen Jenner's HARLEY & ROSE!!




Once upon a time they had been more than friends….
Harley & Rose by Carmen Jenner is NOW AVAILABLE!!
ONLY $0.99


Blurb

Ever since she was a little girl, thirty-year-old Rose dreamed of the day Harley would carry her across the threshold on their honeymoon. So what if this isn’t her actual wedding day, and that she’s only here because Harley was left at the altar just a few hours earlier?
Trading San Francisco for paradise and swapping her bridesmaid’s bouquet for a Blue Hawaii, Rose hopes she can finally escape the friend zone.
Once upon a time they had been more than friends, but life got in the way. She’s spent every day since wishing Harley would get a clue.
She’s always been his best friend.
He’s always been hers.
She’s in love with him.
He’s … not in love with her.
He’s … marrying someone else.
He’s … hiding something.
He’s … well—it’s complicated.

Review
[Janet]
Amazon/Goodreads Rating: 4.5/5
In Patti's Imagination Rating: 9/10

All I can say is that I’m left with a major book hangover, very red and puffy eyes and in need of more tissues after reading this book.
"All I  know is that there isn’t a Rose without Harley or a Harley without a Rose" sums up the main characters in this book.  Harley
Hamilton and Rose Perry have know each other since they were 5 years old and they compare each other to Peter Pan and Wendy,which is an excellent analogy.   Harley and Rose live next door to each other and climbing into the other’s window is a common occurrence for these friends.  Their relationship is complicated. They are more than just friends and neighbors, their best friends.  Yet since their first kiss, at the age of thirteen, Rose has wanted to marry Harley, but life has a way of changing plans.  
The author does a great job with alternating between the past and the present to fully show this complicated relationship.  Harley is planning on getting married, with his best friend there by his side, but he is left at the alter.  Rose does what she has always done and is there to console Harley.  Instead of going alone on his "honeymoon" he pleads with Rose to go with him.  She can’t say no to him as much as it is going to kill her since he didn’t choose her.  They stay in the "friend zone" that entire week away, in paradise, even with Harley's flirting.  Rose doesn’t want to be the rebound gal, thus "friend zone."
They weren’t always friends, they were more during the last couple of months in high school. You can really feel the love that they have for each other and their future together looks like it is coming together.  It seems threatened when Harley is offered a wonderful opportunity to go to college, he can’t turn it down even knowing he will be leaving Rose behind.  They decide to have a long distance relationship, but will it work for them?
Is it any wonder I couldn't put the book down?  How could I when the book is filled with dialogue like this:
"When our kisses return to gentle sorrowful pecks I pull back and whisper, “I love you, Pan.”
“Wendy, my Wendy,” he says breathlessly. “You wait for me. You wait for me or I’m going to come back and gut the asshole who takes my place.”
“No one ever could take your place,” I tell him. He nods, setting me on my feet and smoothing the hair back from my forehead."
This is my first experience with this author and she takes you on a very unexpected and shocking journey that you will not be able to walk away from without needing a box of tissues.  She tells a very realistic story of two great friends learning to figure life out with all the highs and lows.  You will be laughing at some of the things they do, as well as, swooning over some things that Harley does and you will have times where you just want to strangle him.  The parental involvement in the story was great, also. They're there when they really needed it and it showed just how much their parents love them.  I thought I was able to predict how this story was going to go, but I never saw this ending coming.
This book will leave you emotionally drained and I would love to be able to give it that 5 star rating, but unfortunately there were some issues with the timeline of events that when you are done with the book and really think about it, some things just don’t add up.  This story is told mainly from Rose’s point of view, but Harley has one chapter in his point of view.  Only his point of view really needs to be given at least another chapter that will help answer a few things that are missing from the timeline I mentioned.  With a little revision on some things, that can’t be discussed without having spoilers, this could be a 5 star book.  


Teasers and Excerpts










Excerpt

He pulls me in again and presses a soft kiss to my lips. For a beat I’m stunned, and then I begin to understand. It isn’t a romantic kiss—it’s a goodbye.
It rings in a new dawn, one where Harley isn’t the center of my Earth and I’m not the center of his, and just like that, I’m lost. I’m no longer tethered to this man. I’m no longer his future—I’m his past, and he’s mine. But that’s all we are. Ex-lovers. Friends? Maybe one day, but for now are just two people who’ve clung to one another for so long we forgot we weren’t the only two to exist. We forgot we weren’t a whole, but two separate pieces.
It will kill me, but I have to let go of Harley Hamilton, because he’s already let go of me. And there is nothing sadder than a woman clinging to a ghost.

Author Information


Carmen Jenner is a thirty-something, USA Today and international bestselling author.

Her dark romance, KICK (Savage Saints MC #1), won Best Dark Romance Read in the Reader’s Choice Awards at RWDU, 2015.

A tattoo enthusiast, hardcore makeup addict and zombie fangirl, Carmen lives on the sunny North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, where she spends her time indoors wrangling her two wildling children, a dog named Pikelet, and her very own man-child.

A romantic at heart, Carmen strives to give her characters the HEA they deserve, but not before ruining their lives completely first … because what’s a happily ever after without a little torture?

Stalk Her: Website, Facebook, Goodreads




Published titles to date:

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