Blog Tour Stop : Ties by Steph Campbell and Liz Reinhardt
The Ties Blog Tour was organized by Inkslinger Blog Tours.
Hi guys!
I'm excited to be part of the Ties blog tour today. Ties was a really fun book. As part of the tour, I'll be sharing my review and an excerpt from the book.
Enjoy!
I'm excited to be part of the Ties blog tour today. Ties was a really fun book. As part of the tour, I'll be sharing my review and an excerpt from the book.
Enjoy!
Summary (from Goodreads)Title : Ties (Lengths #4)
Author : Liz Reinhardt and Steph Campbell
Publication Date : August 26th 2013
Publisher : Self-Published
Goodreads - Amazon - Barnes & Noble
Ties is a companion book in the Lengths series NOT a sequel. It was written as a stand-alone title. The other books do not need to be read prior to Ties in order to follow the story.
When a shiny new convertible arrives for her twenty-first birthday, Hattie Beckett has had enough of her absent dad trying to buy a place in her life. It’s time for him to face her--or get out of her life forever.
She tosses some clothes in a bag, looks up her father’s last known address, and sets her GPS for Silver Stand, California.
When she arrives at a beach-bum paradise that’s totally foreign to her New England upbringing and finds nothing but an empty lot where her dad maybe once lived, her immediate instinct is to pack up her car and head right back to Connecticut.
But she also finds... Deo. The half-brother she never knew she had. He and his hippy-dippy mom insist that Hattie stick around—at least for the summer. And with all of her friends spending the summer abroad, what else does she have to do?
Her ideas about family are blown wide open as Deo and Marigold pull her in with their charm and love. But there’s still a huge question mark where her dad is concerned, and that question mark definitely looms over her ideas about love and relationships.
When Hattie meets Ryan, the college dropout turned competitive sailor, her perspective flips with her heart. Like it or not, Hattie is falling fast and hard for Ryan... even if it’s the last thing that she expected - and the last thing her newly found brother wants for her.
Personal Thoughts
A New Adult book set in a coastal town in California, Ties was a fabulous summer book to be enjoyed on a day at the beach. With equal focus on both the romance and the family life, it was a great book that didn't follow the norms that other books in the genre usually follow.
The book is told in the dual POV of Hattie and Ryan. When we first meet Hattie, she has just received the latest gift from her absentee father. Deciding that she has had enough, she goes on a trip to find her dad only to end up in a small beach town in California where she finds out that she has a grandfather and a half-brother. Hattie was the sort of girl who was focused on her goals. She had plans for her future and she refused to let anything or anyone come in between her and her goals. So when Ryan stumbled into her life, he turned it completely upside down. In turn, she did her best to push him away. I understood why Hattie was wary of pursuing a relationship with Ryan. He was the complete opposite of her. He was the kind of guy who lived in the moment and didn't really think or prepare for his future. Still, she was frustrating with how she constantly drove him out of her life because she was clearly attracted to him and Ryan seemed like the guy who would do almost anything for her. It scared her that Ryan could get under her skin like he did because he reminded her of her father and she didn't want to wind up like her father. Nevertheless, it was annoying to watch her fight her attraction for Ryan because he was clearly a much better person than her dad and Hattie knew that very well. Ryan was the one who made Ties a delight for me. Ryan had made his fair share of mistakes, like sleeping around, but he was on the course of changing his ways when her met Hattie and her sudden arrival into his life just accelerated that change. I liked how Ryan wasn't the kind of guy who bowed down in the face of obstacles, but he fought for what he wanted. It broke my heart constantly when Hattie would push him away, but I was glad that he sweat to gain her trust.
Ties also had a wonderful cast of secondary characters, especially, Deo, Hattie's half-brother and her crazy grandfather, who were a blast. I love their interactions with the main character. What I loved about Ties was the interactions between the main characters and the secondary characters. The authors presented a family that was not only quirky, but endearing. Hattie's family embraced her and welcomed her with open arms. I love how they were depicted in a positive way. One other thing that I loved about Ties was the setting. It was gorgeous and the authors portrayed the small coastal town in a vivid way that made me feel like I was also present along with the characters. Ryan also took part in competitive sailing, so we got to see some aspects of that as well which was quite knowledgeable to me because I know almost nothing about sailboat racing. I was also amazed at the flow there was in the book. I thought some parts would be choppy because it's written by two authors, but Steph Campbell and Liz Reinhardt proved me completely wrong. The dual POVs were also so well written. It was easy to differentiate between the voices of Hattie and Ryan. All in all, this was a fabulous book for me.
If you're looking for a NA read that is on the lighter side to read on a warm sunny day, Ties is the book for you. The lack of angsty characters with depressing pasts and crazy amounts of drama made Ties a refreshing read.
Rating
Cover : 3/5
Plot : 4/5
Characters : 4/5
Writing : 4/5
**Overall Rating : 3.5/5**
RYAN
“What’s that girl Whitney up to? Are you still seeing her?” my mom asks as she rinses atomato, then starts chopping it for her famous pasta salad. Well, famous because it was Dad’s favorite. She’s now taken to making it everytime I come by.
Since there haven’t been many girls that my mom has actually met, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when she asks about her, but after running into Whit a few days ago for the first time since she broke off whatever it was she and I had going, it’s unnerving to talk about her.
“It’s Whit,” I say. I have no idea if that’s her full name or not, I never bothered to ask.
“And no, I’m not seeing her.”
Whit wasn’t like the other girls that I brought home from bars. She wasn’t in it hoping to be the one to change me, to save me, to bring me back to life. She was in it because she was running from something, same as me. She was running from feelings she didn’t want too close to the surface, she was doing what she had to do to forget, even if that was becoming someone she wasn’t. I knew that the first time I saw her. Gorgeous face, killer rack, and the saddest fucking eyes I’d ever seen. I guess the fact that I took her home makes me the asshole dirtbag that Deo says I am, but at the time, I couldn’t see past the fact that she understood what I needed without me ever having to say it.
She’s also the only girl apart from Megan who ever met my mom.
It was the single night that Whit spent at my place. Not by choice: she always made sure to leave before I’d even pulled the condom off most nights. Or I’d slip into the bathroom and come out and she’d be long gone.
Because back then, it was what we both wanted, even needed.
Author Biographies
Steph's works include Delicate, Grounding Quinn and Beautiful Things Never Last; My Heart for Yours and My Fate for Yours (with Jolene Perry); A Toast to the Good Times (with Liz Reinhardt) and the bestselling new adult LENGTHS series with Liz Reinhardt: Lengths, Depths, Limits, Ties & Riptides.
stephcampbell.blogspot.com/
www.facebook.com/
@stephcampbell_
Liz Reinhardt was born and raised in the idyllic beauty of northwest NJ. A move to the subtropics of coastal Georgia with her daughter and husband left her with a newly realized taste for the beach and a bloated sunscreen budget. Right alongside these new loves is her old, steadfast affection and longing for bagels and the fast-talking foul mouths of her youth.She loves Raisinettes, even if they aren't really candy, the Oxford comma, movies that are hilarious or feature zombies, any and all books, but especially romance (the smarter and hotter, the better), the sound of her daughter's incessantly wise and entertaining chatter, and watching her husband work on cars in the driveway.
She is the author of the Brenna Blixen series (Double Clutch, Junk Miles, Slow Twitch), the Youngblood series (Fall Guy, Perfectly Unmatched), and co-writes with the awesome Steph Campbell in the Lengths series (Lengths, Depths, Limits, Ties, Riptides).
Blog: http://
Facebook: https://www.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
Have you read any book from the series yet?
What did you think of it?
Let me know in the comments below!
What did you think of it?
Let me know in the comments below!
Thank you to Inkslinger PR for letting me take part in this blog tour. Check out their website for fabulous tours!
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