Showing posts with label Stephanie Lawton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephanie Lawton. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Shelf Live by Stephanie Lawton: Review and Giveaway








Title: Shelf Life
Author: Stephanie Lawton
Genre: Contemporary New Adult
Publication date: December 3, 2013

*Mature situations and sexual content - recommended for ages 17+*

It’s impossible to focus on college biology when your family believes doomsday is imminent and the government is out to get you.

All Pete Wilson’s ever wanted is to become a veterinarian, but those dreams are going up in flames. Commuting to an urban college and helping his parents with their apocalyptic prepper crap is more than he can handle.

Worse, Pete’s asshole neighbor is stirring up trouble, his family’s stockpile has been destroyed and farm animals are turning up dead.

Lindsey Linger is the tomboy sister of his best friend. Now a sexy spitfire, she and Pete are liable to set the barn ablaze as their romance finally heats up. But she’s hiding a terrible secret, and rural life isn’t all bonfires and hayloft romps. That becomes clear one icy winter night when the survival of everyone Pete loves hangs in the balance.

Can Pete be the hero they need, or will this be the end of the world as he knows it?






I was already a fan of Lawton’s previous works, but I’m truly enamored with her most recent New Adult novel. Shelf Life is a painfully beautiful coming of age story that hits hard and peels back the layers of what it means to be a “grown up”. 

Pete is easy to love; a guy who’s honest and true, even if he’s a little naive and a lot stubborn.  The way Lawton handles his evolution from high school boy to college man is seamless. This is something the author has shown a talent for easing her readers through character growth in her previous work and I was pleased to see her deft handling of the transition in this tale as well.  

I enjoyed the way Lawton walked us through the unusual life of Doomsday Preppers in our modern world. Her descriptions of Pete’s life on the farm are rich and winsome. Their sharp contrast to his experiences at the local community college help paint an even more vivid picture of the backbreaking yet beautiful life with his parents. 

His relationship with Lindsey is as confusing and frustrating and scintillating as relationships truly are at the tender age of eighteen. And though their love isn’t the main storyline in this book, I’m hoping to see more of them together in the next book in the series. 

The end is rough, and I’m not being exaggerative. It’s a fast-paced whirlwind of dramatic  events that leave you breathless. Though there is one piece of the end I have sworn not to forgive (I will not spoiler it, just, *sob*), I eagerly await the continuation of Pete’s story in the next installment.

You can grab a copy in paperback or Kindle Ebook today!
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Join us all day December 3rd on Facebook as we chat with Stephanie, as she celebrates Shelf Life's launch day with giveaways, excerpts, special content, free downloads, & more! 






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About Stephanie





Always a misfit, Stephanie Lawton writes twisted romance that tugs the heart strings then punches you in the gut.

She has a tendency to psychoanalyze people, which comes in handy when creating character profiles. She has a fascination with teacher-student relationships, bullies, psychics, doomsday preppers and larger-than-life characters.

Making readers squirm is her greatest pleasure. 

Proceed with caution.



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Giveaway







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Sunday, May 19, 2013

Review: Need by Stephanie Lawton


Isaac Laroche is cursed. All he wants to do is hide out and feel sorry for himself. Never mind that he got caught sleeping with his seventeen-year-old piano student, or that he abandoned her when the truth was exposed.
Isaac’s feisty high school sweetheart has different plans. Heather Swann has returned to their hometown of Mobile, Alabama, to regroup after breaking up with her troll of a fiancé. She’s restless and looking for a diversion, but she bites off more than she can chew when she sets her sights on rehabilitating Isaac with her unorthodox sexual, mental, and physical plans.
The two quickly reconnect, but their happiness is threatened by family secrets, old vendettas and the death of a beloved father-figure.
Can Heather handle Isaac’s baggage, or will her own come back to haunt them both?

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Let me begin by saying that I kinda thought Isaac could just go ahead and DIAF when Want, the NA companion to Need, ended.  Yet, when I finished Need, I was a fan through and through. 

"But Annabelle, you hate asshole guys masquerading as heroes," you say. I know, I really do, but the author didn't cop out and didn't ask the reader to forgive Isaac for his sins based on hotness alone. Lawton masterfully transforms Isaac Laroche from a childish, self-serving coward into a man who takes responsibility for his actions and stands on his own two feet. With the help of Heather and some of her rather, ahem, unconventional methods, Isaac realizes what he thought he wanted wasn't at all what he needed. 

Lawton handles this character growth with such a deft hand that you don't even realize it's happening until you reach a point where you say, "Damn, this guy has finally figured his shit out." That, my friends, is something rarely seen genre fiction today – especially romance. Even more, this story has a true happy ending, not just throwing the characters together against all odds for the sake of the perfunctory HEA. For me, the emotionally healthy ending is the only true HEA, and Lawton does not disappoint.

I think I actually jumped around my room in joy during certain parts of Need. I find so very few authors who craft with real story arc and character growth. Plus, she uses five-alarm-fire sex scenes to achieve this in realistic and emotionally beneficial ways for her characters. 

Some entry–level BDSM fun, the uncovering of even more social politics and secret lives than you would imagine, and lots of emotional upheaval make for a fantastic debut in the world of erotic romance. 

Grab a copy at any of these retailers






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Friday, March 15, 2013

Cover Reveal: Need by Stephanie Lawton

I loved Want. I mean LOVED IT. It was ahead of its time, a New Adult book before NA had really taken ahold of the literary world. If you haven't read it yet, get your act together and grab a copy, okay, because the follow up, Need, is coming May 17th and you have to BE PREPARED!

Need is an ADULT ROMANCE, so don't get it twisted, my friends.





Need is much hotter and much more intriguing, as we get a look at life from Issac's point of view.


Isaac Laroche is cursed. All he wants to do is hide out and feel sorry for himself. Never mind that he got caught sleeping with his seventeen-year-old piano student, or that he abandoned her when the truth was exposed.
Isaac’s feisty high school sweetheart has different plans. Heather Swann has returned to their hometown of Mobile, Alabama, to regroup after breaking up with her troll of a fiancé. She’s restless and looking for a diversion, but she bites off more than she can chew when she sets her sights on rehabilitating Isaac with her unorthodox sexual, mental, and physical plans.
The two quickly reconnect, but their happiness is threatened by family secrets, old vendettas and the death of a beloved father-figure.
Can Heather handle Isaac’s baggage, or will her own come back to haunt them both?

Now, I don't think I need to tell you how incredible these covers are. And as for the guy on the Need cover...I'll just keep my thoughts to myself so you don't get all TMI'd out, mmkay? In fact, I'm just going to stop looking at it now.  It's too much for me. 





After collecting a couple English degrees in the Midwest, Stephanie Lawton suddenly awoke in the deepest reaches of the Deep South. Culture shock inspired her to write about Mobile, Alabama, her adopted city, and all the ways Southern culture, history and attitudes seduce the unsuspecting.
A lover of all things gothic, she can often be spotted photographing old cemeteries, historic buildings and, ironically, the beautiful beaches of the Gulf Coast. She also has a tendency to psychoanalyze people, which comes in handy when creating character profiles.
   
 
 
 

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