Tour Review: Sea of Love (Love in Bloom: Snow Sisters & The Bradens #7) by Melissa Foster

*I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review*

Lacy Snow hadn’t been looking for love when she met strikingly handsome and seductive Dane Braden. But how could she ignore the six-foot-three darkly handsome God who tagged and researched sharks for a living—and made every nerve in her body tangle into an overly sensitive knot? Even her fear of sharks could not suppress their intense attraction.

As the founder of the Brave Foundation Dane Braden travels from port-to-port educating and advocating on behalf of the mammals he adores—and spends his nights finding solace in the arms of strangers. The last thing Dane was looking for when he met Lacy Snow was a relationship, and the last thing he expected was to fall in love.

Fifteen months—and hundreds of flirty emails, steamy phone calls, and sensual video chats later—they reunite, and the two take passion to a whole new level. But when Lacy’s phobia meets Dane’s past love life, and an unexpected tragedy strikes, their steamy romance is upended. Dane and Lacy are forced to face their deepest fears head-on and try and navigate their own sea of love.

Review:
I want to start of with saying I haven't had the chance to read the previous books in the series, but it certainly is possible to read them separately. If you have read the other books it is just more fun, because a lot of the characters makes appearances in Sea Of Love.

So while I didn't know the secondary characters in this book it was pretty easy to follow, who is who and how they are all related.

Let's just focus on the two main characters, Lacy and Dane. They met at her sisters's wedding about fifteen months ago and the sparks were flying. Because of Dane's job, they did not have the change to meet up since then, so all those months they mostly talked through Skype and email. I liked that this was a chance for them to get to know each other without being able to act on physical attraction. No instant love for these two, rather a connection that grew over time.

After that long separation, they finally get to meet again and that sexual tension is definitely hanging in the air. There is also that question of "what now?". They got together, some hot stuff happened and now they have to decide how they will go on from this. Lacy has her job near Boston as a marketing rep and a big promotion is just around the corner. While Dane with his foundation has to travel a lot around the world. Add the fact that Lacy is terrified of sharks and they are Dane's life and bread, well it is not looking good.

They both want this relationship. While Dane is trying to figure out just how to do that, Lacy keeps pushing the idea aside. She does not see how they will possible manage with her fear of sharks. It was fine the first time I heard this excuse, after twenty times I was no longer buying it. To me it seemed more like Lacy was scared the relationship might fail, so she kept pushing that excuse out there. It wasn't like she needed constantly to go on expeditions with him, so I didn't really see the problem.

Besides that I really enjoyed the book. It was fun and sweet. The plot was a bit predictable, but there was one twist I did not see coming, so that was interesting. If I had more time I could easily read the entire series back to back. 

Connect with Melissa Foster:

Website - Facebook - Twitter - Goodreads - Pinterest

Sea Of Love is part of a 9 book series. They can be read as stand alone novels. Lover at Heart is currently free on Amazon, B&N and Kobo and Sisters in Love, the first in the series is also free on B&N and Kobo!!!

Total Book Geek

 

Excerpt + Giveaway: Have No Shame by Melissa Foster

Have No Shame by Melissa Foster got released a month ago and already the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon are saying amazing things about this book. This is definitely not some fluffy read but deals with real historical issues, that some even consider a taboo to talk about. A gripping coming of age story and we have the first chapter of the book here for you. One chapter not enough for you? Enter the giveaway to win a paperback copy of Have No Shame!

The racially-charged prejudice of the deep South forces eighteen-year-old Alison Tillman to confront societal norms—and her own beliefs—when she discovers the body of a hate crime victim, and the specter of forbidden love turns her safe, comfortable world upside down.

Alison has called Forrest Town, Arkansas home for the past eighteen years. Her mother’s Blue Bonnet meetings, her father toiling night and day on the family farm, and the division of life between the whites and the blacks are all Alison knows. The winter of 1967, just a few months before marrying her high school sweetheart, Alison finds the body of a black man floating in the river, and she begins to view her existence with new perspective. The oppression and hate of the south, the ugliness she once was able to avert her eyes from, now demands her attention.

When a secretive friendship with a young black man takes an unexpected romantic turn, Alison is forced to choose between her predetermined future, and the dangerous path that her heart yearns for.

HAVE NO SHAME is an emotionally compelling coming of age novel featuring a young woman who cannot reconcile the life she wants with the one she’s been brought up to live.Have No Shame will resonate with anyone who has ever fallen in love, and those who have been forced to choose between what they know in their hearts to be true, and what others would like them to believe.

Excerpt

Chapter One

It was the end of winter 1967, my father was preparin’ the fields for plantin’, the Vietnam War was in full swing, and spring was peekin’ its pretty head around the corner. The cypress trees stood tall and bare, like sentinels watchin’ over the St. Francis River. The bugs arrived early, thick and hungry, circlin’ my head like it was a big juicy vein as I walked across the rocks toward the water.

My legs pled with me to jump from rock to rock, like I used to do with my older sister, Maggie, who’s now away at college. I hummed my new favorite song, Penny Lane, and continued walkin’ instead of jumpin’ because that’s what’s expected of me. I could just hear Daddy admonishin’ me, “You’re eighteen now, a grown up. Grown ups don’t jump across rocks.” Even if no one’s watchin’ me at the moment, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Daddy. If Maggie were here, she’d jump. She might even get me to jump. But alone? No way.

The river usually smelled of sulfur and fish, with an underlyin’ hint of desperation, but today it smelled like somethin’ else all together. The rancid smell hit me like an invisible billow of smog. I covered my mouth and turned away, walkin’ a little faster. I tried to get around the stench, thinkin’ it was a dead animal carcass hidin’ beneath the rocks. I couldn’t outrun the smell, and before I knew it I was crouched five feet above the river on an outcroppin’ of rocks, and my hummin’ was replaced by retchin’ and dry heavin’ as the stench infiltrated my throat. I peered over the edge and fear singed my nerves like thousands of needles pokin’ me all at once. Floatin’ beneath me was the bloated and badly beaten body of a colored man. A scream escaped my lips. I stumbled backward and fell to my knees. My entire body began to shake. I covered my mouth to keep from throwin’ up. I knew I should turn away, run, get help, but I could not go back the way I’d come. I was paralyzed with fear, and yet, I was strangely drawn to the bloated and ghastly figure.

I stood back up, then stumbled in my gray midi-skirt and saddle shoes as I made my way over the rocks and toward the riverbank. The silt-laden river was still beneath the floatin’ body. A branch stretched across the river like a boney finger, snaggin’ the bruised and beaten body by the torn trousers that clung to its waist. His bare chest and arms were so bloated that it looked as if they might pop. Tremblin’ and gaspin’ for breath, I lowered myself to the ground, warm tears streamin’ down my cheeks.

While fear sucked my breath away, an underlyin’ curiousity poked its way through to my consciousness. I covered my eyes then, tellin’ myself to look away. The reality that I was seein’ a dead man settled into my bones like ice. Shivers rattled my body. Whose father, brother, uncle, or friend was this man? I opened my eyes again and looked at him. It’s a him, I told myself. I didn’t want to see him as just an anonymous, dead colored man. He was someone, and he mattered. My heart pounded against my ribcage with an insistence—I needed to know who he was. I’d never seen a dead man before, and even though I could barely breathe, even though I could feel his image imprintin’ into my brain, I would not look away. I wanted to know who had beaten him, and why. I wanted to tell his family I was sorry for their loss.

An uncontrollable urgency brought me to my feet and drew me closer, on rubber legs, to where I could see what was left of his face. A gruesome mass of flesh protruded from his mouth. His tongue had bloated and completely filled the openin’, like a flesh-sock had been stuffed in the hole, stretchin’ his lips until they tore and the raw pulp poked out. Chunks of skin were torn or bitten away from his eyes.

I don’t know how long I stood there, my legs quakin’, unable to speak or turn back the way I had come. I don’t know how I got home that night, or what I said to anyone along the way. What I do know is that hearin’ of a colored man’s death was bad enough—I’d heard the rumors of whites beatin’ colored men to death before—but actually seein’ the man who had died, and witnessin’ the awful remains of the beatin’, now that terrified me to my core. A feelin’ of shame bubbled within me. For the first time ever, I was embarrassed to be white, because in Forrest Town, Arkansas, you could be fairly certain it was my people who were the cause of his death. And as a young southern woman, I knew that the expectation was for me to get married, have children, and perpetuate the hate that had been bred in our lives. My children, they’d be born into the same hateful society. That realization brought me to my knees.

Connect with Melissa Foster:

Website - Facebook - Twitter - Goodreads

**GIVEAWAY**

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Total Book Geek