Tuesday 12 July 2016

✪ Sarina Bowen ✪ Steadfast ✪ #TrueNorth2 ✪

© Bianca Janeane


STEADFAST
Sarina Bowen

True North #2
• release date: 12 July 2016
#1 BITTERSWEET has been released in June!
• #3 KEEPSAKE will be out in September☺
(Zach & ??? ☺)

 


★★★★★

4.75 Stars


She’s the only one who ever loved himand the only one he can never have.

Jude lost everything one spring day when he crashed his car into an apple tree on the side of the road. A man is dead, and there's no way he can ever right that wrong. He’d steer clear of Colebury, Vermont forever if he could. But an ex-con in recovery for his drug addiction can’t find a job just anywhere.

For Sophie Haines, coming face to face with the man who broke her heart is gut-wrenching. Suddenly, he’s everywhere she turns. It’s hard not to stare at how much he’s changed. The bad boy who used to love her didn’t have big biceps and sun-kissed hair. And he’d never turn up volunteer in the church kitchen.

She knows it’s foolish to yearn for the man who returned all the heartsick letters she wrote him in prison. But the looks he sends her now speak volumes.

No one wants to see Sophie and Jude back together, least of all Sophie's police chief father. But it's a small town. And forbidden love is a law unto itself.




We all remember Jude from BITTERSWEET. Griff hired him to work on the apple farm.
And we also remember that he had just got out of prison back then. He spent three years in there for driving a car while drugged up and killing his passenger in an accident. His girlfriend's brother. The son of the police chief.

Now that apple season is over, Jude goes back home to work in his dad's garage.
What he didn't expect was to see the love of his life Sophie on every corner in town.
And she's not disgusted by the sight of him. She seems to be interested to learn everything that happened to him these last three years. And all their passion is still just as present!

Sophie. She quit college after her brother died to come back home and take care of her mom. Her mom just kind of checked out of life after her son died. And Sophie's bully of a dad doesn't seem to care about anything anymore either.

Dad has always hated Jude, hated that she was dating this trailer trash guy. Not allowing her to be with him.
But now she's all grown up and her dad doesn't have that power anymore. Or does he?

Can an ex-con, ex-druggie and the police chief's daughter get their happily ever after with everything that happened in their past?

What will happen to Sophie & Jude?
Will there be a second chance for a HEA??
Or will there be a huge Cliffy??



I'm not telling you that of course ☺

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Eeeeep finally Jude's book.
I LOVED LOVED LOVED the first book in the series. Griff will forever be my all time favorite apple cider farmer hottie!
And we already got to know Jude a bit in the first book. And even though he was supposed to be the mysterious addict ex-con, we really liked him.
And we like him even more now.
He tries so effing hard to keep his cravings for drugs under control. It's a daily fight. Or rather a fight that he has to fight every second of every day.
But he's doing good so far. Running the garage for his drunk dad. Having dinner with his apple farm friends... Keeping busy.
But then Sophie enters his life again and he's afraid to hope. To hope for a future that was once possible.... But he doesn't want to destroy her a second time.

Ugh - it was so heartbreakingly sad and adorable and moving and sexy and full of hope...
(Full of hope not only for the people in the book - I hope some readers will take away some positive things for their own lives!)



I really enjoyed Jude & Sophie's story.
I loved that the whole Shipley-Farm-Family appeared a lot! #GriffinIsMine ☺

I'll give it 4.9 stars - what stopped me from giving the whole BIG AND FAT FIVE STAR rating, like I rated the first book... There's too much religion in it. It's not really religion ... it's just that the priest of the church appears a lot - he's not talking religion, he's a cool guy running the local soup-kitchen, but still. The priest guy and Jude's NA meeting taking place in the church-basement. Also, those american NA meetings are always based on prayer :/ NOT MY THING AT ALL!!! I wonder what non-religious or mega-anti-religious addicts do in America? I hope they can find some non-religious help!
BUT - even though I'm totally anti-religious in life and in my books, it didn't bother me much!
I still loved Jude & Sophie's story!


STEADFAST was a heartbreakingly beautiful & sexy & adorable second-chance love story about two lost and lonely souls fighting for their HEA!!! Buy the book to find out if they'll make it!

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ARC received for an honest review

Back to Vermont I go!
We met Jude in the first book Bitterwsweet when Griff Shipley hired him to work on his farm.
We learned a little about him thorugh that book, but I knew what we had seen had only scratched the surface of the man that is Jude Nickel.
This is a more a deeper, darker story than the first book.  This deals with love and loss and the demons that are addiction.  
I have never been an addict (unless you count Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate and books an addiction)  so I am not sure if Jude gives a true depiction of what addiction is like, but it sure felt real to me.  

I adored Jude in Bittersweet, but while I was reading Steadfast I fell hopelessly in love with him.  And I could understand why Sophie, the one that got away, felt that way too.
There was a sense of recklessness in both of them, but when they were together, both in the past and now, you could feel the undying love and passion between them, no matter how much they tried to fight it.
But what are they going to do with this second chance at love?
You will have to read to find out.
I LOVED that we got plenty of time back at the Shipley farm!  They were the calm to Jude's storm.
I felt a great sense of hope whilst reading Steadfast.  Hope that Jude would stay clean.  Hope that Jude and Sophie could make it this time.
And I hope that readers can also walk away feeling a bit of hope with whatever is going on in their lives.
Steadfast is a sweet, sexy, heartbreaking yet heartwarming story or second chances - at life and at love.
And now I am impatiently waiting for whatever Ms Bowen brings us next.




LINKS TO THE BOOK AND AUTHOR

   

Book 1






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Sarina Bowen writes steamy, angsty Contemporary Romance and New Adult fiction from the wilds of Vermont.

She is the author of The Ivy Years, an award-winning series set amid the hockey team at an elite Connecticut college.

Sarina enjoys skiing, espresso drinks and the occasional margarita. She lives with her family, eight chickens and more ski gear and hockey equipment than seems necessary.

To be kept abreast of new releases, please feel free to sign up for the mailing list at http://www.sarinabowen.com/contact