BECAUSE OF LOW BLOG TOUR ~ REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

Hi and Welcome to my second stop on the Because of Low Blog Tour. Today's stop will include my review of Because of Low along with a giveaway.

In my debut novel, Breathe, Sadie may have fallen in love with the teen rock star, Jax Stone, but readers fell head over heels for Marcus Hardy. This is his story…

Marcus Hardy had hoped to enjoy a year away at college while he put the summer he’d rather forget behind him. But instead, he’s jerked right back to the coastal town of Sea Breeze, Alabama due to a family crisis. His dear ol' dad found himself a girlfriend only a few years older than Marcus. So now his sister needs help dealing with their mother who is mentally falling apart. The only bright spot to returning is the fascinating red head who sleeps over several times a week. The problem is she's sleeping in bed with his new roommate, Cage Watson.

Willow “Low” Foster needs a place to live. Running to Cage’s apartment every time her sister kicks her out isn’t exactly a long term solution. Juggling her courses at the local community college and a part time job doesn’t produce excess income. But Cage has a new roommate and suddenly sleeping over at her best friend’s apartment isn’t such a bad thing. Not when she gets to see those sexy green eyes of Marcus Hardy’s twinkle when he smiles at her like he wants her there.
Even though Cage seems a little territorial where Low is concerned, Marcus finds time to spend with Low without upsetting his roommate. Cage may use his small college baseball star persona to sleep with every hot female in his path but he’s still under the disillusion that when he’s through sowing his wild oats, he’s going to marry Low. Marcus intends to change that assumption for both Cage and Low. Until his carefully laid plans come crashing down with a revelation he never expected. He’ll have to choose between Low or his family. Because once the truth comes out.... there’s no other choice. ~ From GoodReads

I am going to be upfront and tell you, I am a huge fan of Abbi Glines. To which those of you who know me will say "Duh!". It's a fact. And when I learned she was writing a companion book to BREATHE, I just about Squee'd myself to death. Seriously, I was that happy.

You see, Marcus Hardy needed his own story. When he got his heart broken in BREATHE by Sadie, I wanted to take that poor sweet boy in and fix him. Every reader I have talked to about BREATHE loved Marcus as much as they loved Jax and Sadie. And that is a testament to Glines' ability to write fascinating, endearing characters that refuse to be ignored.

So in BECAUSE OF LOW, Marcus has moved on from the summer that broke his heart. When family circumstances bring him home to Sea Breeze, Alabama, he's not happy to be there, but determined to help his beloved Momma and sister. Life has just handed him a big bucket of pooh. But then... in walks Low. And Marcus' whole world is turned upside down.

BECAUSE OF LOW is everything I want in a contemporary book. I want the sweetness of a blossoming relationship. I want the romance. I want the circumstances that truly knock the characters on their hind ends. I want character growth, the challenges that force these people to become more than what they started the book as. And believe it or not, I want the pain. Without the pain, if the story was all happiness and rainbows, there wouldn't be the big payoff. And believe me, Glines' books are all about the payoff.

Glines brings all of those elements to each remarkable story she writes. She makes me fall head over heels in love with her characters. The sweet and innocent, like Low; the sweet and sexy but sometimes misguided, like Marcus; the delicate, heartbroken Amanda. There's a hot cast of friends,who provided much-needed comic relief: Preston, Dewayne, Rock and Trisha. But don't ever ask me to like Tawny, Low's sister, 'cause that is NOT gonna happen. And let me tell you, nobody and I mean nobody, can write a bad boy like Abbi Glines. I thought Abbi had written the ultimate lovable bad boy when she created Beau Vincent (The Vincent Boys). And I do love Beau, but she really outdid herself with Cage York. Cage is like Beau gone wild, if he'd kept spinning on his own axis and never found the love of a great girl.  But like Beau, you know there is a hurt, good-hearted boy beneath the swagger. Holy geez! I was definitely left sputtering and blushing by some of the things Cage did and said. A lot of supposed bad boys in the books I read are actually jerks. Not Glines' guys. One of my favorite things about her bad boys is, even though they can get up to no good and are a little (or a lot!) rough around the edges, they aren't bad people. They aren't being asses just for the sake of it. So yeah... I can't wait to read more about Cage in the future!

I flew through BECAUSE OF LOW in one night. I stayed up practically all night (4am) reading it, and it was so worth it. I started the book full of anticipation, went into full-on swooning mode (Marcus has some HAWT friends, yo), then I proceeded to get caught up in the "will they/won't they" fierce sexual chemistry between Marcus and Low. I got angry at a few choice characters, wanting to throw my Kindle, but too afraid of waking up my kids. I cried, a lot. It was ugly and heart-wrenching. But most of all, BECAUSE OF LOW made me smile and I got completely lost in Marcus and Low's story. Abbi Glines, once again, has delivered one of her "signature" stories, a grand slam.

Favorite Quote:

" 'I don't think I'm making myself very clear Low,' he'd lowered his voice and the effect made goosebumps break out over my body. 'I was only interested in one person at that bar last night. I only came to see one person,' he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and softly caressed my earlobe before tracing the line of my jaw. 'I was there for you.' "

Kindle Edition

Published February 7th 2012

You can find Abbi Glines at:

website  |  Twitter   |  Facebook

* I received a copy of Because of Low from the author, en exchange for an honest review. *

Giveaway

Abbi is supplying each blog on the tour an ebook copy of Because of Low and a signed bookmark to giveaway.

To enter all you have to do is comment below. You can get more entries by tweeting about this post and adding a link back. If you tweet about it be sure to add @abbiglines to the post so Abbi can keep up with how many entires you have.

Grand Prize:

1. Signed copy of Breathe by Abbi Glines
2. Signed copy of The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines
3. Signed copy of Existence by Abbi Glines
4. Signed copy of Because of Low by Abbi Glines

ONE person will win all three copies of Abbi’s other books that are now in print signed by the author along with an ebook copy of Because of Low. To enter for the grand prize be sure to leave a comment at a minimum of five of the blog tour stops.