Title: Sweet Fall (Sweet Home #3)
Author: Tillie Cole
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Publication Date: 26th August 2014
Blog Tour Organised By: Kelly @ Have Book Will Read
Goodreads link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18759345-sweet-fall
Amazon UK - http://amzn.to/1pBlocQ
BLURB
From the USA Today Best Selling Sweet Home Series, comes Sweet Fall; a tale of heartache, beating the odds and finding strength in the most unlikeliest of places.
We all have secrets.
Secrets well buried.
Until we find the one soul who makes the burden of such secrets just that little bit easier to bear.
Lexington "Lexi" Hart is a senior at the University of Alabama. Surrounded by her best friends, her loving family and having fulfilled her life-long dream of making the Crimson Tide cheer squad, everything is going exactly as she always dreamed it would. But beneath her happy exterior, demons lurk, threatening to jeopardize everything Lexi has worked to achieve.
When events in her life become too much to cope with, Lexi finds herself spiraling down into the realm of her biggest fear. Lexi falls hard, victim once again to the only thing that can destroy her and, on the way, findsherself falling straight into the dangerous tattooed arms of a guy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Austin Carillo, starting Wide Receiver for the Alabama Crimson Tide, must get picked in this year's NFL draft. He needs it. His brothers need it. Most importantly, his mother desperately needs it. Brought up in a world where the poor are forgotten, the sick are left to fend for themselves and no hero miraculously appears to pull you out of hell, Austin had no other choice but to make a living on the wrong side of the law—until football offered Austin the break to get his life back on track.
But when a family tragedy drags him back into the clutches of the gang he believed he had left far behind, Austin finds himself falling. Falling back into criminal ways and falling deep into a suffocating darkness. Until a troubled yet kindred spirit stumbles across his path, where Austin quickly finds he is falling for a young woman—a young woman who might just have the power to save him from his worst enemy: himself.
Can two troubled souls find a lasting peace together? Or will they finally succumb to the demons threatening to destroy them?
New Adult/Contemporary Romance novel—contains adult content, sexual situations and mature topics. Suited for ages 17 and up.
*CAN BE READ AS A STAND-ALONE NOVEL*
REVIEW
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Arc was provided in exchange for an honest review
I love Tillie's books and she has not disappointed with this one.
This was one of the most hard going, emotional reads I've have ever read. There was times that there were tears, there were a few laughs and of course I love the romance.
This book really does deal with real life issues and I think that it really brings it home to you, that this can really happen to someone.
This book is beautifully written, the plot and characters were fantastic.
Tillie thank you for writing such a powerful read.
View all my reviews
EXCERPT
Almost black-brown eyes narrowed as Austin studied my face, and I gripped my gym bag harder. But something in his expression changed as his eyebrows rose, and I frowned.
What’s he seeing that’s so shocking?
And then I remembered. I hadn’t reapplied my makeup. I’d been so shaken by how easily the voice had gotten through to me I’d just wanted to flee home.
I felt embarrassment, an intense embarrassment that he was seeing me so raw and imperfect. I couldn’t understand why it bothered me so much. He hated me, and I feared him. But I did care. I cared so deeply that he’d seen the real me.
The girl who didn’t measure up.
The girl with too many flaws.
“What the hell’re you doing in here?” Carillo said coldly, shattering my thoughts, his emotionless expression again firmly on his face.
“I-I-I—”
Austin stepped farther forward. From his nearness, I could smell his scent, a deep woodsy musk, the smell of a hard-played game. It just added to his darkness.
“I-I-I what?” He laughed, unfeeling. “Why d’you always turn up where you’re not wanted? When you’re not wanted? In places you ain’t supposed to be?”
I swallowed back nerves and tried to back away, but he thrust out his hand, gripped my arm, and jerked me forward.
I let out a small yelp. His touch wasn’t painful. In fact, he was barely touching me at all, but he’d surprised me, and I reluctantly looked into his eyes.
“Did you tell that guy cheerleader anything today?” he hissed quietly.
Unable to find my voice, I just frantically shook my head ‘no’.
Austin’s fingers tightened on my arm. I instinctively tried to pull away.
“Answer me! He was staring at me in fear the wholefuckin’ game!”
Inhaling deep, I managed to squeak out, “I didn’t tell him anything.”
Austin’s narrowing eyes told me he didn’t believe me.
“I promise, I didn’t. I swear it. I told the dean nothing when he spoke to me. And Lyle… Lyle caught you staring at me a few times and warned me about it. That’s all.” Wrenching back my arm, I rubbed at the tender skin.
Austin ran his hands over his dark hair and exhaled a relieved breath. But his eyes didn’t leave me for one second.
As I watched him, it seemed like he was fighting against something inside. But then his face frosted over. His intimidating Heighter mask was back in place.
“You better not let what you saw get out,” he warned icily. “I’m watching you.”
Finding strength from somewhere unknown, I moved right before him, and this time, he stilled. “I told you I wouldn’t say anything, and I won’t. I know what it’s like to have a secret, to have something revealed that you want to keep well hidden. Believe me, I do. So I won’t say a thing to no one, but you are making people talk. You are the one messing up, glaring at me like you wanna murder me, garnering people’s attention when the dean already suspects I’ve seen something. You’re not successfully hiding your emotions.”
He didn’t say anything in response, and I lowered my eyes from his intense gaze, only to come face to face with a huge tattooed crucifix on his bare chest, a crying Mary, Mother of Christ at its base and Mary looking up at Jesus in agony, her face ripped apart by grief at seeing her son strung up on the cross… dying.
They were everywhere—religious tattoos—covering almost every inch of his upper body, and he had full sleeves on each arm. Most were religious, some in a foreign language. It looked like Italian.
Austin’s huge arms suddenly crossed over his chest and his nostrils flared with anger. “Just get the fuck out,” he ordered coldly.
Without hesitation, I turned around to leave, only glancing back to bravely say, “You terrify me, Carillo. I’m afraid of you. Are you happy about that? I know who you are, the family you come from, where you come from. I’ve been reliably informed. So you can stop with the threats, the dirty looks. I get that you’re bad news. I get it. You’ve got me unable to sleep at night with fear. I know you’re dangerous and you would probably have no remorse in harming me, if I talk. I’m not dumb. So I beg, please, just leave me alone. I will never speak about what I saw. But I need you to leave me alone.”
I didn’t stick around to see his reaction. I just ran all the way back to my sorority house and up to my room on the fourth floor.
***
ABOUT TILLIE COLE
Tillie Cole is a Northern girl through and through. She originates from a place called Teesside on that little but awesomely sunny (okay I exaggerate) Isle called Great Britain. She was brought up surrounded by her English rose mother -- a farmer's daughter, her crazy Scottish father, a savagely sarcastic sister and a multitude of rescue animals and horses.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tilliecoleauthor
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7074846.Tillie_Cole
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tillie_cole
Blog: http://tilliecole.com/
GIVEAWAY
Tillie is giving away a Kindle Fire HDX and this is open internationally
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