**HOT PICK** Giveaway and Review: Playing Patience by Tabatha Vargo

Synopsis

Sometimes all you need is Patience.

Life’s been hard for Zeke. Being a punching bag for his alcoholic father has turned him into stone. Not even the dodgy trailer park he lives in can scare him. Fighting is his release and sex, drugs, and his guitar bring him peace, but deep down Zeke isn’t quite as hard as he makes himself out to be. When he meets Patience, she finds all his broken pieces and puts him back together, but she’s a ray of light in his shadowed life and the last thing he wants to do is bring her into his dark world. Playing careless is easy, playing the bad guy can be fun, but playing Patience is impossible, especially when she can see right through him.

Zeke isn’t the only one who’s broken, and for the first time, in a long time, Patience feels alive. Her black and white world gets a shot of color when she meets Zeke. He’s unlike anyone she’s ever met with his tattoos, piercings, and blunt honesty. She wants nothing more than to let go and ride the wild side with him, but some wounds never heal and the broken pieces of Patience aren’t so easy to find.

***Warning: this book contains graphic language, sex, and violence. Mature readers only. Not intended for young adult readers.***

4.5 Star Review

Patience is a 17 year-old  living a nightmare, although everyone thinks her life is perfect.  She’s a star soccer player and comes from wealth. Her mother is dying and her father hides behind his distinguished political persona.  The only reason Patience has not told anyone of her troubles is because she is protecting her dying mother from hearing the ugly truth and protecting her sister from the same demon that visits patience.

“I’d already lived through this for almost ten years.  What’s a few more?”

Zeke is also living a nightmare.  Zeke comes from the other side of Pleasantville.  He can barely afford gas for his car.  His mother died of cancer and his father sees Zeke’s resemblance to his mother every day and releases his grief onto Zeke. Zeke made a promise to his dying mother to give his father a chance and Zeke honors this through the worst of times.   Zeke spends his time drinking, smoking weed, having one-night stands, and playing guitar in a band.  His dream is to sign a record contract.

Patience and Zeke meet under not the friendliest circumstances…overdoses, arrests and jail aren’t the best places to get to know each other.  Zeke is sentenced to community service at a local boys’ club and Patience feels guilty for his punishment so she signs up to volunteer along with him.

Patience and Zeke have a quiet understanding of each other and respect the privacy of each other’s demons.  No questions asked, no answers given.
 

“I’d fallen for Zeke. He was dark and dangerous, but he was also the safest place on Earth for me. He’d somehow become home base, a place for me to go and gather my thoughts. A place where I could let go of all the bad and take in some good.”

Zeke and Patience battle out their feelings for each other.  Patience can’t move past the emotional/physical trauma she has experienced and Zeke uses that to his advantage to push her away.  Zeke is adamant that Patience can do better than him.  Hurtful things are said by both. 

“…the one person in the world that made everything feel better had hurt me worse than I’d ever been hurt.”

One night everything changes.  Patience is forced to face her demon, but Patience isn’t alone.  Unknown to her, Zeke is also there to see her demon and to save Patience.  Zeke knows that by his actions his life will be forever changed and what he and Patience had will be gone.

His eyes burned into mine and a single tear fell down his cheek. He sniffed once and wiped it away with the back of the hand... “I love you, snowflake. Always.”

Please note:  This story contains graphic sexual violence scenes and graphic violence.  Please do not read if you under the age of 17 or if you are uncomfortable with these situations.

I enjoyed this story as it was told from alternating points of view, and it’s always a treat to read what a guy is thinking.  I also enjoyed the moments of angst, heartbreak and declarations of love.  The love is a slow build and that’s the best kind. 

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