Saturday, October 12, 2013

Blog tour: Beautiful Misery by Chandin Whitten




Synopsis

Life for NFL football star Gage Tucker was perfect, until his best friend walks away from him. Using alcohol and women to drown out the pain, Gage attempts to live his life. Then he runs into the one girl
he knows he shouldn't use, Cobie Nayler. Cobie is the little sister of Larkin, the one who took his best friend away from him.

After one hot night, Cobie and Gage go their separate ways only to be forced back together after Cobie finds out she's pregnant, and Gage is the dad.

But in the matter of mere seconds, everything changes, and Gage is forced to step up and take control of his life or lose everything.


4.5 star review by Jen Skewes

Beautiful Misery is book two in the Beautiful series.  If you have not read the first book Beautiful Goodbye please note that this review may contain some spoilers.  I also recommend reading the first book to get a better understanding of what happened with Gage, the main character.

Let me just say Wow!  We first met Gage in Beautiful Goodbye and to be honest I was team Larkin all the way.  I liked Gage but I loved Larkin.  I think I sort of had a love/hate relationship with Gage.  But either way I could not wait to read his story.  I was in no way prepared for what I was about to read or for the emotions that I would go through.  This was one hell of an emotional read.  And I mean ugly cry, sobbing, need a box of tissues emotional.  Beautiful Misery will shatter your heart to pieces.  Was it worth it all in the end you ask?  Absolutely!  It is a beautiful, emotional, heart wrenching story about finding love again.

As I mentioned above I had somewhat of a love/hate relationship with Gage and that relationship continued in this book.  We see how 18 months after saying goodbye to his best friend Jenna, how broken up he still is.  Jenna and Gage have been best friends since they were little and as they got older Jenna became the love of Gage's life.  The one he wanted to spend his life with.  But unfortunately for Gage, Jenna didn't have those same feelings.  Jenna married Larkin, Gage's best friend and now Gage has decided that the only way to get past it is by finding comfort in alcohol and women.  He sleeps with random woman, half the time not even knowing their name and basically kicks them out when he is done with them.  See this is the hate part of my relationship with him :)

Then he has a one night stand with the one person that he knows should be off limits.  Cobie, his best friends little sister.  But Cobie wants him just as much as he wants her.  They agree that it was just sex, a one night stand, no feelings involved or strings attached and move their separate ways.  Until the unthinkable happens and Gage finds out that he is going to be a father.  Cobie and Gage actually have a very good relationship as friends and agree to raise their child together.  They move in together and even though they aren't technically together they plan to make it work.  I think in time the bond that they have in their unborn child leads them to falling in love which each other.  But here is where the twists and turns come in and the emotions start flying.  This is where you are staring at your e-reader with that "OMG this cannot be happening" expression.  This is also where I am going to stop this part of the review because you need to experience this journey for yourself.

Now I will get into my love'/hate relationship with Gage.  There were moments when he was just a jerk and I honestly hated him in some of those moments.  When he was with Cobie he was an amazing person.  One that I fell in love with and my heart broke for.  I think that deep down he was an amazing guy and who he was with Cobie was the real Gage.   The Jerk side of him was the side of him that was completely broken.  He loved Jenna with everything he had so when he lost her to his best friend he believed that he would never find anyone like her, and would never give his heart away to anyone.  Gage was so broken up by what happened that he would not let himself find love again. to be happy.  He was too afraid of being hurt again.  

Beautiful Misery is Gage's story about moving on from the hurt and trying to find happiness.  There are times when he is a jerk and you just want to punch him.  But then there are moments like the very end where he will completely melt your heart.  This books pulled every emotion out of me; anger, frustration, sadness and happiness.  There were moments where I needed to step away and take a break from the heartache that it was causing. In the end I loved Gage, it just took going through all the ups and downs with him to finally get there.  I understood the fear, hurt and anger behind some of his actions.  But in the end I loved him.  I think Chandin Whitten did a fantastic job with this story and the way it was written.  Any book with that can bring out that much emotion in me is a sign of an amazing book.  Ms. Whitten ripped my heart out, made me sob like a baby, only to put it all back together and leave me with a smile on my face in the end. Beautiful Misery is an amazing, beautiful and emotional read and one that was completely worth every tear shed and every emotion I went through.  A fantastic job!


Excerpt

“I always pictured myself being married before having a baby. Not getting pregnant by my brothers best friend while I was still in college. This isn’t how my life was supposed to be.” Cobie sobbed, soaking my shirt.

Sighing I mumbled, “Nothing in life is what we planned. Life is misery.”

She sniffed and wiped under her eyes. Using her hands she pushed away from me. “Gage, I never meant for this to happen. I swear. If this is going to make you miserable, you don’t have to do it. I can do this on my own.”

Gripping both her shoulders, I leaned down and looked her in the eyes. “Cobie, I helped put you in this mess. I won’t walk away from it. I’m in this with you. This baby is the furthest thing from misery. Hell, this baby is the first thing to happen in my life lately that isn’t miserable. This is you and me for the next eighteen years, got it?”




About the author 

Chandin Whitten is a married mom of two beautiful little girls. During the day she is super mama living her dream on the beach in Florida. By night she is the writing warrior.

She has always loved writing and reading, but after graduating high school she took a hiatus from reading to raise her daughters. After reading FsoG in the spring of 2012, Chandin started thinking seriously of writing her own book. She started the beginning of 2013 and had her first novel, Beautiful Goodbye finished by Valentine's Day.Writing is a therapeutic escape for her. She uses a lot of real life experiences to build her stories and pull out a range of emotions in her readers.

Author Links:
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6893148.Chandin_Whitten

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorCWhitten

Buy Links
Amazon 







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