Review: It's a Standalone (how rare)!!!  And it rocks!  What more do I need to tell you?  Oh, and it's not the usual boy saves girl....
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 24, 2014
What is the definition of family? Is it blood? Is it love? You read enough books you know it isn’t always love. Jeez, some people actually have had to learn that lesson in their actual lives. Buzzkill. See? This is why I tend to give the ‘ole stinkeye to contemporary books. Who wants to be reminded about how much life can suck? But if it has an interesting and completely engaging plot like Breath Into Me does, send them all my way! I’ll eat them for breakfast and snack on them later.Yes, new adult books are a part of my book diet. They feed the sweet tooth. But I’m starting to get pickier and pickier with my new adult titles – I want Godiva, not Hershey’s (hmm, I seem to be stumbling on a whole new rating system as I write this review). I started reading Breathe Into Me thinking it would be not much more than a distraction for a day or two but it ended up being a story I could not walk away from, just like a Godiva counter. Jeez, I’m hungry now…Lacey has the crappiest life. She has to work two jobs just to make her grandmother tolerate Lacey’s existence in her home, Lacey’s mom has checked out, and she worries about her little brother. Don’t even get me started on the “friends”. No one has ever shown her any sort of support or belief in her so she trusts no one. Pretty much with good reason.After Everett witnesses a particularly horrible night of Lacey’s, Everett pursues a friendship with Lacey. He really just wants to get to know her. But, as I said before, Lacey is leery of nice guys or just about everyone so… jeez, how to explain the complicated plot of how we get to a HEA with these two without giving anything away? Let’s try this:What this book isn’t: it isn’t the typical boy saves the girl kind of story. It might seem like it’s going to go that way but it doesn’t exactly flow that way. Lacey’s “rescuer” ultimately is not who you’d think it would be. I couldn’t even predict the way the story was going to go, it was truly that unpredictable for me! I think that’s why I loved the story so much – it was a breath of fresh air (sorry, had to be done).What this book ended up being for me was a pretty fantastic reminder of how important a family is, whether it be the family you’re born into or the one you make out of friends. Seriously, I sent a text to my parents and thanked them for being so freakin’ fantastic when I finished this book. Whaaatttt? It was late at night! You can’t call old folks in the middle of the night, it might kill them!Overall, I really enjoyed how the romance played out, I was engrossed completely in the fast storyline, I ate up the ending, and I really wish there was more with these characters to come in the future. But this IS a standalone and you WILL get your HEA for Everett and Lacey. I would just love to see some more books by Ms. Fawkes written in this world with these characters (please?)So, to recap: I like very good chocolate, I couldn’t seem to avoid another horrible pun, I did not kill my parents, and I loved Breathe Into Me. Any questions? I sure hope not…