Book review: A Song for Julia by Charles Sheehan-Miles

A Song for Julia by Charles Sheehan-Miles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The First kiss...



Sometimes you expect to find a ten dollar note in your wallet but you retrieve a fifty. This is how I’d describe A SONG FOR JULIA. Finding a ten dollar note is fine, but when you realise you have fifty to spend, a little spark fires up inside and you have a grin on your face that whole day.

Let me start the review by saying Charles Sheehan-Miles can WRITE! My, my. His words are perfectly crafted into sentences that deliver blow after blow of poetic, deep connection to your emotions. Which become paragraph after paragraph of writing so easy to read yet so full of meaning you wonder how it’s all packed into one story.

My favourite stories are those that have a few aspects perfectly written—characters, plot and theme.

The leading characters, both alternating narrators, Julia and Crank were mostly loveable (Julia only more loveable towards the end when I really got her), they have faults, and issues which stop them from doing the things us objective readers know they should just do, but they’re always strong and the types of people you come to love for everything they are perfect and everything they aren’t. I think I love them more knowing I got frustrated with them, because watching them make bad choices and struggle and come out on top made me appreciate them more. I appreciate being able to read such characters I could connect with on many levels.

But main characters aside, many readers found this, and I wasn’t immune: Julia and Crank’s little brother, Sean. Ahhhhh.

I may love them almost better than I love Julia and Crank as a couple. Julia is a normal girl by many standards, but she’s broken on the inside by a past we’d never want happen to us. Sean? He’s seen as different on the outside because of his autism. Though they are opposites in this way, they share a commonality: feeling alone, not fitting in. I really am not doing justice to their dynamic. I’ll leave it to say that A SONG FOR JULIA was “that bit” better for me because of how much deeper Charles went in creating loveable supporting characters. I touched on loving Sean’s character, but Crank’s mom and dad, and his band member, Serena … so many more who enriched the story with their impacts.

And on to Crank and Julia. I love a couple who you can tell (without so many words from the author saying so) that they need to be together and giving up easily by breaking up won’t work. It’s so intense while you’re reading, watching their relationship build (not to mention how much of the real world you miss increasingly).

Julia got on my nerves and when I finally “got” her, I felt rude. That girl has got to be one of the strongest female leads. Pretty uncommon. I am thrilled to have experienced such a great read. Crank’s family troubles, which tie him and Julia together, forcing them into yummy situations, only got more and more intense.

A SONG FOR JULIA is incredible. I received an eBook review copy but had to buy the paperback since this novel went to my Best Everrr shelf. I’d give it more than 5 stars if I could.

View all my reviews
Like my review of A Song For Julia HERE.

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Buy the eBook:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobobooks | AllRomanceEbooks | Smashwords |
Apple iBooks

Buy the physical book:

Amazon: Hardcover $20 | Paperback $15.95 | The Book Depository: Paperback $13.99

Stalk the author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Buy on Amazon!

Buy Precise from Amazon for kindle or from Smashwords for all types of eReading devices. Or, follow my blog by the buttons in the top left corner of the home page.

Add my New Adult Contemporary Romance novel, Drowning in You to Goodreads. (Coming April 2013)

Cover reveal: DROWNING IN YOU + *excerpt*

I present to you ... my own book cover reveal!

***Please scroll down for an my first published excerpt (unedited as yet) plus more links***

I happen to love the cover a lot. So much love to my cover designer, Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations. and to the photographer -- the wildly talented Jacqueline Barkla.

Here it is in all its prettiness (full paperback wrap):

And here's the front, eBook cover:

Title -- Drowning in You

Author -- Rebecca Berto

Expected release date -- April 12, 2013

Genre -- Contemporary Romance

Age Group -- New Adult

Cover Designer -- Okay Creations.; Jacqueline Barkla Photography

Reveal organized by -- AToMR Tours

Click to add to Goodreads

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Book Description:

Secretly crushing

Crushed by a tragedy

Charlee May’s been crushing on Dexter Hollingworth since she was fifteen. Five years later, a horrific skiing disaster at Mason’s Ski Lift Resort leaves her millionaire dad critically injured and her mom dead at the hands of Dexter operating the lifts. Charlee is suddenly the sole caretaker for her little brother while their world falls apart.

Dexter couldn’t be more different from Charlee. He’s tattooed, avoids exclusive relationships and his Dad has a fair share of illegal dealings. With Dexter’s reputation, almost everyone believes he planned the Mason’s skiing disaster.

And after all these years he’s still crushing on Charlee May, the girl who’s too good for him.

When this cruel twist of fate ties Charlee’s family and Dexter’s reputation together, Charlee and Dexter wonder if their feelings are reciprocated, while Dexter discovers his dad is trying to steal the May’s millionaire fortune.

But like an addiction, one look, one touch, one taste—they’re hooked no matter the consequences.

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About the Author: 

Meee

Rebecca Berto writes stories that are a bit sexy, and straddle the line between Literary and Tear Your Heart Out. She gets a thrill when her readers are emotional reading her stories, and gets even more of a kick when they tell her so. She’s strangely imaginative, spends too much time on her computer, and is certifiably crazy when she works on her fiction.

Rebecca Berto lives in Melbourne, Australia with her boyfriend and their doggy.

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EXCERPT!

It would be so easy to slip into her car. I’d make her laugh again, so she’d do that thing where she would grin and tuck her chin into her chest, yet she couldn’t wipe me from her mind, and then I could brush my fingers over her cheeks to behind her neck where I could pull her to me. I know girls like that.

But this can’t happen. I killed her mom, I am responsible for her dad’s life hanging in the balance, which I hear about thanks to mom’s updates, his nurse. I deserve punishment. Why am I allowed to live my life as if nothing happened? I hate being let off without resolution. As much as I didn’t want to lose my friends, and hate the stares, the egg-throwing and mass public hate, it gives me something to feel. I should be hated for ruining Charlee’s family.

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Have you joined the cover reveal party on Facebook? I'll be giving away free Kindle eBooks and a winner's choice of any paperback from The Book Depository. Join HERE.

Organised by AToMR tours

Please share on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest!

♥♥♥

Buy on Amazon

Buy Precise from Amazon for kindle or from Smashwords for all types of eReading devices. Or, follow my main blog on WordPress by the buttons in the top left corner of the home page.

Add my New Adult Contemporary Romance novel, Drowning in You to Goodreads. (Coming April 2013)

Cover reveal: FAKING IT by Cora Carmack

OMG! I have the cover reveal for Cora Carmack's second novel, which is the sequel to Losing It.

This novel is called Faking It and I jumped all around -- albeit being still stuck on my desk chair -- when I saw this one. There's so much prettiness! Ahh, and the blurb is amazinggg. :D

If you don't know Losing It, it's a New York Times and USA Today bestselling novel. 

... And here is the cover for book #2, Faking It:

Blurb:

Faking It by Cora Carmack

Releases June 4, 2013 from William Morrow Paperbacks

Mackenzie "Max" Miller has a problem. Her parents have arrived in town for a surprise visit, and if they see her dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings, they just might disown her. Even worse, they're expecting to meet a nice, wholesome boyfriend, not a guy named Mace who has a neck tattoo and plays in a band. All her lies are about to come crashing down around her, but then she meets Cade.

Cade moved to Philadelphia to act and to leave his problems behind in Texas. So far though, he's kept the problems and had very little opportunity to take the stage. When Max approaches him in a coffee shop with a crazy request to pretend to be her boyfriend, he agrees to play the part. But when Cade plays the role a little too well, they're forced to keep the ruse going. And the more they fake the relationship, the more real it begins to feel.

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Extra! Extra!

*** The Losing It paperback releases in the U.S. on February 26, 2013! ***

♥♥♥

Buy on Amazon

Buy Precise from Amazon for kindle or from Smashwords for all types of eReading devices. Or, follow Novel Girl on my main blog (by the buttons in the top left corner of the home page).

Add my New Adult Contemporary Romance novel, Drowning in You to Goodreads. (Coming April 2013)