S.O.B. by J.C. Valentine
Publication Date: November 10, 2015
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
BUY: Amazon • Amazon
Paperback • Amazon
UK • Amazon CA
Synopsis:
Levi Black is an s.o.b.
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth,
he’s a pretentious, obnoxious, womanizing jacka** who thinks the world revolves
around him. He wouldn’t be wrong. A famous soccer player, his skills on and off
the field have won him medals, trophies, women, and the cover of every
heartthrob magazine in the country. He’s broken nearly every bone in his body
and a few hearts along the way, including mine—his stepsister—and lived to tell
about it. One night changed everything, and I’ve avoided him like the plague
ever since. Just long enough to finish college, to bury the hurt, and to outrun
the memories. But now that’s all changed. I’m back, and there’s no more
running. My hands are supposed to be my livelihood, but now they’re my curse.
Levi’s reckless ways have landed him in a sticky situation, and his father has
given me an offer I can’t refuse. One month, and all I have to do is put my
hands on his body. Easier said than done. The problem is, even though I know
it’s bound to bite me in the a**, I can’t bring myself to say no to the s.o.b.
Excerpt
Holy shit. I don’t know if I can do this.
Vista is a problem. My problem. Having her here, in my home, is going to
change everything.
Who am I kidding? It already has. But it
doesn’t have to, a voice in my head whispers.
One month.
That’s all I have to get through, and
then my life can return to normal. I can go back to pretending she doesn’t
exist, doesn’t matter.
One month. I repeat the words in my
head until they’re keeping time with the beat of my heart. They’re my new
mantra.
One month.
One month.
Piece of cake.
Now all I have to do is believe the lie.
“Unless you’ve developed an unhealthy
attraction to stairs I don’t know about, quit staring into space and get over
here, jackass,” Vincent calls out. “I’m not a one man circus. Help me keep
these bitches entertained.”
The women gasp as if offended by Vincent’s
crassness, but they’re not. They are bitches, and they know it. Hell,
they’ve made it an art. It’s what makes them attractive to men—being
unattainable.
Except to me.
Being who I am, women like them are a
dime a dozen, which grew boring ten minutes ago.
I stare up at the empty staircase for a
moment longer before kicking a crutch out behind me and twisting around to join
the party with the realization that choking down the lie is going to be damn
near impossible.
I can’t ignore the hollow ache in my stomach
that’s formed from just seeing her any more than I can ignore the throbbing
pulse that’s demanding attention in my jeans.
Vista Marquis thinks a few stairs can
keep me from getting to her? Then she doesn’t really know me.
I can obtain anything I want.
I’m Levi-fucking-Black, and just like my
father, I make shit happen.
Title: S.O.B.
Author: J.C. Valentine
Series or Standalone: Standalone
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult
Rating: ★★★★★
Reviewer: Melyssa
Anyone that reads my reviews, knows how
big a fan I am of this author. I have no regrets. I also make no secret of it.
There’s something about the way she writes that just draws me in.
She pulled me in with her Wayward Fighter’s series, and kept me coming back for more with Raine and then most recently her Forbidden Trilogy. She’s definitely one of my go to authors and how I feel about this book is much like the ones before it, but with some differences.
This book stood out to me because after the last few she’s released, I felt that she’d gone back to feel of Knockout and Tapout with this one. At least the feel of those books for me personally. It reminded me as the story unfolded what it was that brought me to her books to begin with and the more I read, the more I fell in love again. With the author’s writing style and the characters themselves.
Now, I suppose it should be stated before I go on with the review that this book features a stepbrother/sister dynamic. And while it does read like other stories of this type that have come before it from other authors, it also comes at it from a different angle. An angle that this reader happens to look for every single time she picks a book of this type up.
Yes, there are a fair share of steam driven scenes between Levi and Vista, but where other books in the past involving this particular plot device are purely driven by it, this one is not. It’s driven by young love gone awry, mistakes and the growth needed in order to realize them and make them right. It’s driven by real feelings and emotions. It is most definitely a book that people shouldn’t judge by its proverbial cover or labels because in the end for me, it’s so much more.
And there is no greater proof of that in the man that the book is named for. Levi for an intent and purposes is supposed to be an SOB, but for this reader, came across as anything but. Being a world renowned sports star, he had his moments, at least in terms of the past that were explained throughout, but the man you meet when this book starts is not the same one that is out on that field or the one that the world perceives him to be.
He’s more than a label. Especially it seems when it comes to Vista. The one person that despite having years apart and doing everything he can to forget, he can’t seem to get past. He’s softer, while still maintaining that alpha male image and more complex than the womanizer playboy he’s portrayed to be.
Yes, there are things that he has done, both in the past and throughout the book even that might make you want to shake him, but after having the curtain of his life pulled back and being given a full view of what he’s had to endure for as long as he can remember, a lot of it makes sense. I wouldn’t necessarily make some of the choices that he did, but I did understand them. After spending the majority of his life living under the thumb of an overbearing father, one that not only seemed to control every aspect of his career but also his life, I’m amazed that he wasn’t more of the SOB that Vista enjoyed calling him throughout.
There were aspects of him shown very early on that showed a different side of him and it was hard for this reader not to immediately feel for him. In fact, I connected more to him than I did Vista based on a lot of it, though as the story progressed, I definitely ended up being pretty tightly wrapped emotionally in her as well.
After having felt love with Levi in the past and then having it ripped out from under her, when she finally does give in to what she never should have had to deny, I felt for her. How torn she was with admitting it and then the ramifications that come with admitting she has never gotten over him coming across very real to me.
My heart physically hurt for her at times. When the truth of the past came out, when again just like then, forces stepped forward in an effort to keep them apart. When Levi, going through his own struggle, made decisions and choices that in the end hurt her even more, or she had to make painful choices that did the same. It all made me ache and all I wanted the more I read was for things to even out so that these two could be truly be happy the way they deserved.
It’s a sign of a great author when she can take these two base characters and bring them life so eloquently on the page that you’re pulled so completely into their world, completely invested in the way their story will play out and J.C. did that here. I couldn’t put this book down until I knew how everything would play out. If I would get the payoff I was after and if the people that were determined to keep these two apart got what was coming to them.
She delivered on all of that and more. By the end, it truly felt as though I’d fallen in love the same way that Levi and Vista did. I felt the love and romance. I felt the pain and agony that came from the two of them being apart, along with the realistic forces that were thrown in their path in an effort to keep them apart. I felt it all and I’m still feeling it long after I turned the last page.
But for the record, that father. That piece of work that I wanted to throttle more than once throughout, I would have come up with a much different ending for the likes of him, lol. I suppose though, with the love and respect I had for Vista’s mother throughout, I gotta say, it evened itself out nicely in the end. The people that mattered got what they needed and in the end, that’s all that matters.
It wasn’t an easy road to happiness for these two, but it damn sure was a fulfilling one.
J.C, you have outdone yourself again with this story and I am so thankful that I got the chance to read it before release.
She pulled me in with her Wayward Fighter’s series, and kept me coming back for more with Raine and then most recently her Forbidden Trilogy. She’s definitely one of my go to authors and how I feel about this book is much like the ones before it, but with some differences.
This book stood out to me because after the last few she’s released, I felt that she’d gone back to feel of Knockout and Tapout with this one. At least the feel of those books for me personally. It reminded me as the story unfolded what it was that brought me to her books to begin with and the more I read, the more I fell in love again. With the author’s writing style and the characters themselves.
Now, I suppose it should be stated before I go on with the review that this book features a stepbrother/sister dynamic. And while it does read like other stories of this type that have come before it from other authors, it also comes at it from a different angle. An angle that this reader happens to look for every single time she picks a book of this type up.
Yes, there are a fair share of steam driven scenes between Levi and Vista, but where other books in the past involving this particular plot device are purely driven by it, this one is not. It’s driven by young love gone awry, mistakes and the growth needed in order to realize them and make them right. It’s driven by real feelings and emotions. It is most definitely a book that people shouldn’t judge by its proverbial cover or labels because in the end for me, it’s so much more.
And there is no greater proof of that in the man that the book is named for. Levi for an intent and purposes is supposed to be an SOB, but for this reader, came across as anything but. Being a world renowned sports star, he had his moments, at least in terms of the past that were explained throughout, but the man you meet when this book starts is not the same one that is out on that field or the one that the world perceives him to be.
He’s more than a label. Especially it seems when it comes to Vista. The one person that despite having years apart and doing everything he can to forget, he can’t seem to get past. He’s softer, while still maintaining that alpha male image and more complex than the womanizer playboy he’s portrayed to be.
Yes, there are things that he has done, both in the past and throughout the book even that might make you want to shake him, but after having the curtain of his life pulled back and being given a full view of what he’s had to endure for as long as he can remember, a lot of it makes sense. I wouldn’t necessarily make some of the choices that he did, but I did understand them. After spending the majority of his life living under the thumb of an overbearing father, one that not only seemed to control every aspect of his career but also his life, I’m amazed that he wasn’t more of the SOB that Vista enjoyed calling him throughout.
There were aspects of him shown very early on that showed a different side of him and it was hard for this reader not to immediately feel for him. In fact, I connected more to him than I did Vista based on a lot of it, though as the story progressed, I definitely ended up being pretty tightly wrapped emotionally in her as well.
After having felt love with Levi in the past and then having it ripped out from under her, when she finally does give in to what she never should have had to deny, I felt for her. How torn she was with admitting it and then the ramifications that come with admitting she has never gotten over him coming across very real to me.
My heart physically hurt for her at times. When the truth of the past came out, when again just like then, forces stepped forward in an effort to keep them apart. When Levi, going through his own struggle, made decisions and choices that in the end hurt her even more, or she had to make painful choices that did the same. It all made me ache and all I wanted the more I read was for things to even out so that these two could be truly be happy the way they deserved.
It’s a sign of a great author when she can take these two base characters and bring them life so eloquently on the page that you’re pulled so completely into their world, completely invested in the way their story will play out and J.C. did that here. I couldn’t put this book down until I knew how everything would play out. If I would get the payoff I was after and if the people that were determined to keep these two apart got what was coming to them.
She delivered on all of that and more. By the end, it truly felt as though I’d fallen in love the same way that Levi and Vista did. I felt the love and romance. I felt the pain and agony that came from the two of them being apart, along with the realistic forces that were thrown in their path in an effort to keep them apart. I felt it all and I’m still feeling it long after I turned the last page.
But for the record, that father. That piece of work that I wanted to throttle more than once throughout, I would have come up with a much different ending for the likes of him, lol. I suppose though, with the love and respect I had for Vista’s mother throughout, I gotta say, it evened itself out nicely in the end. The people that mattered got what they needed and in the end, that’s all that matters.
It wasn’t an easy road to happiness for these two, but it damn sure was a fulfilling one.
J.C, you have outdone yourself again with this story and I am so thankful that I got the chance to read it before release.
About J.C. Valentine
J.C. Valentine is the USA Today and International bestselling author of the Night Calls and Wayward Fighters Series and the Forbidden Trilogy. Her vivid imagination and love of words and romance had her penning her own romance stories from an early age, which, despite being poorly edited and written longhand, she forced friends and family members to read. No, she isn't sorry.
J.C. earned her own happily ever after when she married her high school sweetheart. Living in the Northwest, they have three amazing children and far too many pets and spend much of their free time together enjoying movies or the outdoors. Among the many hats she wears, J.C. is an entrepreneur. Having graduated with honors, she holds a Bachelor's in English and when she isn't writing, you can find her editing for fellow authors.
Sign up for J.C.'s newsletter and never miss a thing! http://bit.ly/1KxXWWB
Giveaway
No comments:
Post a Comment