Sunday 11 June 2017

✪ Tara Sivec ✪ The Story Of Us ✪ #Giveaway & #Excerpt ✪

© Bianca Janeane
    






• 11 June 2017
• 2nd-chance-lovestory-drama-mystery☺

★★★★★
5 Stars
How much can a man take before he breaks?

1,843 days. That's how long I survived in that hellhole. They tried to break me, but I resisted. And I owe it all to the memory of warm summer nights, the scent of peaches, and the one woman who loved me more than I ever deserved to be loved. Now, I'll do anything to get back to her.
 

Only Shelby Eubanks isn't the girl I left behind all those years ago. She's someone else, a stranger.
 My Shelby-my little green-eyed firecracker-would never give up her dreams, would never disappear into her mother's ambitions. But I won't give up on her. On us. I may be broken, and scarred, and not the man I used to be, but I will do whatever it takes to remind her of the story of us.



Eli and Shelby used to be in love. Ever since she was 12 Shelby had a crush on him, and followed him around like a puppy. But they were not allowed to be together. Shelby is the daughter of a senator and a very influential society queen. And Eli is just a stable hand.
After they spent the most amazing (secret) six months together, when Shelby came home from college, Eli just left. He left to join the Marines. We don't yet know the reasons behind all that; the leaving and breaking both their hearts, but he left.
And he never came back. He died in an explosion in Afghanistan.
Only he didn't die.
He was captured and tortured for more than five years.

Five years, two weeks, four days, and nine hours ...

But Shelby didn't know that. She thought she lost the love of her life. And then, instead of doing what she promised Eli - living her dream in New York - she bowed down to her mother's wishes of being a good girl, dating the right guy - basically do everything she says. We don't yet know why she felt she had to do that either.
But now Eli is back.
Both Shelby and Eli are completely changed people, but the love they had for each other is still there.
It's the only thing that kept Eli alive for all these years.

I wonder if she knows she's the only reason I'm still breathing, still fighting, and still holding on.

But will they make it this time? With bad people doing everything in her power to stop them - with all the lies and misunderstandings and dangers and whatnot lurking in every corner?

What will happen with Eli & Shelby??
Will we get our happily ever after??
READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT!
 





Oy and double oy! I cried soooo much in the prologue already!!!!!


And I didn't stop crying once I finished the first few pages!
THE STORY OF US was such a beautiful book.
I wanted to crawl into the prologue and save Eli. And hug him and comfort him.
And then I wanted to jump into the book to slap the hell out of a couple of people (or worse!). Grrr.
Shelby and Eli were so perfect together and they could be again. But it takes us a long time to get things right again.
And I kind of cried all through it! ☺
There's so much sadness and grief and hopelessness and drama in this story!
You can't help but cry. And feel. Jeez - the feels in that book!
But of course there's also so much hope and love and excitement and sexy moments!

You just feel that it's very close to Tara's heart, the way it's written.
It was an amazingly beautiful story. But it was also a very (patriotic) American story in some aspects. But I didn't mind. I loved and I cried and most of all I felt soo much for and with all Eli & Shelby! ♥

THE STORY OF US was such a heartbreakingly beautiful 2nd-chance lovestory! Full of sadness & grief & hopelessness, but also so full of love & hope!!! Just perfect!
Please run to your nearest amazon for your own Eli - this one is MINE! And don't forget to order a huge box of tissues while you're at it! ☺




ARC received for an honest review

This book!  I mean, this book!  I was a wreck from the prologue, and Ms Sivec had me on edge for the rest of the whole darn book.



The Story of Us had all the feels.  I wanted to jump into the book and save Eli, I wanted to jump in and hug Shelby, and I wanted to jump in and b!tch slap the crap out of Shelby's mother - grrr she makes me mad just thinking of her.

I am a fan of a second chance romance, however through in the hurdles that our lovelies have to face and I am in love.  I loved the hurt, the fear, the pain, the helplessness.

There is a great sense of hopelessness throughout the story that had me in tears over and over again - though as I say that, there is so much hope.  Gah, serious emotional overload from the first word to the last.

I love love loved seeing Shelby and Eli come out of the shells they have been stuck in, seeing their fight come back to them.

Giving a big middle finger to those that wanted them apart.

I don't know how to put my thoughts into words to do this book justice.

 So buy it. Read it. You won't be disappointed.





♥ GIVEAWAY ♥

Enter to win 1 of 15 free ebook downloads of The Story of Us!
  
→ http://bit.ly/2qoDIcz ← 

 
♥ EXCERPT ♥


I just need a moment alone, to remember how to breathe and to remember how to push the hurt away so I can go back out there and do my job. Hold my head high with a smile on my face and pretend like dancing with Eli, being close to Eli, and letting him rain insults down on me, didn’t cut me in half.
As soon as I turn the handle and push open the office door, I feel something solid slam into me from behind, moving me faster into the dark room. I trip over my feet and an arm slides around my waist to steady me before whirling me around. I smell his soap and recognize his firm hold on me before the moonlight shining in the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me illuminates the shadow of his face, but that doesn’t stop the rapid thumping of my heart as the door is kicked shut with a slam and my body is turned and pushed roughly against the wall next to it. With the first touch of his hands, the first feel of the heat from his skin against me, I’m lost. I’m drowning in a pool of desire I’ve only ever felt with him, and I never want to come up for air. Every inch of my body is on fire, begging for more, needing everything I’ve been missing, but knowing everything about this moment is wrong. This can’t happen. I can’t want this and I certainly can’t act on what I’m feeling.
Before I can shove him away, shout at him, and tell him to let me go, his mouth is on mine. His chest pins my arms between us and I clutch a fistful of his dress shirt in my hands when my lips automatically part for him. His tongue quickly pushes into my mouth and I feel tears prickling behind my eyelids when I taste him, so familiar and so beautiful it breaks off yet another piece of my heart. One of his hands moves from around my waist and I feel the heat from his palm as it slides against the side of my neck to the back, his fingers gripping tightly to the hair at the base of my skull to hold my head in place. His kiss is punishing and hard and I can do nothing but hold tightly to the front of his shirt as our tongues battle together and I try to remember how to breathe.

 LINKS TO THE BOOKs & AUTHOR 
  
  



There will be a spin-off novel coming 14 November 2017 called WRITTEN ON THE STARS about two people that were mentioned very briefly at the end of The Story of Us 😉

 
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Tara Sivec is a USA Today best-selling author, wife, mother, chauffeur, maid, short-order cook, baby-sitter, and sarcasm expert. She lives in Ohio with her husband and two children and looks forward to the day when they all three of them become adults and move out.

After working in the brokerage business for fourteen years, Tara decided to pick up a pen and write instead of shoving it in her eye out of boredom. She is the author of the Playing with Fire series, the Chocolate Lovers series, the Chocoholics series, the Fool Me Once series and Watch Over Me. Her novel Seduction and Snacks won first place in the Indie Romance Convention Reader's Choice Awards 2013 for Best Indie First Book.

In her spare time, Tara loves to dream about all of the baking she'll do and naps she'll take when she ever gets spare time.