Tour Stop: Waiting for the Storm by Marie Landry- Review & Giveaway

Waiting for the Storm

Author: Marie Landry

Genre: YA Contemporary

Release Date: April 9, 2013

Summary:

Charlotte O’Dell knows this summer is going to suck. Her beloved mother just died, her sister hates her, and her dad has completely checked out. Fulfilling her mother’s final wish, the family heads to Angel Island for the summer to stay in a beach house her mother once loved.

After a year of being shut away taking care of her mother, Charlotte is numb and practically afraid of her own shadow; she hopes going to the island will give her the time and space she needs to begin healing, and an opportunity to bring her family back together. When she meets her mysterious neighbor, Ezra, it doesn’t take long for Charlotte to confess the issues she’s developed. Ezra begins giving Charlotte assignments to get over her fears, and although she accepts his tasks, all she really wants is to be with him. When she’s with Ezra, she’s able to forget the hollow ache in her heart and the fact that her family is falling apart.

But Ezra has secrets…

Can Charlotte pull what’s left of her family together, mend her broken heart, and allow herself to fall for Ezra? Or is it all just a storm waiting to happen?

Goodreads | Amazon

About the Author:

Marie Landry is the author of BLUE SKY DAYS (contemporary YA—January 2012), UNDRESSED (a collection of short erotic romance stories—October 2012), THE GAME CHANGER (chick lit—November 2012), and WAITING FOR THE STORM (contemporary YA—April 2013). Marie has always been a daydreamer; since early childhood, she’s had a passion for words and a desire to create imaginary worlds, so it only seemed natural for her to become a writer. She resides in Ontario, Canada, and most days you can find her writing, reading, blogging about writing and reading, listening to U2, or having grand adventures with her two precious nephews. For more on Marie and her books, please visit marielandry.blogspot.ca or check out her book blog Ramblings of a Daydreamer (sweetmarie-83.blogspot.ca).

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Okay, I have to admit, when I first saw the name "Ezra" in the summary, I thought that perhaps this book was going to be a sort of Pretty Little Liars mashup (I'm kind of all of the PLL things, sorry to those of you who actually like the series, book or TV). I know what you're thinking, "Well, Cierra, why did you choose to review this if you thought it was going to be about something you don't like?" The only answer that I have to that is that the summary sounded very interesting to me, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would give this book a chance....

And I'm glad I did!

First of all, to those of you who don't like books with sad themes in them, namely hatred, depression, and grief (including me)... You'll still like this book. I mean, Marie Landry's writing is to where I could feel the emotions from every scene that I read in the book, but it wasn't where it was so overwhelming that I felt like I would need to take a break and go look at pictures of puppies and rainbows just to feel happy again. I felt what the characters where feeling, and it was okay (at least with me).

Charlotte was strong and she knew that she needed to get through her grief and try to work around and/or help her family members with their reactions after her mother's death. I also felt a kinship with her because she resorted to reading to get away from everything and sort of be in the fictional world for a while (I'm not going to try to think of the implications of a fictional character reading to get to imaginary fictional worlds or my head will explode), which I tend to do (whoever says imagination is only for kids: Go imagine or Go home.)

Don't you all just hate how all of a sudden some books have "romance" in them, but it's that fast, instalove type stuff that get old fast? Like, the kind where there's no build up, it's just BAM! the characters are in love ( and most of the time the relationship isn't so great in the first place). Well, this book does not have that in it, and I have to say that I absolutely loved that about it! There was a great buildup to Charlotte and Ezra's relationship, even-- in fact-- beginning with a solid friendship instead of immediately budding on the romance. I felt that Ezra was a great love interest for Charlotte because he really, actually cared for her, instead of those tend-to-be-a-loser ya love interests. He was also that perfect/dream boy next door types whom every girl wishes to have.

This book had great pacing (in my opinion), and I would recommend it to the next person. I have officially given it........drumroll, please................ FIVE HEARTS! (yeah!, wow!, so awesome!, *background clapping*)



Now, go enter my giveaway, and prehaps you'll maybe, just maybe win! (And if you don't, but really want to read this book, it i on sale for 99 cents!! Use the code "BH53J" if you would like to buy it on Smashwords, or you can get it from Amazon.