Wednesday, October 10, 2012

VBT Review & Giveaway - Derailed by Alyssa Rose Ivy



Welcome to my stop on Alyssa Rose Ivy's Virtual Book Tour for Derailed.  Please be sure to leave a comment or question below to let Alyssa know you stopped by and use the Rafflecopter Form below to enter her giveaway for one of 3 eBook copies of her book.  Also check out my review below.

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Title: Derailed
Author: Alyssa Rose Ivy
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, New Adult Contemporary Romance,
Publisher: Alyssa Rose Ivy
Ebook/Paperback
Words: aprox. 55K

Publication Date: September 26th 2012

Book Description:

When you're lost, sometimes the only place you can go is home.

Broken over the death of her fiancé, Molly leaves law school to return to her childhood home in North Carolina. Expecting to lay low until she can figure out what else to do with her life, she finds herself in the arms of her high school sweetheart, the boy who represents everything from the past she tried to leave behind.

Looking for an escape, she instead finds a way back to the girl she almost forgot existed and a future she never dreamed possible.

Excerpt:

Chapter One


I used to love May: the heat and the promise of a long and limitless summer. I’d count down the last weeks of April with excitement, ready for my favorite time of year. The May of my first, and only, year of law school was different. It brought the craving for change—and the need to escape.


I remember the exact moment I decided to quit law school. It was during contracts only a week before spring exams. The end of my 1L year was in sight, and I should have been excited. My first semester grades placed me firmly in the top 25% of the class, and finishing first year meant I was getting ready to pass a milestone I’d thought about for years. Of course, I should have also been getting ready for an even bigger milestone: my wedding.

“Ms. Sander, would you care to enlighten us on why the court found the agreement unenforceable?” Professor Willis’s booming bass voice reverberated off the oak-paneled walls of the lecture hall.

My head snapped up when I heard my name. I’d been reading a website on my laptop and could feel the blood rushing to my face, aware that everyone in the room was probably staring at me. I tried to pull up the case brief I’d cut and pasted from Westlaw that morning. It had been months since I’d bothered to brief a case myself. Instead, I’d been relying on the generic commercial ones our professors had warned us to avoid. My screen froze, and I was out of time. I struggled to remember what unit we were even on. “Lack of consideration?” I half asked.

“If you didn’t bother to read the case, why did you bother to come to class?” The professor sneered, and I heard light laughter behind me. Traitors. Like I was the only one who didn’t do the reading. I’d spent almost every day of the past nine months with these people, yet they made a joke out of me at the first chance.

“That’s a good question and one I don’t have the answer to.” I slammed my laptop shut and stuffed it into my backpack, slinging one strap over my shoulder. I picked up my case book and slipped past a roomful of stunned faces as I headed to the door.

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About the Author:

Alyssa Rose Ivy is a Young Adult and New Adult author who loves to weave stories with romance and a southern setting. Although raised in the New York area, she fell in love with the South after moving to New Orleans for college. After years as a perpetual student, she turned back to her creative side and decided to write. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two young children, and she can usually be found with a cup of coffee in her hand.






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My Review:  

Derailed by Alyssa Rose Ivy is the first book I've read classified as a "New Adult" romance.  Beginning in Boston, this is  the story of an early twenties woman whose outlook on life is tainted by two tragic events in her life.  Events which send her running back to the small coastal town where she grew up and where her memories of life are less complicated.  With a likable heroine, good supporting secondary characters and a grown up bad boy ex-boyfriend, this is more than just a second chance romance.  It's the story of a young woman who chooses to reinvent herself and re-evaluate the choices she's made in life.

Unable to deal with her grief and feelings of guilt, Molly Sander drops out of law school only months before completing her first year.  Hoping to discover who she has become and what she wants to do with her life, Molly decides to head for her childhood home in Clayton Falls, North Carolina.  Molly knows she'll have to look at some of the choices she made in the past in order to move forward but she really doesn't expect to get a do-over in her life.  I really liked how Ms. Ivy developed Molly's character; she's young and intelligent but has a tremendous amount of guilt from her perception that she can't love others as deeply as they love her.  As Molly is forced to deal with the consequences of her decision to go home, she's forced to realize the decision to go to law school forced her to give up some of the things she loved, like her photography.  As Molly begins to recover, she's forced to face the young man she left behind.

Ben Matthews has always loved Molly, he's never really gotten over their breakup and Molly's refusal to forgive him for some of the bad choices he made in the past.  When he discovers Molly's back in town, he's determined to get the girl he's never gotten over back and will do whatever it takes to get Molly to give him a second chance.  While we don't get to know a lot about what took place in Ben's life while Molly was in Boston for five years, Ms. Ivy does give us enough clues to know the bad decisions he made as a teen (like being stoned a lot of times) are a thing of the past and he's become a much more responsible adult.

The scenes between Molly and Ben are well written and their chemistry is undeniable.  While Molly isn't willing to get emotionally involved - at least that's what she says both to herself and Ben- she's willing to be friends with benefits.  Ben agrees knowing he'll do whatever it takes, even enlisting her friends help, in order to get Molly to give him a real chance at recapturing their love.  The secondary characters, mostly Molly and Ben's childhood friends and family, all contribute to the story and help to bring Molly and Ben back together.  They also help Molly get over the losses of her past and face her future.

Will Molly see the love she's always wanted is where she left it at home?  You'll have to read Derailed to find out.  I look forward to seeing who Ms. Ivy writes about in the next Clayton Falls book.

My Rating:  4 out of 5 Stars 









Don't forget to leave a comment or question below for Alyssa.  You can enter the Rafflecopter giveaway here.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a sweet story

    Francesca

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  2. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing Derailed! I am so glad you enjoyed it! :)

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  3. I have only read one other book that is considered new adult. I really enjoyed it and would love to read this one. Thanks for the chance to win. :)

    ReplyDelete