Waiting on Wednesday {26}

Hey everyone and welcome to my weekly Waiting on Wednesday meme post! This is just a once a week deal where each Wednesday I post about one book I am looking forward to reading and then link it up to the host blog, Breaking the Spine, where I can be connected to over 200 other readers and bloggers who are looking for a new read! My friend Kim from kimberlyfayereads participates in this meme each week and it has always looked like a great time. Below you will find the book cover, synopsis, Goodreads link and my reasons for waiting on this read! Enjoy!

This week's WOW is... Confess by Colleen Hoover!

Title: Confess

Author: Colleen Hoover

Genre: New Adult/Romance
Release Date: March 10, 2015

 

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, a new novel about risking everything for love—and finding your heart somewhere between the truth and lies.

Auburn Reed has her entire life mapped out. Her goals are in sight and there’s no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.

For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.

The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin…

 

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Why am I waiting?

I have a confession to make... I'm a male. I hate romance reads (generally), but I love CoHo. Seriously. I've read a handful of Colleen's books, and every one has been better than the last. On top of being an incredible, trailblazing author, she is one of the most humble and inspiring ladies I have ever met. Her stories, both in real life and on the pages, have touched me in such a way that she will always remain a special lady in my eyes. I'm hearing absolutely incredible things about Confess from bloggers who got their hands of ARCs, and I'm in need of a good NA read this month! Lucky for me, I don't have to wait too long! I'll be picking up a copy (and several for friends) this weekend when I see Mrs. Colleen at the Austin Book Bash on Saturday! That's right readers, I'm traveling 10 hours to spend the weekend with these incredible authors! Lucky me, right?

You guys may remember that I got the amazing opportunity to meet Colleen last summer in Nashville and she blew me away. Seriously, I don't have enough nice things to say about this lady. I'm anxiously awaiting this read, and from what I hear, so is 9/10ths of the literary community! Three cheers for CoHo!

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What are YOU waiting on this week?

Check out this week's host post at Breaking the Spine by clicking here!

Thanks for stopping by, Happy Reading! 

-Ethan

Nashville Author Event Review!

Hello and happy Sunday readers! Hope your weekend is going great! As many of my fans and readers will have already hear, yesterday I had the great privilege to attend the Nashville Author Event hosted by Lalone Marketing. The event was held June 7, 2014 at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum located in the heart of downtown “Music City USA”, Nashville, Tennessee (the happiest place on Earth in my opinion). I did a quick pre-post about the Nashville event. That post can be found by clicking here. 

The event was the best author event I have been to to-date and I am excited to share my experience with all of you guys! As you guys know, reviewing my events is something of a tradition here at OneGuysGuideToGoodReads and they are always my favorite posts to write because they include lots of pictures of me freaking out over meeting some amazing authors, bloggers, and fellow Street Team members! Hope you guys are ready, because this post has all kinds of fun in store!

 

Yesterday morning, two of my best friends (Hannah and Tommy) and I set off on a 3 hour drive headed to Nashville. Though a little tired, I was more than excited about what the day had in store for us. I knew that 2 of my fellow street team members, some blog "sisters", author friends, a a whole slew of fellow readers awaited me at the event. This was also the weekend of CMAFest which, if you guys don't know anything about it, seriously get out from underneath your rocks. CMAFest is a HUGE deal. It's pretty much Woodstock for country music and the ENTIRE city of Nashville celebrates! I figured rough traffic, no parking, long lines, and plenty of frustration would meet us upon our arrival in Nashville. I couldn't have been more wrong. Little to no traffic, easy parking (very close to the venue), and no frustration whatsoever. The weather started out beautiful so no complaints there. My only complaint was that my partner in crime, the amazing Megan who has accompanied me to every event thus far was unable to come due to a prior commitment. Before I get into the review of the event, here are some pictures of the venue and Nashville! 

Hannah and I in front of the Musicians Hall of Fame and museum before the event!

Marquee bearing the event and the Griffin Peterson performance announcement! Such a neat venue!

The beautiful Nashville skyline from the observation deck of our parking garage!

Once we got inside the event we were greeted by a line of amazing fans and then several "hey Ethans!" which made my day! If you guys have never been to a book event, let me tell you: go. The people are so nice and they really do remember you. I had been introduced/reintroduced to at least 10 people before I ever even took my place in line. It was such an amazing feeling! 

Line waiting to meet the amazing authors!

Rather than go through and discuss my experiences meeting each author, I am just going to post a whole stream of pictures and give you guys a visual journey through the event. Sorry, but I'm in all the pictures! :D Here we go!

First up was my amazing friend and author Miss Cora Carmack. I have met Cora before, but I still LOVED seeing her again. As a member of Cora's Street Team I have worked closely with her for the past few months promoting her newest novel All Lined Up! Cora is so freaking awesome. Pictured with us is my blog mentor and "sister", Amber from GrownupFangirl. More info on Amber and her gang later on!

My next stop was probably the one I was anticipating the most. Jay Crownover! What up Jay!! Jay is the author of the Marked Men series, and while I haven't read them, Jay is one of my favorite people ever. She and I have connected several times since our paths ALMOST crossed in Des Moines back in April. It was so awesome to FINALLY get to meet her. She is such a fun person who really loved her fans. I may be joining the Crownover Crowd after meeting her and Melissa! Megan is VERY jealous!

Third on the list was Rebecca Donovan! Rebecca is the bestselling author of the Breathing series and loaded me up with some amazing swag. Another fun lady, I can't wait to meet her again!

Fourth was the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, FANTASTIC Colleen Hoover! As you guys will remember, I featured a series review last month of Colleen's Slammed series. Colleen is an amazing author and hilarious woman. She was also extremely generous and actually gave me some surprises to give away to my amazing readers (be on the look out for that). I'm a huge Colleen fan so meeting her in person was such a great experience! (BTW that's Tommy in the background, hey Tommy!)

Fifth was bestselling author Heidi McLaughlin! Heidi is the author of the extremely popular Beaumont Series! Heidi was so awesome to meet. She loaded me up with giveaway swag and even told me to contact her if I ever want to collaborate so you guys may be meeting more Heidi later. Also with Heidi was one of her cover models which was pretty cool (for obvious reasons I did not request a picture with him, sorry guys [I'm looking at you Carmcats....])!

Sixth up was probably the coolest person I met in Nashville, Mrs. Tina Reber. I have only heard of Tina so I did not know what to expect. Nobody mentioned that she was the most awesome person ever! She and I talked for quite awhile about me being a guy in this female dominated book world and she had lots to suggest in the line of future events. Tina is awesome, she was later found dancing in her seat at the concert later that afternoon! She was so cool to meet. I'd love to see her again after reading some of her works! Her book covers are AMAZING!

Oh boy. I can't describe my experiences with this author in a short few sentences. This is me with Jenn (J) Sterling. Don't know who Jenn is? You should be ashamed. Jenn brought the party with her to Nashville and definitely made my few minutes meeting her a very memorable experience. I will never, ever forget meeting Jenn. Haha! Jenn is the bestselling author of The Perfect Game series. I haven't read any of Jenn's works, but after meeting her, I definitely will be in the very near future. I WILL be making it a point to meet Jenn again. Haha!  

Last on the event line was the author I was the most excited to meet, Mrs. KA Tucker. KA is the bestselling author of one of my favorite series, the Causal Enchantment series. I will be doing a series review of it later this week (with giveaway). KA is also the author of the Ten Tiny Breaths series which is huge right now! KA was amazing and so nice to talk to. Coming all the way to Nashville from Canada to be with her fans. We were so fortunate to meet her. 





Check out each author's Goodreads page by clicking on the authors name below!

Cora Carmack          Jay Crownover          Rebecca Donovan          Colleen Hoover  

Heidi McLaughlin          Tina Reber          Jenn Sterling                  KA Tucker

As you can see, the team behind this amazing event did not skimp on the author list! 8 of the biggest names in the business! Seriously, you couldn't throw a stone without hitting 2-3 bestselling, award winning authors. That is seriously impressive. HUGE shout out to Emily and her team at Lalone Marketing for putting this event together.

That being said, the event would not have gone off without a hitch without all the amazing blog sponsors and volunteers who helped make it happen. They did such a great job. Even more exciting, 4 of those volunteers were friends and fellow ST members! The event was blog sponsored by none other than the amazing girls over at GrownupFangirl. You guys have heard all about these ladies before, but I'm going to talk about them again. Amber, Carmen, and Christina were on hand in Nashville and were so awesome to see (again). I had previously met Carmen and Christina when I traveled to Des Moines for AViD in April! These girls have been so awesome to me while starting this blog and Amber can be thanked endlessly for her support since the beginning. I seriously love you guys to death. Ya'll always know how to make this guy feel special!

And as if that wasn't reason enough to be excited, I also got to finally meet another Carmcat, Elizabeth, who volunteered with Rebecca Donovan at the event! Here I am with Beth!

Here are a few more pics of me with the girls!

Me with the amazing and hilarious Christina from GrownupFangirl, Christina is probably my current favorite person on the planet, seriously she's awesome!

Pictured with my "sis", friend, mentor, fellow Carmcat, fellow blogger, storm chasin', readin' fiend and favorite person from Mississippi, the AMAZING Amber from GrownupFangirl! She's such an awesome person!

Me with the beautiful and hilarious Carmen from GrownupFangirl!



Carmen and Christina came all the way from the Kansas City area to be there, nearly 9 hours! They're hardcore!

The Carmcats went out to dinner after the event yesterday evening to celebrate us being in the same town for the first time! Nashville wasn't exactly "close" for any of us, but we still made sure to get together before heading back to North Carolina, Alabama, and Missouri late last night and early this morning!






Be sure to check out the girls from GrownupFangirl by visiting their amazing blog at http://www.grownupfangirl.com/ they work 366 days a year to ensure they have the most awesome book blog out there! Give them some love!

Here's the last of the random pics I have from the day including a picture of the Griffin Peterson performance!

Cora cheesing it up before the Griff concert. We can't take her anywhere without her being CRAZY! Just kidding, you know I love ya Cora!

 

Griffin Peterson and band playing the soundtrack to Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel Maybe Someday!

Overall this was THE BEST author event I have been to to date. The authors were amazing, the fans were great, the convert was spectacular and oh by the way IT WAS IN NASHVILLE!!! Woohoo! Needless to say we were rather exhausted after the 3 hour drive back to Missouri afterwards, but it was well worth it. I know I will be forgetting someone, but huge shout outs to each author, the volunteers, Emily, and all the bloggers I had the great opportunity to meet yesterday! Special shout outs to my best friends Tommy and Hannah for coming with me to this event. Sorry you had to be a pack mule and camera man Tommy, you know I appreciate it bro! Lol. And Hannah, I am so glad you finally got to meet some of these amazing authors I've been telling you about! Much love to all you guys! 

That's all I have to say for now about the Nashville Author Event, but you can check twitter for the hashtag #NashvilleAuthorEvent for some fun posts and pics of the event or you can check out the event Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/events/591605820924239/ for more awesomeness! 

Coming up tomorrow here at OneGuysGuideToGoodReads I have a release day post for Kallie Ross' newest novel Descent! I am getting ready to start it tonight and am real excited about it. It come to me from the amazing KP and her team at InkSlinger so check back tomorrow around noon for that post! Also be on the look out for some giveaways soon because I have LOTS to give away after yesterday. Have a great week readers and as always, Happy Reading!

-Ethan

Nashville Author Event THIS SATURDAY (Tomorrow)!

Hello readers! Very quick post for you guys! I have recently moved and have been without internet so I have been unable to keep you guys posted on reads and upcoming events and I deeply apologize for that. Usually I would have done a HUGE post about each of the authors I will be meeting at the Nashville Author Event tomorrow (6/7/2014), but due to time constraints, I'm just going to keep this nice and simple and promote the event instead so you guys can come out and meet all the amazing authors! Here's the rundown folks!

Head here for all the info pertaining to this awesome event: http://www.lalonemarketing.com/events/nashville-author-event/

I, along with several members of my support staff will be in attendance tomorrow and would love to meet any and all of my readers! Just holler and I'm sure I'll see you (I'll be the one freaking out over being in the same room as Cora, Colleen, Jay, and KA Tucker)! Lol! 

Also, as many of you will have read before, I am a member of Cora's street team promoting her newest All Lined Up so you guys need to check out my archives to read all about ALU! Also I have written about Colleen Hoover, Jay, and KA so be sure to check those out as well! This is sure to prove to be an exciting event for all. Plus it's free so register yourselves and I will see you there!

Lastly, the amazing girls over at GrownupFangirl are the blog sponsors for this event and as you guys know, these girls are like my blog-sisters and I owe them a huge debt of gratitude for all their support over the past few months with this blog so be sure to give the girls a high five (or a hug, they don't bite) when you see them there! I know I will be! They are awesome! Check out their blog with ALL the important info about the event at http://www.grownupfangirl.com/!

Alright, I told you guys this would be short, I apologize for the short notice, but I hope to see many, many, MANY of you there tomorrow! Nashville is an amazing city and you won't regret coming! Until next time, Happy Reading!

PS If anyone remembers, be sure to stop by Cora's table and wish her a happy belated birthday! She celebrate her's this past Wednesday! Much love for the belated birthday girl!

-Ethan

Slammed Series by Colleen Hoover

Hello faithful readers! Long time no see! It has been a VERY hectic week for me here and I have not had any time to give you guys some new material, but don't fret, I have still be attached to my Nook ever chance I have had! I have a real special review for you guys today. Get ready, it's a great one!

When I first entered this new world of New Adult literature (thanks to Cora), I was astonished at the number of authors that had already committed to this genre and have worked diligently to get it up and running. Though many authors in this genre are loved and have made a name for themselves, one woman kept coming up EVERYWHERE I turned. That woman? Colleen Hoover. Colleen Hoover, quite possibly the biggest name in New Adult literature right now, and I hadn't even read one of her books. I was talking to my friend, and fellow Street Team member, Amber (from http://www.grownupfangirl.com/) who told me I HAD to read some Colleen Hoover! After looking at my schedule for the coming months, I realized that Mrs. Hoover was going to be present at a couple of the events I will be attending so I figured checking out some of her work was probably a good idea. I had to know what the fuss was about! After getting online and doing some major research into Colleen Hoover and her works, I decided to start at the beginning and read her first series: Slammed. I am fully aware that this is not a new series and that I am probably the very last person to just onto the Colleen Hoover train, but I really wanted to share my thoughts on the work of this extremely influential author! I'll get into series specifics here in a minute, but first, for all of you who may not know much about out author, allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Colleen Hoover!


I love music. LOVE music. Namely The Avett Brothers, Lumineers, Pink, Eminem. I have eclectic taste? If you have any recommendations, send them my way!

I'm addicted to diet pepsi and could tell you in a taste-test which restaurant it came from. It's a serious addiction, I tell you.

I get stoked whenever I get a message from goodreads saying I have a new friend request...so request me, dangit!
 
If you want to know when I have new books out or just want to be inundated by random, pointless blog posts, follow me at www.colleenhoover.com. Avoid my Twitter at all cost. It's propaganda. 

Mrs. Hoover is the New York Times bestselling author of multiple books now! She actually has an entire second series out now that I will be putting on my "TBR" pile for this summer! You can learn more about Colleen Hoover from these links here:

Colleen's Goodreads Page https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5430144.Colleen_Hoover
Colleen's Twitter https://twitter.com/colleenhoover
20 Interesting Facts about Colleen by Colleen! http://colleenhoover.com/about-coho/ 

Okay, Now on to the good stuff. I'll give you the synopses of all three books in the Slammed series, then scroll on down to see my overall review of the series!



Book 1

Following the unexpected death of her father, 18-year-old Layken is forced to be the rock for both her mother and younger brother. Outwardly, she appears resilient and tenacious, but inwardly, she's losing hope.

Enter Will Cooper: The attractive, 21-year-old new neighbor with an intriguing passion for slam poetry and a unique sense of humor. Within days of their introduction, Will and Layken form an intense emotional connection, leaving Layken with a renewed sense of hope.

Not long after an intense, heart-stopping first date, they are slammed to the core when a shocking revelation forces their new relationship to a sudden halt. Daily interactions become impossibly painful as they struggle to find a balance between the feelings that pull them together, and the secret that keeps them apart.


 

 Book 2 

 
Hardships and heartache brought them together…now it will tear them apart.

Layken and Will have proved their love can get them through anything; until someone from Will’s past re-emerges, leaving Layken questioning the very foundation on which their relationship was built. Will is forced to face the ultimate challenge…how to prove his love for a girl who refuses to stop ‘carving pumpkins. 




Book 3

 Layken and Will’s love has managed to withstand the toughest of circumstances and the young lovers, now married, are beginning to feel safe and secure in their union. As much as Layken relishes their new life together, she finds herself wanting to know everything there is to know about her husband, even though Will makes it clear he prefers to keep the painful memories of the past where they belong. Still, he can’t resist his wife’s pleas and so he begins to untangle his side of the story, revealing for the first time his most intimate feelings and thoughts, retelling both the good and bad moments, and sharing a few shocking confessions of his own from the time when they first met.

In This Girl, Will tells the story of their complicated relationship from his point of view. Their future rests on how well they deal with the past in this final installment of the beloved Slammed series.





Now that everyone is familiar with the books, I'm going to do like I did for my Archers of Avalon post and talk about the series as a whole. I will be completely honest here when I say I almost did not finish the very first book in this series. Allow me to explain. I am a guy, a guy who occasionally likes to read young adult romance novels (when I can't find a good fantasy/paranormal series), but a guy nonetheless. I am also very much a realist. I was barely 30 pages into Slammed before I almost stopped reading. Layken and Will have a very.... special relationship. Special in the fact that they fall madly in love with one another after knowing each other for 3 days. Yes. You read that correctly. I am totally a believer in love coming swiftly, but I mean hardcore LOVE, love after one date. I immediate was turned off by the fact that I thought I was going to have to read three whole books about some gushy perfect couple and their erotic adventures. I was dead wrong.

I set aside Slammed for a few days, a week actually, and read a few other books. I finally decided to come back to Slammed and I am so glad I did. I quickly learned a few very important things that I was initially very wrong about: their love is not easy, this is not a gushy love story, and there is very little erotic adventure. While that may seem like a bad thing to some people, I love that Colleen was able to give us a great story about young people growing up and assuming the responsibilities of an adult without feeling the need to fill the books series with sex on every other page. In fact, no sex even occurs until the very last line of the second book, and even then, we are just told it happens, no details. Pretty amazing for an author to gain wide acclaim for a series in this genre without having to write detailed sex scenes. For that, I have great respect for Colleen Hoover.

Another thing I really liked about this series was the use of poetry. I am not a fan of poetry, and I had never heard of Slam poetry before this book series, but I was intrigued and have even looked up YouTube videos of it now and think it is very interesting. Mrs. Hoover clearly did her research on this topic. She was able to deliver a huge blow in the emotions department with each slam performed. It was a great way to keep the story going.

The great thing about this series is that it follows the lives of two people who are initially in two very different places in their lives. One, Will, is a college senior (like myself) who is struggling to get settled in life while having to raise his younger brother after the death of his parents and the other (Layken) is a high school senior with her entire life ahead of her. By coincidence, (or fate) the two are joined together and quickly realize their lives may have much more in common that anyone could have thought. I don't want to spoil the series for anyone who hasn't read it, but trust me, it gets good! Sad, but good. I love a book that can present emotions without it feeling forced. I was able to laugh, sigh, and be frustrated alongside Colleen's characters while reading, which made this all the more interesting a series to read.

As per the characters, I found them all to be really interesting. Our main characters Will Cooper and Layken Cohen are joined by Julia and Kel Cohen (Layken's mother and younger brother), Caulder Cooper (Will's younger brother), Gavin and Eddie (Will and Layken's best friends who happen to also be a couple) and are later joined in book two by Kiersten (the next door neighbor girl who is probably my favorite character) and Sherry (Kiersten's eccentric mother). For a three book series we have a relatively small cast of characters which is good in the sense that it gives us more insight to out main characters, but that is also the downfall, we see a whole lot of out main two characters. Every character plays a pretty equally important part in the series so anyone who reads the series will quickly become attached to them all!

The is one book series that I can say is different from others in the sense that I think the second book was actually my favorite. I don't know what specifically I liked the most about it, but I feel like the best parts of the story are in book 2. We see a whole lot of character development from Layken and get introduced to a few really interesting characters. Plus we learn a whole lot more about Will's past which almost ruins what he has with Layken!

The one negative thing I have to say about this series is this: I could have completely done without a third book. Don't get me wrong, I read book 3 and I enjoyed it, but nowhere near as much as I enjoyed the previous two. There are a few reasons for this. Primarily, book 3 is a retelling of book 1 from Will's perspective. If you had JUST finished reading book 1, you are going to be very bored with book 3. I'm all for a retelling, but I found myself skipping pages in this one. Also, book 3 has much more adult content than the other books. This is because the entire book 3 (sans epilogue) takes place over the course of Will and Layken's 48 hour honeymoon (spoiler alert). Again, I really don't feel like book 3 added anything new to the story except that now Layken and Will have an active sex life. Meh. While it was my least favorite in the series, I do understand why it was written. It gave Will a much needed push from previous books which were very Layken-heavy. I feel bad saying anything negative about the series, because I really did like it, but I had to point this out!

Overall this was a pretty good book series and I am glad to have got a chance to read some works by the great Colleen Hoover before I get my chance to meet her in the coming months. I hope you guys check out her Slammed series! Here are some links to where you can find out more information about the series and get your own copies!

Slammed Series Goodreads Page: https://www.goodreads.com/series/79569-slammed

Get your copy here: http://www.amazon.com/Slammed-A-Novel-Colleen-Hoover/dp/1476715904
                                 OR
    http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/slammed-colleen-hoover/1108162651?ean=9781476715902

I just want to take a second to once again thank all my readers, you guys have kept me going for sure! It's only been 2 weeks, but the amazing response I have received from all of you has really made a guy feel special! I think after this series I am going to take a break from NA Romance for a little while and try to find something that is a little more in my niche! I have a few aces up my sleeves from some ARCs I got this week so maybe I'll have something fun for you later this week! For the time being, Happy Reading to you all!

-Ethan