BOOK BLURB:
The story that began in the USA Today bestseller RELENTLESS continues. Which team are you on
In Relentless, college student Claire Nixon and surfer Adam Parker each had a painful past too heavy to carry alone. Claire tried to push Adam away, but Adam's relentless pursuit of her heart and her secrets made her walls come crumbling down.
Though their hearts will never be whole again, Claire and Adam now know they are stronger together than they are apart.
But now Claire's attending college a hundred miles away from Adam. With their relationship already hanging by a thread, Adam is sent to Hawaii on business.
And rock star Chris Knight is back in Claire's life.
Chris wants his ex-girlfriend back and he knows just how to get her: only he has the power to mend the final missing piece of Claire's broken heart. Now Claire must choose between a long-distance relationship with Adam and a second chance at love, family, and home.
New Adult Contemporary Romance: Due to strong language, drug use, and sexual content, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18.
Excerpt – Chris’s POV
The phone rings in my ear as I wait for Claire to pick up. I try to remind myself to stay calm, but this feeling that I’m being lied to makes this very fucking difficult.
“Hello,” she says and just the sound of her voice catches me off guard.
Suddenly, I can’t remember why I called.
“Chris?”
Then it comes back to me. “I thought you told me you didn’t have the money to pay your bill. My assistant just called to pay it and they said your bill was paid this afternoon.”
She’s silent for a moment, probably trying to come up with another lie. “Adam paid it for me.”
I want to throw the phone at the wall. I’m so sick of hearing his fucking name.
“Good,” I reply as I grit my teeth to bite back an angry retort. “Can you talk right now? About Abigail?”
“Yeah,” she whispers so low I can barely hear her.
What is it about hearing a name that can provoke such a strong emotional reaction? I hear the name Adam and I want to pummel something. Claire hears the name Abigail and she immediately shuts down. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to her about this stuff. She needs a clear head to do well in her classes.
“Are you sure you’re okay talking about this?” I ask.
“Yes. I’m fine. I need to talk about it, too.”
I take the stairs down to the first floor and head for the kitchen. I have an apartment in L.A. that’s been empty for months while I’ve been on tour. This Home Sweet Home tour is the last leg for this year. It’s over in the end of September. I’m headed back to L.A. in October to record for a few weeks then I’ll be back before Christmas.
“I need to get you up to speed on the details of the agreement and I need to give you my schedule for the next few months so you can try to handle some of this stuff alone while I’m gone, if necessary.”
“I can’t do this alone.”
I open the refrigerator and grab a bottle of water. When I close the refrigerator door, I notice a new picture my mom must have dug up and stuck on the fridge before she left for work this morning. It’s a picture of me playing at one of my first paid gigs when I was sixteen. A small piece of the back of Claire’s head is visible in the bottom-left corner of the photo. This picture was taken just a few months after I met Claire, when we were still “just friends.” So much has changed. Claire and I will never be “just friends” again.
“You won’t be alone. You’ll be working with Tasha. I’ll be gone for less than four weeks and I’ll be just a phone call away.”
“Don’t you think that’s going to look bad? Leaving to L.A. when we’re so close to coming to an agreement with her parents? They’re already nervous about your… lifestyle.”
I laugh as I take a seat on a barstool. “My lifestyle? What the fuck does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” she replies, probably afraid she’ll offend me if she elaborates.
“Come on, Claire, you can be honest with me. What the fuck do you think I do when I’m not sitting in my mom’s kitchen talking to you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what Abigail’s parents think.”
“It matters to me what you think.”
There’s a long pause followed by a sigh. “I have to study. Feel free to give Tasha my phone number so she can fill me in on the details. Bye, Chris.”
She hangs up before I can get in another word. When I pull the phone away from my ear I see two text message notifications. The first message is from Amira, a girl I made the mistake of giving my phone number to when we fucked two months ago after a show in Houston. She texts me every now and then to tell me about shows she went to in Houston, like I give a fuck. I think she’s waiting for me to tell her the next time I’ll be there for a show.
I delete her text then open the next.
Tasha: Got a cryptic message from adoptive mother. She wants to meet me alone tomorrow without her husband. Will keep you posted.
My stomach twists inside me as I imagine what this could mean. Does she want to call the whole thing off or is she going to allow us to visit Abigail without her husband knowing? Maybe she just needs someone to talk to. I hate the idea that this whole agreement might be causing turmoil in their marriage, but I want to see my daughter. Abigail and Claire are the missing pieces of my heart. Even if I only get to hold Abigail once, I think I can live with that.
Review
I'm trying to compose myself enough to do this review without spewing words of hate towards Cassia (and she knows I'm just joking). So book 2 has the same characters, but its a completely different tone to the book. It's no longer fun and games and falling in love for the first time. This is real life stuff right here!
So Pieces of You starts off a couple of weeks after the end of Relentless. Adam has started surfing again and is competing and Claire is back at school. And Chris is you know wondering around being a rock god or something. Claire and Chris are attempting to come to an agreement with the adoptive parents of their baby, Abigail. Adam is sent to Hawaii for 2 months, the hardship I know, so he can finally be done with his manipulative asshole father. But 5,000 miles is a lot to ask for a new relationship and add the fact that Chris is so far up Claire's arse that her teachers are grading his work at school too. Adam is struggling as well and I know I made a comment about his drug use in the last book that I didn't see a point to it, but after reading from Adams POV I understand it. I don't agree with it in any way shape or form but I understand it. Yeah so Adam is struggling with the insecurities of having a gf with a rocker as an ex boyfriend/baby daddy and all the hoes trying to sleep with him. Again there was some stuff there that I didn't see the point of BUT they probably play into the next book. Well crap goes down and all hell and my emotions break loose. I was all over the place with this book. And I didn't switch hit. I was contemplating playing for team Chris for like a couple of chapters. Adam literally broke my heart. What was I suppose to do? DON'T JUDGE ME! Anyways I loved this book a lot more then Relentless because Cassia Leo peeled back my emotions one by one and made me live there. "Why would you spew words of hate to Cassia then?" You ask. Well because after getting me everywhere from hurt to guilt to down right confused she decides that "hey all this drama isn't enough let's add some more shit on to it!!!!!!!!!" Last freaking paragraph of this book had be yelling and cursing and shaking my kindle like I was trying to give it shakin baby syndrome!
I'm a lot calmer now that I got to rant to you lovely readers. I really loved his book, it's fabulous and I seriously can not wait for book 3. I hope Cassia writes fast because if not I'm gonna have to resort to stalking her!
*Review by Rosa
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