SYNOPSIS:
Fractions of seconds can do lots of damage. One decision can ruin lives. A blink can be tragic. And loving a Hollister…can hurt like hell.
I would know.
They say the average person can hold their breath under water for two full minutes when pushed to the extremes. Will Hollister has been holding his for years. The oldest of two elite swimming brothers, Will was always a dominant force in the water. But in life, he preferred to let his younger brother Evan be the one to shine.
Evan got the girl, and Will…he got to bury all of the secrets. A brother’s burden, the weight of it all nearly left him to drown.
The daughter of two Olympians, my path was set the day my fingertips first touched water. My future was as crystal clear as the lane I dominated in the pool—swim hard, win big, love a Hollister.
My life with Evan burned bright. He gave me arms to come home to, and a smile that fooled the world into believing everything was perfect. But it was Will who pushed me. Will…who really knew me.
And when all of the pieces fell, it was Will who started to pick them up.
In the end, the only thing that matters are those few precious seconds—and what we decide to do while we still have them in our grasp.
*****Patty’s Review*****
*****FOUR STARS*****
{ARC Generously Provided by Author}
All of me is under his spell. I need Will Hollister, and whatever hurt I felt is nothing compared to the things his touch can do to me. I am numb. I am his.
I would have to categorize HOLD MY BREATH as a forbidden romance & friends to lovers story. Although after certain secrets are revealed, the “forbidden romance” aspect all but evaporates. I’ve read a few of Ginger Scott’s books and I can see a reoccurring theme in them. One of her main characters always experiences some sort of adversity and love is what ultimately heals them. The hero is beautiful and extremely broken. You can’t help but fall for this character. I found the heroine to be misguided with regards to her resentment towards the hero in the beginning of the story but once she opens her eyes to the truth I feel that she fully redeems herself.
Will Hollister has returned home after having fallen from grace for a while. He did survive something truly horrifying. He was on his family’s private airplane with his parents and younger brother when it crashed. Will was the only survivor. The extreme guilt and depression that seemed to consume him, had him turning to alcohol and even drugs for a means to escape. Unfortunately, since he was once an Olympic swimmer he is considered a celebrity and so his angst made for some scandalous tabloid fodder. But almost a year later, he has cleaned up his act and he’s come back home in hopes of trying out for the Olympics-bound U.S. swim team. There’s also the added bonus that the girl he’s always been in love with will also be training at the same camp that he will be at. Maddy Woodsen has been Will’s secret crush for years. When he finally had the courage to confess his feelings to her, his brother, Evan, beat him to it. Maddy and Evan ended up becoming a couple and Will was left with a broken heart.
Maddy has been mourning the death of her ex-boyfriend for over a year. The thought of Will coming back to her father’s training camp has her feeling mixed emotions. The irrational side of her blames him for surviving. She along with many others, view Will as the “bad” Hollister brother. But in reality that couldn’t be any farther from the truth. When she finally sees Will for the beautiful person he is, old feelings that she too, kept buried, come up to the surface, and maybe Maddy realizes that she picked the wrong Hollister brother back when they were all teenagers.
Their relationship develops rather quickly but Will fears that he will lose Maddy when she ultimately finds out about the secret he has been keeping from her. Will is practically a martyr. I often felt like this character had already gone through one of the biggest tragedies of his life, and to add to his suffering was just cruel and unusual punishment. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse for him, the author goes and adds a nice little cherry on top. That was one of the reasons why this became a four-star read. There was just too much suffering to be had for the Hero and I thought it was overkill to have such a lovable character go through more than his share of adversity. Although the author explains why she tortured our hero so much at the end of the book, I still wished that she could have cut that last gut-wrenching bit of the story out.
Can Will and Maddy’s relationship survive once his secret is revealed? When tragedy strikes again, can Will remain strong and not let the demons from the past send him on another downward spiral?
HOLD MY BREATH is currently available!! It’s definitely worth one-clicking. I mean did you see that book cover???
Amazon: https://amzn.com/B01MXFXWRP
iBooks: http://apple.co/2ehJysd
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2dxZZkQ
BN: http://bit.ly/2dl9THZ
The last time I saw my best friend’s younger brother, he was a geek wearing braces. But when Cannon shows up to crash in my spare room, I get a swift reality check.
A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of more than two dozen titles, Kendall Ryan has sold over 1.5 million books and her books have been translated into several languages in countries around the world. She’s a traditionally published author with Simon & Schuster and Harper Collins UK, as well as an independently published author. Since she first began self-publishing in 2012, she’s appeared at #1 on Barnes & Noble and iBooks charts around the world. Her books have also appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists more than three dozen times. Ryan has been featured in such publications as USA Today, Newsweek, and InTouch Magazine.
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