Wicked Restless on October 20, 2015 Genres: Dating & Sex, Family, New Adult
Format: eARC
Andrew Harper grew up in a house marked by tragedy. His older brother Owen did his best to shelter him, but you can only be protected from life’s pain for so long. Eventually, you end up just feeling numb…and isolated.
Loneliness was the one constant in Andrew’s life. Until one girl, met by chance in a high school hallway, changed everything. Emma Burke was a mystery and all that was beautiful in this world, the only air Andrew ever wanted to breathe. She took the lonely away, and filled it with hope and color, and Andrew would do anything to keep her safe, happy and whole.
But sometimes, what feels good and right is what ends up hurting us the most. And when Andrew and Emma are faced with an impossible decision, Andrew is tested to see just how far he’s willing to go for the girl who owns his heart.
Cuts are deep.
Scars are left behind.
And revenge beckons.
When Andrew finally gets his chance, in college, five years after his first love broke him completely, he finds out old feelings don’t really disappear just because you say you hate someone. The more he tries to avenge all that he believes he lost, the more he uncovers the real story of what happened years before.
Love is wicked. But a restless heart is never satisfied beating on its own. Can Andrew and Emma make it right before it's too late, or will the ties that bind them now destroy their only chance at a future?
Ginger Scott’s books are among my very favorite in the NA genre and when I had the opportunity to get my hands on her next book early, you know I dropped everything. This is book 2 in the Harper Boys series and it focuses on Andrew, Owen’s younger brother. Andrew hasn’t had an easy life…rumors and gossip have followed him everywhere because of his family’s history, and Owen has always tried to shelter him from it. It’s left him pretty isolated and lonely.
A chance meeting in gym of all places introduces him to Emma Burke… a girl he’s immediately drawn to, and can’t seem to resist. But Andrew is proof that one night can change everything.
First of all, I want to tell you all how much I adored Andrew… both in the first book and for most of book 2 here. Through the entire beginning he’s sweet and funny and totally a boy I would have looked twice at.
But the things that happen in this book change him in incredible ways and so I found my feelings for him changing a bit along the way too.
I’m going to tell you right now, there will be spoilerish items talked about here, so if you don’t want to know anything about this, then please don’t read any further.
While I sped through this book, unable to stop turning pages, I also felt that there was just something missing that I couldn’t put my finger on. I’m still struggling a bit to figure out what it was, but I think it’s because I didn’t fall quite as hard for Andrew as I have for some of Ginger’s other boys. While I desperately wanted Andrew’s story, I found myself missing a bit more of Owen in this story. I’ll explain a bit more on that…
Owen is the one who takes care of the family…. Does what he has to do to fix things and to make things better, so I found it really unfortunate that he wasn’t a bigger part of Andrew’s life, especially while he was in Lake Crest Boys Academy. I know he was disappointed, but knowing Andrew, knowing his history, I just felt like he would have been a bigger part of his life once he was released in making sure he was okay and we didn’t see that at all. In fact, we see a lot of pretty bad behavior from Andrew and it only gets worse once he knows Emma is in the picture again.
Emma to me was a bit bland. I didn’t really connect with her… that isn’t to mean I didn’t like her. I think I liked her fine, but I just found her boring, and I think I lost a bit of respect for her once I realized she was willing to move forward with Andrew despite the things that would mean for Lindsey.
So the bulk of this story is set in the future, after Andrew is released from the Boys Academy and he’s built up an incredible amount of anger towards Emma for taking the fall for her and then never hearing from her again, so I get his desire to hurt her… but he just lost me when he did the things he did to Lindsey. While it definitely showed how much he wanted some kind of revenge, it also was just a horrible thing to do to someone…and her best friend no less. I would find it hard to move forward with someone who could do that no matter the circumstances.
I have to also admit that I found a bit of the stuff in this story incredibly far-fetched and a bit too convenient when you finally get to the end of the story.
That said… I really do enjoy Ginger Scott’s writing style, and her story-telling is wonderful… remember I couldn’t put this down despite a few of the issues I had. Ultimately, I think it was harder for me to fall for Andrew as much as I have her other boys because of the things that he does during this story. It was definitely easy to empathize with him, but that doesn’t excuse some of his actions.
If you’re looking for some amazing NA you definitely need to grab Ginger’s books!
Thank you to the author for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
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