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August 24, 2014 7:07 am
Title: Thin Love
Author: Eden Butler
Genre: New Adult/Contemporary Romance crossover
Release Date: August 19, 2014
Tour Hosted by: As the Pages Turn
Love isn’t supposed to be an addiction. It isn’t supposed to leave you bleeding.
Kona pushed, Keira pulled, and in their wake, they left behind destruction.
She sacrificed everything for him.
It wasn’t enough.
But the wounds of the past can never be completely forgotten and still the flame remains, slumbers between the pleasure of yesterday and the thought of what might have been.
Now, sixteen years later, Keira returns home to bury the mother who betrayed her, just as Kona tries to hold onto what remains of his NFL career with the New Orleans Steamers. Across the crowded bustle of a busy French Market, their paths collide, conjuring forgotten memories of a consuming touch, skin on skin, and the still smoldering fire that begs to be rekindled.
When Kona realizes the trifecta of betrayal—his, Keira’s and those lies told to keep them apart—his life is irrevocably changed and he once again takes Keira down with him into the fire that threatens to ignite them both.
Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21945749-thin-love
Amazon → http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MUX3UUM
Amazon UK → http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MUX3UUM
B&N → http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thin-love-eden-butler/1120165208
iTunes → https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/thin-love/id910225577?mt=11
Smashwords → http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/468207
Kobo → http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/thin-love
Thin Love is a second chance love story that spans 16 years, and although most of those years the hero and heroine are not in each other’s lives, when they reconnect and learn the hard truths about the events that caused their separation, they will have to decide if old wounds can be healed and if the love they shared all of those years ago is thick enough to survive the painful memories that still exist.
Kona and Keira’s story starts in present time, and because Keira has to return home to take care of her mother’s estate, ghosts of the past cause her to remember the all consuming love she once felt for Kona and both the good and bad times they shared. As the memories play out in her mind, readers are taken back in time to learn of Kona and Keira’s first encounters, how they fell in love, and ultimately, how their love was destroyed.
At 18 years old, Keira Riley has finally gotten out from under her mother’s controlling and abusive ways by going to college, and now that she’s young and somewhat free, she knows what she wants out of life and the kind of love she wants to feel – the exact opposite of the type her mother has shown her and she has witnessed. When she first meets Kona Hale, sparks definitely fly, but they are not flashes of love; in fact, they are the exact opposite. Keira hates everything that Kona stands for and she knows the type of player he is and what he looks for in his conquests. She wants nothing to do with him, but when they are forced together to complete a class project, they learn that perhaps first impressions are not always accurate and there’s more underneath the masks that they both wear. But Keira doesn’t want easy, and that’s all she sees in Kona; he doesn’t want to feel, and she craves a deep connection with someone.
Despite how opposite Kona and Keira seem, they are willing to try and have a relationship. Their journey as a couple is an emotional playground where there are feelings of absolute bliss and love as well as those of bitterness and anger. Their connection is passionate and all consuming, and because they are both stubborn and have short fuses, many incidences occur that make what they have seem unhealthy and dangerous. A multitude of mistakes and an interfering force slowly destroys everything that Kona and Keira have, and when an incident occurs that results in a life changing outcome, the love that they felt for each other turns to hate, and Keira is left with only a shredded heart and painful memories.
Fast forward 16 years and the past moves into the present, and one chance encounter reunites the once loving couple. But when secrets are revealed and their anger reaches its breaking point is there any way to move forward without letting the bitterness of the past ruin the opportunity for a future full of the thick love that they once shared?
Thin Love is a hauntingly beautiful and tragic story about the kind of love that could ultimately save someone or destroy them. The account of Kona and Keira’s relationship brings on a rollercoaster of emotions for both the characters as well as the readers. Both the hero and heroine are multifaceted and dynamic, and they experience a multitude of ups and downs in both their personal and professional lives, which changes them for both the good and bad. What Kona and Keira go through at the hands of each other as well as meddling outside forces is both empowering and painful, making for a multilayered storyline.
Eden Butler’s writing in Thin Love has a lyrical feel to it, drawing readers in to each scene and feeling everything that the characters go through right along with them. Even though the story is written in the third person, which can sometimes take away from truly understanding the characters, it’s easy to comprehend all that Kona and Keira think and feel as they are both built up and knocked down by their relationship and the choices they make because of it.
I loved every single second of Kona and Keira’s story, and even though they spent so many years apart, it is clear from the beginning that the kind of love they share is not thin – it’s all consuming, dense, and strong even when it breaks. It’s the kind of love that allows for forgiveness and absolution despite the lapse of time and pain endured. It’s the kind of love everyone should long to feel.
A complimentary copy was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
5+ poison apples
“We’re alone for the first time in weeks and I’ve had to be around you all day, walking down sidewalks where I held you as a kid, in hallways where you touched me and all I wanted to do is kiss you again.”
“Kona…”
His hands go to her hips, around her stomach. “I’ve been thinking about the party, about kissing you, that song, and how you didn’t hate it. How you kissed me back, how you touched me. I know I’m obvious. You know what I want.”
“You can get that from anyone.”
She is testing him, he knows; it’s in her tone, in how straight she holds her back and Kona can’t help the frustrated growl that leaves his mouth. “You’re not just anyone.” He takes a chance, eases down to kiss her neck, slides his fingers at her nape to expose all of that skin to him and she doesn’t push away from him. “I realized something that first day in the Market, even after I saw Ransom, after I realized you’d kept him from me all this time.”
“What… what did you realize?” Her voice sounds like a whine, then a moan when Kona kisses behind her ear.
“That I haven’t breathed in sixteen years. Not since you, sweetheart; not a real breath once since that day I pushed you away.”
“And… you… you can now?”
His breath moves down her neck and Kona loves the blanket of chills that covers Keira’s skin. “Like my lungs are wide open. Every time you walk in a room, every time I hear you sing, see you smile, touch you… it’s like breathing for the first time.” He pushes her hair out of his way, kisses further down her neck, moves the thin, linen shirt she wears to get to her back, then lowers to kiss her again, right on the spot he’d missed all this time and then, eyes widening, he takes his mouth from her skin. .
“You little liar.” She tries turning around but he keeps her still, lowering her shirt more to see that bright Hibiscus tattoo. “Thought you got rid of it.”
“I… I tried to.” She comes around, hands on his chest. “I meant to, but there was never enough money, then when there was, I just… couldn’t.” When he shakes his head, Keira laughs at him and he loves the sound, loves how easily it comes to her. “Look who’s talking. I know you covered yours up. I saw that spread you did in GQ. You have that massive tattoo over your chest now, all down your arm.” He backs away from her and his fingers go to his buttons. “What are you doing?”
One cock of his eyebrow silences her and Kona grins at Keira’s widening eyes, at how they lower onto his chest as each button comes loose. “I added to my tattoo, Wildcat. I didn’t cover it up. You didn’t see that in the spread because I didn’t want my chest shown. That tattoo is for you and me. No one else.”
Kona pulls open his shirt, and throws it onto the island and Keira’s eyes move to the colossal Polynesian tribal designs, all black, all connected, that cover his shoulder, half his arm and his chest.
“Sixty hours with a bone-tipped rake and a striking stick. I was on the big island for three weeks and most of that time was with Naoki, an old war buddy of my tutu knae’s. There was no smartass tattooer telling me not to get inked for some girl, like Michael did. There was me, Naoki and his two sons. Up until a month ago, this piece was what I was proudest of in my life. Until I met Ransom. Until you introduced me to my son.”
Keira’s eyes soften and she stretches out her fingers like she wants to touch him, but then curls her hand into a fist, until Kona reaches out to her, and places her hand on his shoulder. “This,” he says, to the black waves that circle his entire shoulder, “is for the persistent memory of those I’ve loved and lost. It’s for Luka, for my tutu kane, the ones I pushed away when I was too stupid to realize how lucky I was, how loved.”
Kona turns, slides Keira’s fingers along his skin, up his shoulder, his breath shuddering at the feel of her nails smoothing over his traps, to his shoulder blades. She touches the spherical sun with waving flames and pointed spikes on his back. “This is for rebirth, for the renewal of myself, for me learning to forgive myself and never letting my weaknesses bury me again.”
Then Kona moves Keira’s fingers along his arm, catching her eyes, holding them as he trails her hand to the dark and light shells intricately patterned against the tribal spaces that fill up his skin. “This is for protection, for my family, to remind me of what I lost, what I want to earn again.” Keira holds his gaze, doesn’t watch her fingers being moved back up his arm, to his chest where Kona marked himself for her all those years ago. “This entire piece is the story of my life, Keira; who I was, what I lost, what I want to have back and it all starts here. It starts with you, Wildcat.”
He steps forward, takes her hand and puts it over his heart. “Ku`u Lei. My beloved. Then. Always. I could never get rid of that just like I could never really get rid of you.” Keira’s face is in his hands, his thumbs smoothing over that skin he’d been aching to touch and his chest constricts, heart strumming steady, but fast. “I could be a thousand miles from you, telling myself I don’t want you, that I’d gotten over you, but it would be a lie. I remember the way your skin felt under my fingers. I remember the noises you made when I kissed you, how quick your breath got when I made you come, how soft you held me, how you made me feel things I didn’t think I was good enough to feel. You did that, always. You were mine and I never loved anything more. I never wanted anything or anyone like I wanted you. Like I still want you. My always, Keira. You’re still my always.”
And then, Kona stopped talking, stopped wanting and took what was always his.
Eden Butler is an editor and writer of New Adult Romance and SciFi and Fantasy novels and the nine-times great-granddaughter of an honest-to-God English pirate. This could explain her affinity for rule breaking and rum. Her debut novel, a New Adult, Contemporary (no cliffie) Romance, “Chasing Serenity” launched in October 2013 and quickly became an Amazon bestseller.
When she’s not writing or wondering about her possibly Jack Sparrowesque ancestor, Eden edits, reads and spends way too much time watching rugby, Doctor Who and New Orleans Saints football.
She is currently imprisoned under teenage rule alongside her husband in southeast Louisiana.
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Author Social links
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Blog: http://edenbutlerwrites.wordpress.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7275168.Eden_Butler
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/VXQXD
Eden is offering up the following prizes below. They are open internationally. Giveaway ends September 1st at 11:59 PM CST.
(1) Kindle Fire (INTL)
(3) eBook copies of Thin Love (INTL)
(1) $10 GC. Winners choice of Amazon or B&N (INTL)
Posted by Rebecca
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Cant wait to read this book! Thanks for the giveaway.
By Betül E. (@Gemiinii90) on September 1, 2014 at 3:21 am