SALES BLITZ AND REVIEWS: Let Love Live and On Solid Ground by Melissa Collins ~ Contemporary M/M Stories

 

Contemporary M/M by Melissa Collins: Sales Blitz
For the entire month of March, bestselling author Melissa Collins has put both of her contemporary M/M titles on sale.
Let Love Live and On Solid Ground will only be $2.99 each.

Let Love Live

Who would you become if you lost the only person who ever mattered?

For twenty-six year old Dylan Hopkins, the answer is easy. He’s become no one. Memories of the happier times are all he has left as he finds himself meandering numbly through his now dull life. Though he cares about his work and family dearly, he’s yet to let himself find love again. Afraid of letting go of what he once had, Dylan chooses to keep his heart buried, where it belongs, having died a long time ago.

Conner Michelson is about to change everything Dylan knows. He’s every bit the bad boy persona – tatted up, ex-MMA fighter, but after an injury leaves him unable to fight, he has to rethink his goals. Having just opened his own gym, Conner can cross his first major life accomplishment off his very short list. Next up: find a man he can settle down with and build a family. Seems simple enough – a dream most people have, but when he meets Dylan, his carefree, easy-going life is thrown into a tailspin.

Determined to keep Dylan in his life, Conner vows to resurrect Dylan’s long ago buried heart and let love live once more.

READ THE PROLOGUE AND A TEASER HERE.

BUY LET LOVE LIVE TODAY:
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Review

How do you move on and live when the love of your life is gone, and you didn’t get to say goodbye? How do you let someone else into your heart when the fear of loss consumes your life? How do you let go of the guilt that you wear like armor around your heart because you couldn’t save the one person you didn’t want to live without? These are the questions Dylan Hopkins has asked himself daily for the past eight years since he received the message “he’s gone.” These are the thoughts that consume his mind and force him to merely exist instead of truly living. This is the man who Conner Michelson meets and feels instantly attracted to and wants to get to know as long as Dylan’s willing to try. But in order to understand Dylan’s apprehensions, Conner and readers need to comprehend who Dylan was while Shane was alive and what that loss did to him.

The Dylan of the past when Shane was still alive was someone who wore his heart on his sleeve. He loved his best friend and wanted to make a life with him, but due to Shane’s father, it wasn’t an easy relationship. Not being able to act on what they truly meant to each other wreaked havoc on their minds and their hearts, especially Shane’s. Living under his father’s constant scrutiny and abuse forced Shane to live two very separate lives, and the choices and sacrifices he made led him down a dangerous road that he couldn’t come back from, and for Dylan, knowing he couldn’t help Shane, destroys and numbs his heart.

For eight years, Dylan has lived with the quilt and the pain, unwilling to let go…unwilling to move on and find happiness again. He focuses on helping others work through their problems, but he refuses to deal with his own. But with the help of Reid, Shane’s brother, Dylan’s starting to figure out where he wants his life to be, and hopefully, he can find a way to show Conner that they can find their happiness together.

Conner understands pain; his past is filled with it, and while he hasn’t gone through what Dylan has, it doesn’t lessen the events that have made Conner the man he is today. He lives more so than Dylan does, but his life is still incomplete, so when Dylan enters his life and only wants one night, Conner changes the rules and works to show Dylan their connection is much stronger then a one night stand.

But will Conner’s tactics be enough for Dylan to let go of his guilt and pain once and for all? Read their story to find out if love can live on and if hearts can be repaired.

I’ve wanted to read Dylan’s story since readers met him in Maddy and Reid’s book. Here’s this kind and compassionate man who is so tormented by his past that he’s existing merely because he has to. I was curious as to how Melissa Collins was going to link Dylan’s past with Shane to his future with the man he chooses to give his heart to after he finally starts living again. The Before/After set-up worked extremely well; it gives us a chance to understand why and how everything happened all those years ago. Using Shane’s point of view added so much to the storyline. To be able to hear it firsthand clearly illustrates how tormented he was and what he was going through that led him to do what he did. It gave me the understanding I needed to put Dylan and Shane’s story to rest and to start Dylan’s new life with Conner.

Let Love Live is an emotional read that explores issues that many people can relate to because they’ve either lived through them or know someone who has. Bullying and prejudice run rampant in our society and the need to put an end to both should be at the top of everyone’s list. The one thing that readers can count on from the Love series is that each book will make you feel an immense amount of emotions. The problems Melissa Collins’ characters face are realistically explored, which makes it that much easier to find yourself consumed in their lives and hoping and praying that everything turns out the way you want it to for not only their sanity but yours as well.

Dylan and Conner’s story leaves readers with the understanding that you love who you love regardless of what anyone else says. It’s a testament to what loss can do to someone as well as what hope and love enable that same person to overcome. It’s another amazing addition to an incredible series.

A complimentary copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 poison apples

On Solid Ground

When Jacob “Dax” Daxton returns home from war, he has to fight a new battle – the one to find his place in the world. The man who normally has a clear path to victory surrounded by brothers in combat is suddenly lost and alone. After meeting Beckett Ridge, a bearded tattoo artist, Dax’s journey begins winding down an unexpected path.

Still reeling from events that shook his foundation, Beck has never been part of anything meaningful. Now faced with responsibilities foreign and daunting, Dax’s broken spirit mends Beck in ways he never even knew he was destroyed.

As both struggle to find balance, they are healed by the comfort they find in one other. On the other side of chaos, they hope to find themselves On Solid Ground.

READ CHAPTER 1 AND AN EXCERPT HERE.

 

BUY ON SOLID GROUND TODAY:
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Review

The lives that Dax and Beckett lead keep them on anything but solid ground. The ground is unbalanced at best due to some circumstances that are beyond their control and others they’re just too afraid to grasp onto alone in order to solidify their footing and steady their paths.

But even though their journeys may have led them in different directions, molding them into quite opposite people, the course they walk together has a healing power that will definitely give them the stability and evenness they both desperately need – they just have to be willing to take it.

All of Dax’s life, he has been searching for who he is…trying to figure out how to stay true to himself without alienating those around him. In the process of that search, he found himself across enemy lines, defending his country while escaping a life at home that didn’t truly define him. After his discharge from the Army, he heads to California, attempting to put the past and its nightmares behind him while still struggling with PTSD and the guilt that weighs him down.

Beckett’s scars didn’t come from a war against enemies, but rather, his own family and the dysfunction that surrounds it. From early on, he was forced to play the role of caregiver and witness the downward spiral of both his mother and sister, placing him in overwhelming and life altering circumstances.

Their stories of torment and anguish may have very different plot lines, but the struggles and fears they continue to endure from them resonate and forge a connection between them – one of camaraderie, support, and love.

As a reader, you will feel every painful and beautiful emotion felt by the heroes, and while you may question some of their actions, Melissa Collins explains through her lyrical words and Dax and Beck’s personal commentary, why things are they way that they are and almost have to be as a defense and coping mechanism.

Take the walk with Dax and Beckett as they try to reach solid ground together, one moment at a time. Their road might be bumpy and complicated, but it’s also one filled with compassion and fueled by intimacy and love.

It’s a truly beautiful journey – it’s not an easy one, neither for them as individuals or as a couple, but it’s cathartic and life changing; it’s one of personal growth and redemption.

A complimentary copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

5 poison apples

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Melissa Collins has always been a book worm. Studying Literature in college ensured that her nose was always stuck in a book. She followed her passion for reading to the most logical career choice: English teacher. Her hope was to share her passion for reading and the escapism of books to her students. Having spent more than a decade in front of a classroom, she can easily say that it’s been a dream.

Her passion for writing didn’t start until more recently. When she was home on maternity leave in early 2012, she read her first romance novel and her head filled with the passion, angst and laughter of the characters who she read about it. It wasn’t long before characters of her own took shape in her mind. Their lives took over Melissa’s brain and The Love Series was born.

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