Thursday 17 April 2014

Review: Take a Chance: A Rosemary Beach novel by Abbi Glines

Take a Chance (Chances, #1; Rosemary Beach, #6)Take a Chance: A Rosemary Beach novel.

Author: Abbi Glines
Series: Chance #1
Pages: 288
Publisher/Source: Simon & Schuster Australia
Amazon
Release date: 25th February 2014

Synopsis:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Abbi Glines comes the story of Grant, the sexy Playboy who first captured readers hearts in Fallen Too Far.

When Harlow Manning's rocker father goes on tour, he sends her to Rosemary Beach, Florida, to live with her half-sister, Nan. The problem: Nan despises her. Harlow has to keep her head down if she wants to get through the next nine months, which seems easy enough. Until gorgeous Grant Carter walks out of Nan's room in nothing but his boxer briefs.

Grant made a huge mistake getting involved with a girl with venom in her veins. He'd known about Nan's reputation, but still he couldn't resist her. Nothing makes him regret the fling more than meeting Harlow, who sends his pulse racing. Yet Harlow wants nothing to do with a guy who could fall for her wicked half-sister even if there are no strings between Grant and Nan. Grant is desperate to redeem himself in Harlow's eyes, but did he ruin his chances before he even met her?

Review: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Take a Chance is the sixth book in Abbi Glines Rosemary Beach series but the first book for Grant and Harlow and despite enough background details given on the previous books and characters to fully understand what has happened it is tied in strongly to the other books so I do recommend reading them first.

This book unfortunately had so many elements I found myself not enjoying but it was also a story I found I couldn’t put down because I needed to know what would happen.

The characters in Take a Chance were all flawed, we revisit a few from previous Rosemary Beach books which I enjoyed but womaniser Grant who I liked in Fallen Too Far turned out to be my biggest disappointment; he was a complete douchebag in this book and treated Harlow like absolute rubbish, I lost all respect for his character, I found his actions insulting and his behaviour to be inconsistent. Harlow had hidden depth and a quite strength and determination; I sympathised with her and felt the pain and the betrayal she went through but I admired that she was no push-over. Nan is a character I continue to despise; she’s a real piece of work! A character we do get to meet and who I really liked was Mason Mannign, Harlow’s brother; he was intriguing.

The storyline follows not only the complex relationship between Grant and Harlow and how Grant slowly comes to terms with his insecurities about allowing himself to love but we also got more background details about Kiro, who I was pleasantly surprised about, there were some admissions I definitely wasn’t expecting. If it wasn’t for Grant’s actions I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more than what I did.

Despite being a huge Abbi Glines fan, I can’t say this book was a favourite mainly because of Grant’s poorly thought out decisions, especially when it came to Nan, the drama, angst and betrayals were overload and it finished on a cliff-hanger. I’m curious to see how it all pans out but I’ll be reading other reviews before I pick it up.  One More Chance is their second book. It releases September 2.

Thank-you to Simon & Schuster Australia for the opportunity to read and review Take A Chance.

   

Abbi GlinesAbout the author: Since publishing her first novel Breathe in May of 2011, Abbi has also released The New York Times bestselling Seabreeze Series which includes Breathe, Because of Low, While It Lasts, Just For Now and Sometimes It Last, The Existence Trilogy that includes the USA Today Bestseller Ceaseless. New York Times and USA TODAY bestsellers The Vincent Boys and The Vincent Brothers. Last but not least her most popular series to date, Rosemary Beach which includes The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers Fallen Too Far, Never Too Far, Forever Too Far, Twisted Perfection and Simple Perfection. Her newest book scheduled to be released on December 17th, 2013 is Misbehaving (Seabreeze).

When Abbi isn’t locked away in her office typing away she is hauling her kids to and from their many social activities. You could say her second job is the Glines Kids personal chauffeur. It’s a rather illustrious job.

10 comments:

  1. Yeah, I've heard Grant is a big, honkin' jerk. I normally really like Abbi Glines too, but I might have to skip this one . . .

    Jessica @ Rabid Reads

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    1. Big time Jessica! Abbi Glines is hit or me for me but this was disappointing.

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  2. I really liked Abbi's books but I'm kind of tired of the neverending series. Maybe it's time to end the Sea Breeze and Rosemary books and introduce a new series. Also, her stuff is no not NA anymore. Straight up adult I would say.
    Confesiion: Sebastian York (who I love) narrates most of her audiobooks and dammit, I want them just to listen to his voice :)
    Sorry this one was a bust. I really liked Grant's character.

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    1. I completely agree Nereyda! the characters are all starting to sound and act the same, it's tiresome. I'd definitely class these book as adult rather than NA, they can get pretty raunchy.

      I listened to my first Sebastian York book recently and I loved his voice, very smexy!

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  3. I'm sorry you didn't like this one. I haven't read the whole series either, so I need to catch up on the older books, as I read this out of order also. I appreciate your honesty.

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    1. Thanks Ellem, I have liked but not been wowed by the other books in the series but this was a let-down.

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  4. What a shame, it just sounds like this didn't work from the er douche-bag to to the plot.

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    1. Yes and yes which is such a shame because I have previously been intrigued by Grant.

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  5. Abbi Gline's books have never worked for me. I know so many readers love them, but for some reason they don't work for me and I've tried around 4 books from her, all of which have ended up being 2 stars or less.
    I don't really like the sound of the hero in the book at all. I can see why his douchness led to you not enjoying the book.
    Hope your next book is better, Sharon!

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    1. Thanks Nick, I am a little wary now; the past few AG books I have read haven't wowed me which is such a shame because I enjoyed the first few books she released,

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