Review: Hold my Breath by Ginger Scott

Hold my Breath

Author: Ginger Scott

Series: -

Publisher / Source: Self - Netgalley

Release date: 18^th November 2016

Pages: 300

Synopsis (Goodreads)

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.

Review: 4 out of 5 stars

What a wonderfully engrossing and complex story! I am a huge Ginger Scott fan and this book was thoroughly mesmerising.

Maddy, Evan and Will were childhood best friends; all of them great swimmers but it was Evan who was the golden child; the three of them pushed each other to be the best that they could but when tragedy struck friendships were broken and their lives were forever changed.

Will left for college and ended up on a path of self-destruction after his family’s accident; he made many mistakes, most publicised but after 4 years absence he returns to town ready to retrain and rebuild lost trust and his relationship with Maddy; he does this with the help of his uncle and also Maddy’s father who owns a swimming club which is on the brink of bankruptcy.

There were a lot of emotions felt whilst reading this book; my heart broke for the characters who were all affected in one way or another; there was lost trust, betrayal, forbidden romance and secrets that all made for a fast paced an engaging story.

I couldn’t help but hope for happiness for Maddy and Will. Maddy’s past with Evan haunts her and with the reappearance of Will her feelings are conflicted; seeing their friendship reignite and their slow road to trusting one another and to an eventual romance kept me on the edge of my seat.

I enjoyed all of the swimming scenes between Maddy and Will, they were competitive and wanted the best for each other but there was always something stopping them from fully letting themselves give in to their feelings; their past and secrets were holding them back. There was a lot of drama and Will had to take on a huge burden; he had been through so much and things weren’t getting easier for him, I felt like he was given too many problems in this book, there was a lot of pain and suffering.

I thoroughly enjoyed the connection between Maddy and Will, I enjoyed the forbidden aspect and despite there previously being someone else involved also the friends to lovers’ storyline.

Ginger Scott’s writing is truly wonderful, her characters are flawed but each well-developed and interesting; I was hooked from the very first page and wanted more at the end. My only reason for not rating this book higher was because there was just too much angst, my heart was breaking.

Thank you to the author via Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Hold My Breath.

About the author: Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award-nominated author of several young and new adult romances, including Waiting on the Sidelines, Going Long, Blindness, How We Deal With Gravity, This Is Falling, You and Everything After, The Girl I Was Before, Wild Reckless, Wicked Restless, In Your Dreams, The Hard Count and Hold My Breath.

A sucker for a good romance, Ginger’s other passion is sports, and she often blends the two in her stories. (She’s also a sucker for a hot quarterback, catcher, pitcher, point guard…the list goes on.) Ginger has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and blogs for pretty much ever. She has told the stories of Olympians, politicians, actors, scientists, cowboys, criminals and towns. For more on her and her work, visit her website at http://www.littlemisswrite.com.

When she's not writing, the odds are high that she's somewhere near a baseball diamond, either watching her son field pop flies like Bryce Harper or cheering on her favorite baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Ginger lives in Arizona and is married to her college sweetheart whom she met at ASU (fork 'em, Devils).