Book Boyfriend Reviews: Sarah Daltry's Flowering Blog Tour

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Shannon's Review:

So what is about bad, dysfunctional boys I like. I don’t know besides the fact they are hot, hot, and hot. I am team Jack all the way. Besides that this book was a good love story with great characters.
I really loved Lily. She was a typical college girl finding herself. She could have handled a few things differently, but I think this is what made her who she was. Having her whole world thrown for a loop, she bounces back and handles it like an adult. Like I said she is in college.
Derek is the sweetest, respectful, lovable jock. Derek to me is safe. Do you know what I mean? I really did like him too. I felt kinda bad for him though. He broke
my heart. Bless his heart yall he just loved too much. I know you reading this thinking then what happened? I can’t tell you, you have to read it.
And then there is Jack. OMG the sex scenes with him. It was hot. I am still thinking really hard about them.
I am giving this book 3 ½ hearts. You need to go pick this on up. I also can’t wait because today actually a second book is out in Jack’s POV!!
Jack is complicated but I believe deep down he is a boy lost. He finds himself I think a little with Lilly but has a long long way to go. I really do love the fact that he was so raw and edgy. TEAM JACK!!!

Lily of the Valley (Jack’s story)

Book Info:

Title: Lily of the Valley

Author: Sarah Daltry

Cover: Shoutlines Design

18+ New Adult contemporary

Jack’s story isn’t pretty. He’s suicidal, depressed, and he uses meaningless sex and alcohol to survive. However, the story is about finding light in the darkness, but sometimes the road there isn’t always easy to walk.

“No one tells you about pain. They tell you that it hurts, that sometimes it’s consuming. What they don’t tell you is that it’s not the pain that can kill you. It’s the uncomfortable numbness that follows, the weakness in your body when you realize your lungs may stop taking in air and you just can’t exert enough energy to care. It’s the way taste and color and smell fade from the world and all you’re left with is a sepia print of misery. That’s when the shift starts – the movement from passive to active. I fall asleep, hoping that the morning will bring back the pain. At least the pain is a thing.”

I’m a plague, a cancer. My mom is dead – and my father is in prison for it. I survived high school because college was my way out. I needed to escape, to get away from my family and the people who tortured me, but it hasn’t grown any easier.

I don’t pretend that I’m a good person. I drink far more than I should, and I use my best friend, Alana, because together, we thrive on destroying each other – as well as the parts of us we hate. I don’t believe in love, but sex is fun and it also makes me feel something.

The morning I see Lily, the beautiful princess who smells inexplicably like strawberries every time I see her, I realize I’m in trouble. I should hate her. I want to hate her, because the alternative terrifies me. However, as she continues to crash into my life (often literally), I can’t avoid feeling something that is the one thing I swore I would never feel. I can’t fall in love, because people like me don’t live in a world where love saves anyone.

She just won’t go away, though, and I don’t know if I can keep running. The voices and the darkness hover over me and they threaten to bring me back to the safety of my hate, but the stupid scent of strawberries lingers on the horizon, as something like hope.

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Excerpt:

My grandmother is so happy that I agreed to visit with my father on my way back to school that I almost feel okay with the decision. Until we reach the prison and the familiar sickness returns. I can’t turn around now and say I don’t want to go in, but the sky is steel grey and I wonder why it’s never sunny when I come here. Even the weather hates me.

She has a hat on, because it’s a prison day, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that she tries to look nice for a group of lowlifes. I feel like somewhere in her head she convinces herself that she looks like she’s going to church or something and that people will think that’s what she’s doing. She seems to believe that if other people assume she’s not the mother-in-law of a killer, then she’s not the mother-in-law of a killer.

The security check is backed up today because some guy is arguing with the guard about his belt. They want him to leave it at the entrance, since it keeps setting off the metal detectors, but he’s apparently really attached to the stupid thing and doesn’t want to give it up. They argue back and forth and it’s the dumbest conversation I’ve ever heard. And I go to college with frat boys.

“Buddy, you have to take off the belt and leave it, or you can’t get in,” the guard explains. “Unless you can pass through here without setting off the machines, you aren’t going to see anyone.”

“You’re just trying to rob me. You’re all part of the system, man, and I ain’t giving you shit.”

“You’ll get the thing back,” the guard tries to reason.

“Fuck you. You’re just trying to keep me down.”

The guard sighs. “Look, just put the belt right here on this shelf. I will personally watch over it and make sure it’s safe.”

“Why should I trust you? You work for them.”

“I do and I make less than twenty bucks an hour. I don’t care about your damn belt.”

“More than I make. Think you’re so special, judging me, acting like you’re too good for something that belongs to me-”

“Holy fuck, just give him the fucking belt,” I yell. The guard, the random dude, and my grandmother all turn to look at me. “What? This is fucking stupid.”

The guy seems so taken aback that he quietly removes his belt and hands it to the guard. He goes through the metal detector, this time without setting anything off, and turns back to look at me. He shakes his head and mumbles, “Crazy ass motherfucker.”

The guard just stares at me. I walk through the machine and the thing goes insane. It’s my belt ironically. He raises an eyebrow and just holds out his hand. “I need you to leave your belt here.”

I don’t care about the belt or this visit and the sooner we get in, the faster we leave. I hand him my belt and then my grandmother is through. The guard buzzes us into the next area, where a few more guards are sitting in a small office. I wait for them to lead us to the room where we’ll meet my dad. The metal table shines in the fluorescent light. If I stare at it long enough, maybe I’ll go blind.

“No outbursts,” my grandmother warns.

“It wasn’t an outburst. He was wasting time.”

“I don’t care. Your actions impact your father.”

“Yeah, well, his kinda impacted me,” I point out.

She shakes her head and turns to face the door through which my dad will enter. I hate it here. I hate the way the lights are covered in weird metal mesh grates that make it always feel like five o’clock on a winter evening. I hate the way that the voices of other visitors and prisoners bounce off the walls, disembodied and incomprehensible, but invasive enough to remind you that you’ll never be alone in here. I hate how the guards try to treat me like their own kid, as if by being sympathetic it will fix anything. And I especially hate the stupid look of hope that refuses to leave my grandmother’s face no matter how many times we come here. Sometimes I think maybe it’s that look that makes me limit my visits as much as I do, more so than even hating my father. Because the fact that she believes someday things can be okay? Well, there is just nothing I can say about that.

Shannon's Review:

This book is from the point of view of Jack from

Forget Me Not. I loved Jack in the first book but totally fell deeply in love with him throughout Lily of the Valley.

This book starts from the same point as Forget Me Not. I love when books are done this way. I got taken back into the love story, the darkness, and fears of Jack and Lily.

Jack definitely has some issues, deep dark issues.

You get to see him make an ass of himself and also get to see him grow into a man. He uses alcohol and monotonous sex to become numb to his life. In this book you will see what went on when he was during the times he wasn’t with Lily. And you also get a few more secrets that he has hidden.

This book is not for the faint of heart and like the

synopsis says it’s not a coming of age book. It is a great love story of a disturbed and hurt young man who meets a girl who he may be able to love. I am giving this book 4 hearts and recommend you go and pick it up to read.

Blue Rose (Alana’s story)

Book Info:

Title: Blue Rose, a Flowering novel

Author: Sarah Daltry

Cover Design: Shoutlines Design

Warning: This book deals with topics of abuse and may trigger reactions in people who have experienced those things in their own lives. It remains a story about healing, but it’s not always an easy journey.

“Four. My life has been shaped by four people. Four men, to be more specific. My father, my stepfather, my best friend, and my boyfriend. The first two shaped it in horrible ways, but what I am, who I am, is all because of four men.”

Over the last twenty years, I’ve learned how to keep secrets. It doesn’t really matter, since everyone already seems to think they know everything about me. So I hide. I avoid confrontation, I treat Xanax like a magic pill that will make it all go away, and I become everything they think I am. A slut. A whore. Nothing but trash.

I can only name two guys who have ever made me feel like I was more than that. Jack is my best friend and I’ve loved him since I met him. Now, though, he’s in love… with someone else, and I guess I need to get over him. Somehow.

And then there’s Dave. The guy I never gave a chance. The guy I used almost as much as people used me, because I wanted to pretend I was someone worth loving. Two years have passed since we last spoke, but I don’t know how to stop thinking about him.

My new therapist is making me face my past, and she tells me that life inevitably changes without our permission. I believe it, but I know what I am. I hear what she’s saying to me, and I want to try again with Dave, to help Jack find joy, to love myself, and to move on. I just wonder if anyone can do that, really.

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Later that day, at lunch, I had just found a seat by the window when he sat across from me. I was used to sitting alone. He didn’t say anything, and he had nothing to eat. He looked up at me, though, after a few minutes, and his eyes did it again. I hated my body, hated the way I looked, hated that somehow I owed my body and my looks to everyone else. But when Jack looked at me, I wanted to let someone touch me. I wanted him to hold me. He felt like safety.

It didn’t even make sense. He was just a broken kid, like me. He always wore the same threadbare hoodie. Most days, it covered his head. He was cute, but awkward. His hair was too long and usually greasy. His Chucks were a little too big, so they looked a little like clown shoes. Yet those gorgeous eyes were all I cared about. I hadn’t considered guys at all. I didn’t find them attractive, and I certainly couldn’t see the appeal of sex or of intimacy. With Jack, though, the thought of him near me didn’t make me nauseous.

“Do you want my orange?” I asked him.

“Are you sure?”

It wasn’t a groundbreaking question. But it was how I knew that what I naturally felt for Jack was right. Because no one had ever asked me that. No one had asked if I minded, if I was sure, if something was okay. They just took things.

“Yeah.”

He took it and I handed him my knife. It was flimsy plastic and wouldn’t even pierce the rind, so I took the orange back and peeled it with my fingernails. Jack just watched me and, when I handed him the orange, now peeled, he smiled. His upper lip curled more than it should have and he looked silly, smiling at an orange. But he drew the same smile from me.

“Thank you,” he said, and he pulled two slices free from the whole and handed them back to me. I didn’t eat them right away. I just watched him eat his part. He was messy and he ended up covering himself in the juices. He unzipped his hoodie after the orange squirted down the front. Underneath, he was wearing a washed out blue T-shirt with a train on it. He looked ten.

“Nice shirt,” I teased.

He looked down. “I live with my grandmother. She has no concept of clothes.”

“It’s cute.”

He smiled again and it was less awkward this time. “Do you live with your grandmother, too?”

I was wearing a huge black sweater over baggy black pants. “No. I just… I don’t like people looking at me.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

He didn’t tell me that I was too pretty to dress the way I did; he didn’t say my body was too good to hide. He just went back to eating his orange, letting the juice spill all over the train shirt. We were fourteen, but I already knew Jack would always be the only thing that mattered in my future.

Star of Bethlehem

Book Info:

Title: Star of Bethlehem (Flowering holiday novella)

Author: Sarah Daltry

Cover: Shoutlines Design

This is a holiday novella-length story that follows Forget Me Not and Lily of the Valley.

“With you, Jack, it was the first time I ever felt real. It was the first time anyone looked at me and saw substance. It was the first time I wanted to make someone see me.”

Jack: New Year’s Eve. I’ve somehow managed to get here, and now I’m wearing a hideous and unreasonably itchy sweater, because I want to impress Lily’s family. I want to do anything for this girl who has made me believe in second chances.

Lily: The house is beautiful and shining with light, but it feels empty. At least until Jack gets here. I know how desperately he wants this – a family, love, a home. If I can be the person who can give it to him, it’s all I need, but I hope I can keep him from seeing how hollow it all really is.

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I take his hand and pull him down beside me on my bed. I feel so complete in his arms, as if nothing can go wrong when he holds me. It’s all the other stuff. The world, people, pressure. Maybe it’s a little fear that things just ended with Derek. That one day, as quickly as I fell for Jack, I also fell out of love with Derek. I don’t have enough experience to know if that’s normal. What if it happens again?

“What? Tell me,” Jack whispers.

“Have you ever felt like your entire life is some surrealist’s joke? That you think you’re in control of it, while really, you’re probably just…”

“A melting clock?” he finishes and laughs. I look at him, disappointed that I can’t explain it, but also relieved that he doesn’t care.

“All the fucking time,” he says. “I know you’re scared. I know I’m scared. But I seem to remember you telling me that I should remember what matters. I made you a promise, princess. Yes, your house intimidates me. Your life intimidates me. Hell, loving you intimidates me. But I’m in this. I’m here. Present. Entirely. I’m looking only forward. And all I see is you.”

“Take the damn book,” I tell him. “I just wanted to show you that I have faith in us. It was a conscious decision to give you something that was a very special gift to me, to tell you that I trust you with it, because I trust you to be there. Long term.”

He takes me in his arms and kisses me. I decide I won’t stop him if he goes further, but he doesn’t. Our bodies crackle with the energy between us, but as much as the sex thrills me, Jack does so much more for my mind than his body could even do. I can’t believe how alive I feel when he’s near me. Perhaps it’s selfish. Perhaps it’s desperate. But I want him here in my life; I want him with me, because I love being this aware.

I speak against his cheek, while his hands slowly explore my body. It’s sensual but not sexual. He’s studying me like a work of art. “I don’t want to fall out of love with you. I thought Derek was all I ever wanted. I don’t want to be in the same place with you a year from now.”

“You won’t be,” he tells me.

“How do you know?”

He kisses along my face, brushing his lips against my cheek, my forehead, my nose, but never reaching my mouth. “I don’t know how. But I do.”

I love that he can put aside his doubts to ease my own. I know Jack’s had so much trouble in his life, and the fact that he can comfort me, when my problems are so petty and stupid in the scheme of things, is one more thing I love so much. “I know I’m shallow. But I don’t want to be, Jack.”

“You’re not shallow. You’re not empty. Anything you think of yourself – it’s crazy. If you want to talk about surreal, it’s the fact that you think you’re less than something. Maybe you didn’t get shit on the same way I did in high school, but clearly, people have underestimated you. They missed out on you. And you have every right to be hurt. But, Lily? No one will ever hurt you again.”

I smile. “Thanks. I’m sorry I’m being so moody. It’s probably hormones or something. I think I’m just frustrated.”

“Yeah?” He laughs. “Well… I mean… I can help you relieve some of that.”

He’s on top of me and I don’t care that it wasn’t exactly what I meant. I don’t care that someone could walk in. Someone probably will walk in, since eventually they’ll come looking, but I don’t care at all. I want to belong to Jack, and I don’t know any other way to do so.

Orange Blossom

Book Info:

Title: Orange Blossom

Author: Sarah Daltry

Cover: Shoutlines Design

“I’ve never understood a year. A year was always a measurement of something bad for me. A year in my father’s prison sentence, a year since my mom’s death, a year left of school before I could get far, far away from here. Now, as I look down the end of my college career, with only a little more than a semester to go, a year seems like something magical. It has been a year since Lily chose me, since she sat with me on the old swing set and made a decision that I was worthy of her. And every minute of the entire year has been better than the last.”

You already know their stories: Lily, the perfect princess, always living someone else’s life. And Jack, the broken boy, who had stopped believing in hope. Somehow, though, they found each other and what was one night blossomed into a love story.

Now, a year later, Jack and Lily are dreaming of the future. Despite all of his promises to himself that he would never be indebted to anyone, Jack makes a new promise – this time to Lily – that he will be there for her forever. But when life unravels for them, he starts to pull away, and Lily worries he’s out of reach for good.

When Jack does the unthinkable, Lily is left destroyed. Is it possible to have a happily ever after? Does love ever really save anyone?

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