Breathe Me by: Jeri Williams

Summary:

You know how you hear those stories about once abused kids growing up and overcoming the difficult life they have been dealt and becoming majorly successful like FBI agents or lawyers or something cool like that and never having any lingering problems?

Well this isn't one of those stories.

I used to know how my life as going to be, how I was going to live out my lifeless days, unloved and fearful. Hopeless to the possibility that life, my life could be anything better than what it is now. I knew that I would either give up, or give in, either one would eventually being the end of me and I didn't think that was so bad. I would no longer be constantly reminded that I was shit, and would be shit no matter how hard I tried in life. I thought it was all easier to just slip away.

But that was before....

Book Title: Breathe Me (A Me Novel)

Author: Jeri Williams

Genre: Contemporary

Hosted by: Book Enthusiast Promotions

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Review 

Harley is your typical pathetic 20 something romance novel heroine who is emotionally and physically abused by her mother. Her only interests include staying out of her mother's way and her job at a local book store where she meets Deklan, a womanizing man-slut. Deklan is home to visit his dying mother, but to do so he must face his abusive father and a complicated past with his younger brother. By distracting himself with women and sex, he finds Harley, a rumored harlot, intriguing as he tests her clear innocence. 

As the two become closer, we find they are not all that different from one another. 

"Breathe Me" is an easy and fast read. Filled with heart thundering and body flushing imagery, Deklan's filthy mind and shocking dirty talk bring its entertainment level to its highest. As a hero, Deklan is the ultimate bad boy who is forever changed by love. 

As for Harley, she had no plot twisting characteristic to bring any impact to the story. The author strongly illustrates the fear, innocence and naivety, but she never becomes anything more than a victim. Harley is beaten almost daily and keeps everyone at a distance, but her character never changes. And why would she? Her character was never written with any passion to drive her otherwise. There is one particular scene depicting Harley's predilection to reading, but again it lacks the passion for change!  

As Harley and Deklan's relationship develop, it is only fitting that it devours her character since she has no individuality or spark. Having no real thoughts or goals for Harley's character brought the book to a one dimensional halt. Her character just needed more!

This book was entertaining for its sexual and steamy content, but for substance it fell flat. 

-JL

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Excerpt:

His breathing.

My heart.

His breathing.

My heart.

I tried to step back again, and found myself up against the side of the building, the coldness of it hitting my back. Dammit!

"Harley," he moved his thumb and caressed my bottom lip. His eyes fell to my mouth and he licked his lips, and that was it. I got goose bumps all over, as I flattened my back against the wall I looked into his eyes, now a gun metal color and watched as he searched my face. He shouldn't be allowed to look at a woman like this.

"What are you hiding?" Those words caused my slamming heart to stop. How could he know I was hiding, when not even Ember knew? I was trying to tell myself he didn’t, it was just a ploy for someone like him to get what he wanted. But deep down, I knew he knew.

"I...I...I don't know what..."

He took a deep breath and closed the already small gap between our bodies. I put my hands up to stop him, and came into contact with his rock hard abdomen. Shit, those couldn’t be real. I wanted to move my hand further and feel what I knew would be a six pack, if not eight. That was the wrong thing to touch if I wanted to stop him.

"Just a taste..." His grip on my face tightened slightly as he pulled me toward his lips, the heat coming off him felt amazing, it instantly made my vaginal walls tighten and moister to dampen my panties. I had been waiting 23 years for this kiss, to feel lips on mine. I moved my hands to his side and gripped the sides of his shirt blazingly pulling him closer, I wanted this, I didn’t care that he was a stranger, a customer and that I didn’t even know his name. I. Was. Ready.

He must have taken my actions as a go-ahead and he slowly leaned down bringing our mouths closer. I closed my eyes because that’s what they did in all my books and waited for his lips to touch mine.

"Harley, is that you?" A voice I knew and hated right now called out.

Seriously?! Great fucking timing Ember. I heard him make the sexiest noise I have ever heard as he braced his hand against the wall and leaned down, his lips brushing my ear.

“I smell you. Fuck, you smell amazing.” His voice came out leathery.

If I wasn’t leaning against a wall, I would have fainted epically right there. I was one hundred and thirty-five percent sure he wasn’t talking about my deodorant and it made my panties moisten more.

About the Author:

Jeri Williams lives a super fabulous lifestyle (by fabulous, she mean’s kinda lame) in the hot Florida sun and loves reading of any kind (except instruction manuals and cereal boxes). She has always written stories and made her family listen to them since she was young, although this is her first book she has ever published. She is a mom of an up-and-coming Jerry Seinfeld (in girl form) and also enjoys being right and knowing everything, although she is hardly ever right and really doesn't know anything and is obsessed with inventing miniature zoo animals you can carry around in your pocket (although not really).

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Giveaway!!!!

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From the USA TODAY
bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a love story about a Craigslist “missed connection” post that gives two people a second chance at love fifteen years after they were separated in New York City.

To the Green-eyed Lovebird:

We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House.

You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more.

We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other.

Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding…

I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said
my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello.

After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half?

M

AMAZON *** BARNES & NOBLE *** iBooks

2. Five Days After I Saw You

MATT

I took the damn F train, an hour-long ride to Brooklyn from Midtown and back every day, at lunch, hoping I would run into Grace again, but I never did.

Things were bad at work. I had submitted a request to go into the field three months earlier but had been denied. Now I had to watch Elizabeth and Brad walk around in bliss as people congratulated them on the baby and Brad's promotion, which came right after the announcement.

Meanwhile, I was still rejecting any forward motion in my life. I was a stagnant puddle of shit. I had volunteered to go back on location to South America with a National Geographic film crew. New York just wasn't the same anymore. It held no magic for me. The Amazonian jungle, with all of its wonderful and exotic diseases, seemed more appealing than taking orders from my ex-wife and her smug husband. But my request hadn't been approved or denied. It just sat in a pile of other requests on Scott's desk.

I pondered the current state of my life while I stared at a blank wall in the office break room. Standing next to the water cooler, holding a half-empty paper cone, I tallied the insubstantial years I had spent with Elizabeth and wondered why. How had things gone so terribly wrong?

"What are you doin', man?" Scott's voice came from the doorway.

I turned and smiled. "Just thinking."

''You seem a little brighter."

"Actually, I was thinking about how I ended up thirty­six, divorced, and trapped in cubicle hell."

He walked to the coffeepot and poured a mug full then leaned against the counter. "You were a workaholic?" he offered.

"That's not why Elizabeth was unfaithful. She fell right into Brad's skinny arms, and he works more than I do. Hell, Elizabeth works more than I do."

"Why are you dwelling on the past? Look at you. You're tall. You have hair. And it looks like"—he waved his hand around at my stomach—"you might have abs?"

''You checking me out?"

''I'd kill for a head of hair like that."

Scott was the kind of guy who was bald by twenty-two. He's been shaving it Mr. Clean-style since then.

"What do women call that thing?" He pointed to the back of my head.

"A bun?"

"No, there's, like, a sexier name for it. The ladies love that shit."

"They call it a man-bun."

He studied me. "Jesus, you're a free man, Matt. Why aren't you prowling the savannahs for new game? I can't watch you mope around like this. I thought you were over Elizabeth?"

I shut the break-room door. "I am. I was over Elizabeth a long time ago. It's hard for me even to remember being into her. I got caught up in the fantasy of it, traveling with her, taking photos. Something was always missing, though. Maybe I did work too much. I mean, that's all we talked about, that's all we had in common. Now look where I am."

"What about Subway Girl?"

"What about her?"

"I don't know. I thought you were gonna try to get in touch with her?"

"Yeah. Maybe. Easier said than done."

"You just have to put yourself out there. Get on social media."

Will I find Grace there? I went back and forth between wanting to do everything I could to find her and feeling like it was totally pointless. She'd be with someone. She'd be someone's wife. Someone better than me. I wanted to get away from everything reminding me that I still had nothing.

"If you care so much, why haven't you approved my request?" I asked.

He scowled. I noticed how deep the line was between his eyebrows and it occurred to me that Scott and I were the same age...and he was getting old. "I don't mean the actual savannahs, man. Running away isn't going to solve your problems."

"Now you're my shrink?"

"No, I'm your friend. Remember when you asked for that desk job?"

I walked toward the door. "Just consider it. Please, Scott."

Right before I left the room he said, "You're chasing the wrong thing. It's not gonna make you happy."

He was right, and I could admit that to myself, but not out loud. I thought if I could win an award again, get some recognition for my work, it would fill the black hole eating away at me. But deep down, I knew that wasn't the solution.

After work, I sat on a bus bench just outside the National Geographic building. I watched hordes of people trying to get home, racing down the crowded sidewalks of Midtown. I wondered if I could judge how lonely a person was based on how much of a hurry he or she was in. No one who has someone waiting for him at home would sit on a bus bench after a ten-hour workday and people-watch. I always carried an old Pentax camera from my college
days in my messenger bag, but I hadn't used it in years.

I removed it from the case and starting clicking away as people flooded in and out of the subway, as they waited for buses, as they hailed cabs. I hoped that through the lens I would see her again, like I had years before. Her vibrant spirit; the way she could color a black-and-white
photo with her magnetism alone. I had thought about Grace often over the years. Something as simple as a smell, like sugared pancakes at night, or the sound of a cello in Grand Central or Washington Square Park on a warm day, could transport me right back to that year in college. The year I spent falling in love with her.

It was hard for me to see the beauty in New York anymore. Granted, much of the riffraff and grit was gone, at least in the East Village; it was cleaner and greener now, but that palpable energy I had felt in college was gone, too. For me, anyway.

Time passes, life goes on, places change, people change. And still, I couldn't get Grace off my mind after seeing her in the subway. Fifteen years is too long to be holding on to a few heart-pounding moments from college.

Renée Carlino is a screenwriter and bestselling author of romantic women's novels. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two
sons, and their sweet dog June. When she’s not at the beach with her boys or working on her next project, she likes to spend her time reading, going to concerts, and eating dark chocolate.

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