Book Review – Sweet

Sweet by Tammara Webber
Series: Contours of the Heart #3
Published by Self-published on April 27, 2015
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Pages: 373
Format: eBook
Source: Provided as part of book tour
Goodreads

He’s the love of her life, but he doesn’t know it.

She’s his one moment of sacrifice in a lifetime of survival.

He was damaged and wild, but resilient.

She’s always been obedient. Now she’s restless.

Home for the summer between college and med school, Pearl Torres Frank knows two things: Boyce Wynn is the embodiment of everything she should run from, and everything she wants to run to. Rebellious and loud. Unconcerned with society’s opinion of him. Passionate. Strong. Dangerous.

And one more trait he hides from everyone but her:

Sweet.

Lynn’s Review:

I really don’t know how Tammara Webber manages to capture my attention and empathy for the characteres in the first chapter of this book, but she does.

Sweet is the third book in the Contours of the Heart Series. It is a stand-alone, but also a spin-off of the other books in the series. You can read Rose’s and Julie’s review of Breakable here. And if you haven’t read Easy yet, I don’t know if we can be friends. The main characters are Boyce Wynn and Pearl Torres Frank, high school friends of Lucas Maxfield. Pearl is the good girl, always doing what she is supposed to, following the rules and plans her mother has set for her. Boyce had a troubled youth, much of his own making. He and Lucas were enforcers, collecting money for a local drug dealer, for pete’s sake. Hopefully, it’s not too much of a spoiler to say here, but Boyce saved Pearl from drowning when they were kids. Since then, Boyce and Pearl have been looking after, and dancing around, each other as they grew up in their small town. Pearl is coming home to start an oceanography graduate program. Boyce never left and is running his father’s automotive repair garage. And even though they have never admitted it to anyone, let alone themselves, these two have always been in love. Boye and Pearl see each other as they really are, not the fronts that the public sees. 

I’m going to take some liberties with Tammara Webber’s already posted images and put some here in my review. 

 

And one of my favorite quotes:

I’d wanted her for too many years. She was the bad habit I’d never broken, because I didn’t fucking want to. “I may be jealous, but jealousy isn’t why I don’t trust him,” I said, and she turned her face to mine. I wanted to fall into the deep wells of her eyes. “I protect you, Pearl. It’s just what I do.

I thought, in keeping with the whole “sweet” theme, I’d list out some of the scenes that I found particularly sweet.

• Young Pearl defending Boyce in the principal’s office of their elementary school after a fight.
• The first whelk shell that Boyce gives to Pearl as a gift, wrapped in his t-shirt. With no note.
• When a much older Pearl shows Boyce how much she appreciated that whelk, and the t-shirt.
• Boyce is the first person Pearl tells she’s been accepted into the oceanography program. And the first person who supports her decision to go.
• Boyce letting shy Pearl sit at the end of the “cool table” in the middle school cafeteria with his friends.
• At their graduation, Boyce helped settle Pearl’s nerves during her valedictorian speech.
• Pearl convinces Boyce that he needs closure after his father’s death, and reluctantly, Boyce agrees.
• Pearl treats Boyce to his first professional baseball game.
• The collection of whelk shells, and how Boyce presents them to Pearl, in the epilogue.  

I delighted in every aspect of this book. Like Breakable, this story alternates point of view between the two main characters, and seamlessly switches between the present and historical story lines. We get some additional insight into Lucas’s turbulent teenage years through Boyce’s eyes. I thoroughly enjoyed the development of Boyce and Pearl’s friendship, and later, relationship. Reading the slow build up of their feelings toward each other made me feel like I was really there, witnessing everything first-hand. There are also some fan-yourself steamy scenes, especially that one in the car (that Colleen Hoover mentions in this blurb) and that other one in the kitchen. I think there is something about Ms. Webber’s writing that draws me in from the first chapter, and holds me there til the end. And maybe part of it is that she’s not releasing a book every few months. She takes time between books to develop the stories that her readers want to read. 

I really think the title Sweet sums up everything about this book. Now you’ll have to excuse me while I head to the beach to search for whelks, and re-read Breakable. 

Disclaimer: I received Sweet as a free ARC from Ms. Webber in exchange for an honest review.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

….

Subscribe to Chapter Break posts.