Title: Chasing River (Burying Water #3)
Author: K.A. Tucker
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: July 7, 2015
Source: ARC from Publisher
Armed with two years’ worth of savings and the need toe experience life outside the bubble of her Oregon small town, twenty-five-year old Amber Welles is prepared for anything. Except dying in Dublin. Had it not been for the bravery of a stranger, she might have. But he takes off before she has the chance to offer her gratitude.Twenty-four-year-old River Delaney is rattled. No one was supposed to get hurt. But then that American tourist showed up. He couldn’t let her die, but he also couldn’t risk being identified at the scene—so, he ran. Back to his everyday life of running his family’s pub. Only, everyday life is getting more and more complicated, thanks to his brother, Aengus, and his criminal associations. When the American girl tracks River down, he quickly realizes how much he likes her, how wrong she is for him. And how dangerous it is to have her around. Casing her off would be the smart move.Maybe it’s because he saved her life, or maybe it’s because he’s completely different from everything she’s left behind, but Amber finds herself chasing after River Delaney. Amber isn’t the kind of girl to chase after anyone.And River isn’t the kind of guy she’d want to catch.
By now it shouldn’t be a secret or a surprise that I love K.A. Tucker and her books. In the last year and a half I have devoured every book she’s published and I just can never seem to get enough. The last few months I was dying to read her latest, Chasing River, and I was not in the least bit disappointed by the story.
Amber Welles has never ventured outside the comfortable bubble of her small Oregon hometown, but she’s decided that it’s time to experience life for what it is. Setting off on a trip around the world, Amber is ready for an adventure wanting to see what the world has to offer. What she never expected was almost dying in a terrorist bombing in Dublin. At the last second, a stranger jumps in and saves her, before taking off again without giving her a chance to thank him. Determined to find her mysterious saviour, Amber keeps looking around Dublin hoping she’ll find the man who saved her life. The one problem is that River is doing everything he can to stay away from Amber, no matter how much he feels a pull towards her. It’s not just to protect himself and his family, it’s also for her own protection. But even if it means putting themselves in danger, Amber and River can’t keep fighting the forces that keep pulling them together.
Here’s the thing about writing reviews for books written by a favourite author: it’s HARD. If I’m being completely honest, all I really want to say about Chasing River is that it was freaking amazing and everyone should read it. But in my opinion, I could say the exact same thing about every one of K.A. Tucker’s books that I’ve read (so all of them), so that’s not entirely helpful. Unless you’re just going to take my word for it and walk over to your local bookstore to pick up any one of her books. So I’ll try to give you all a little more than that where Chasing River is concerned. For starters, this story gave me wanderlust like no other. I’ve been to Dublin and other parts of Ireland before, but reading Chasing River totally made me want to go back, even with the book starting off with a bombing in one of the busiest areas of Dublin. And speaking of that bombing and all its implications, I really enjoyed how much of the story was tied to the history of the IRA and how over time the organization has changed from what it originally was. It added another layer of depth to the story, beyond just the “traditional” suspense and the romance. Which, speaking of the romance, it should go without saying that I loved it. I loved the way the relationship between Amber and River developed, how despite that initial attraction they both tried to resist it, knowing that it was likely not going to end well. It only made it that much better when they did get together
In many ways I could related to Amber, especially when it comes to doing the “safe” thing and never really doing anything to stray from that supposedly “safe” path. Because that’s pretty much what I’ve done with my life so far. So I appreciated and understood that side of Amber’s personality. And I could totally understand her desire to want to go on an adventure, to see what the world had to offer. So it didn’t take long for me to connect to Amber and her story. And as much I would love to go off on a trip around the world the way Amber does, I would like to hope I wouldn’t end up almost killed in a bombing like she did. Or if that were the case, maybe there would be my own River on hand to save me. Because I wouldn’t mind having my own River, or even stealing this River from Amber and keeping him for myself, because, well, yeah. River was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he was doing the best he could to do the right thing by his family and the people he cared about and that often put him in difficult situations. But I admired his loyalty, even if sometimes it led to him making some questionable decisions. It all worked out though, but there were still some close calls. But none of that stopped me from absolutely loving River. Also, Ivy was awesome. I loved seeing so much of her in Chasing River and it made me that much more excited about reading her story in Surviving Ice.
Chasing River was exactly what I had hoped it would be. This story was packed with intrigue, drama and romance, just the way I liked it. K.A. Tucker absolutely delivered with this story and I can’t wait to see what she does next with Surviving Ice.
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