Blog Tour - Better When He's Brave by Jay Crownover + Excerpt & Giveaway

Title: Better When He's Brave (Welcome to the Point #3)

Author: Jay Crownover

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: August 11, 2015

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo / B&N / iTunes

In New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jay Crownover’s third novel in her sexy, thrilling Welcome to the Point series, a woman’s search for repentance leads her to the one man from her past she can’t forget as they join forces to save their city—and the explosive love neither can live without.

Titus King has always seen his world in black and white. There is a firm right and wrong in his mind, which is why as a teenager he left behind the only family he’d ever known to make a better life for himself. Now a police detective in one of the worst cities in the country, he can’t deny his life has turned a million different shades of gray.

They new criminal element in The Point has brought vengeance and destruction right to Titus’s front door, and walking the straight and narrow seems far less important now. The difference between right and wrong is nothing compared to keeping those he loves alive. To add to his already strained moral compass, the beautiful and mysterious Reeve Black has made her way back to town. This girl might be as dangerous to Titus as the guy trying to destroy The Point but he can’t walk away because he needs her—in more ways than one.

Reeve knows all about the threat tying to destroy The Point. She knows how ruthless, how vicious, and how cruel this new danger can be…and instead of running away, she wants to help. Reeve knows that she has a lot to depend for and saving the city, plus the hot cop that she hasn’t been able to forget might just be the only way she can finally find some inner peace.

With an entire city poised on the brink of war, Titus and Reeve stand in the crossfire—and it will take two brave souls to fight for the ultimate love.

Over the past year, I have fallen completely in love with the dark and gritty world of The Point. It’s a weird thing to say considering all the bad crap that happens there, but it’s a fact. Jay Crownover made me fall in love with this world she created and Better When He’s Brave only solidified this.

Titus King has made it his life’s mission to try to bring some light to the darkness that is The Point. Wanting nothing more than to make a better life for himself, Titus left his family behind and became a cop. But singlehandedly saving one of the worst cities world can take its toll. When someone new seems intent on destroying The Point and is going after everyone and everything he cares about, Titus will do everything he can to save his city. Reeve left The Point, hoping to put it all behind her. But she’s done running away and she’s ready to help Titus bring some light to The Point. But saving the city makes putting themselves in the crossfire and may require them to sacrifice what they’ve found in the midst of all this darkness: love.

I first found Jay Crownover’s Welcome to the Point series not exactly by accident but it wasn’t a series I was initially going out of my way to read. But the moment I read the first book, I became hooked. As dark and gritty and hard to read as some parts of this series are, I could read these books all day. It should go without saying that I was very much excited about Better When He’s Brave. I was lucky enough to be given access to an advance copy of the book and I wasn’t very successful in holding off on reading it. And the moment I started reading, I couldn’t stop. The thing about the books in the Welcome to the Point series is that they come with addictng stories, stories that leave you constantly wanting more, constantly trying to figure out what is happening and who is behind all the horrible things that are happening. Better When He’s Brave kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading. Much like Titus, I just wanted to know who was behind everything, why they were so set on burning the Point down to the ground. And there were some moments where I was seriously concerned for the safety of the people in this story. And I don’t really think I need to say that the romance was hot, but I will say it anyway. I was ALL for Titus and Reeve.

The whole time I was reading Better When He’s Bad and Better When He’s Bold, I was curious about Titus. There was just so much about him that I wanted to know. With Better When He’s Brave, I finally got all the answers I wanted about Titus, and then some. There was so much more to him than I could have thought, so much that I possibly couldn’t have predicted but at the same time helped explain so much of who Titus was and why he did what he did. And I’m not going to lie, everything I found out about him totally made me fall a little bit (okay, a lot) in love with Titus. So really, it’s no surprise that Reeve fell for her pretty hard. But Reeve herself, I wasn’t entirely sure about. Because of what she’d done in previous books, I wasn’t sure whether or not I could trust, if she was actually helping Titus or just trying to save herself. But the more I read, the more I grew to like Reeve and, much like with Titus, I began to understand why she was doing what she was doing. And like I’ve already said, I was all about Reeve and Titus being together. And them together was often HOT.

I loved and devoured Jay Crownover’s Better When He’s Brave. This story kept me on the edge of my seat and convinced me that I would be happy to keep reading stories set in The Point forever.

Excerpt

“Everyone has a breaking point.”

I sounded gruff and really had to concentrate on getting the words out because she leaned forward and her lips hit right below my ear on my rough jaw. Her teeth started to nibble and her tongue lapped a long wet trail all the way up behind my ear where she breathed, “I would love to see you when you reach yours.”

She curled her hand around the back of my neck and rubbed her cheek against mine. When I let my monster have at her, it took in giant mouthfuls, gobbled her up, and tried to burn as fast and as hot as the pleasure would allow.She wasn’t kidding when she said hers needed to be soothed. Every move she made was deliberate, erotic. We touched everywhere and somehow it was more intimate than all the times I had been inside of her over the last month. She brushed her chest against my own and I decided the playing field needed to level out a little, so I hooked my hands under her shirt and lifted it up off over her head. Her hair fell back around us like a dark curtain and I grabbed her face so I could kiss her. She blinked at me with big eyes and smiled.

“You are the only one that sees it, over and over again. You were the breaking point from the moment you walked in the door to tell me you helped Novak grab Dovie. I wanted to be disgusted, to hate you, but I didn’t. I thought you were beautiful and resilient. You seemed so misguided and lost, an even then I wanted to get you naked and fuck you on my desk.”

Her face lowered to mine and our lips touched just a tiny bit. One of her hands skated down the center of my chest and landed on my best buckle. I reciprocated by popping the clasp on the back of her bra and pulling it out of my way.

“You should’ve tried. I would’ve let you.” The words danced across my lips and somewhere in the center of my chest an animal howled in delight. That was what was missing in my life. Someone that appreciated all the sacrifice, the hard choices I had made to become the man I was, but who could also appreciate the fucked-up kid I had been.

Giveaway

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Blog Tour - Better When He's Bold by Jay Crownover + Giveaway!

Title: Better When He's Bold (Welcome to the Point #2)

Author: Jay Crownover

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: February 3, 2015

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo / B&N

Some men are just better when they’re bold.

Welcome to the Point…

In a dark and broken kingdom, a ruler has to be fearless to control the streets and the ruthless people who run them.

Race Hartman is just bold enough, just smart enough, and just lost enough to war the crown. Places like the Point will always have bad things and bad people, but the man in control of all that badness can minimize the devastation. Race has a plan, but can he prevent told annihilation without destroying himself?

Brysen Carter has always seen her best friend’s brother for what he is—too pretty, too smooth, and way too dangerous to touch. Basking in Race’s golden glow is very tempting, but Brysen knows she’d eventually get burned.

When she starts receiving threatening texts and someone tries to take her out in the parking lot, the only person interested in keeping her safe is the one man she can’t allow herself to have. 

Sometimes being bold is the only way to stay alive. But can she let Race save her life…if it means losing herself to him?

Last year, I discovered Jay Crownover when I read the first book in her Welcome to the Point series, Better When He’s Bad, and pretty much fell in love. I was really looking forward to reading the next one, Better When He’s Bold. And I loved it even more than the first one.

After having taken down the man running the Point, Race Hartman stepped up and took over. The way Race sees things, if he doesn’t run the Point, someone worse will do it and it will be like nothing has changed. But running the Point means Race is forced to make some difficult decisions, decisions he doesn’t always agree with. But the criminal activity in the Point is not what scares Race. What really scares him is losing himself to the Point. Brysen has always stayed away from the point, but when she meets Race Hartman, her best friend’s older brother, she keeps being pulled in that direction. She knows that she should stay away from Race, that nothing good can come of being with him, but she can’t fighting her attraction to him is becoming more and more difficult. When it seems like someone is out to kill her, Race becomes the person Brysen can turn to, the one person who seems to care enough to try to uncover what is really happening. Relying on Race is something Brysen never thought she would do. But if he’s the only person who can save her life, she’s willing to do it. The more time she spends with him though, she worries she might lose herself to him and to the Point. 

I am a total sucker for New Adult and have been ever since I picked up my first New Adult book almost two years ago. Since then, I’ve been reading any and all NA book I can get my hands on. With reading so much of it though, I’ve come to expect certain things. But with Jay Crownover’s books, or at least her Welcome to the Point series, what I get is completely different from the other NA books I read. Don’t get me wrong, the romance is still there and there is plenty of it. But these books are also a lot darker and a lot grittier than what I would normally read. But I love it. There’s just something about reading a story where you aren’t entirely sure if anyone is going to make it out in one piece, or how much they’re going to have to sacrifice in order to get out of everything alive. So needless to say that I tore through Better When He’s Bold. This story picked up shortly after everything that happened in Better When He’s Bad and focused on different characters but I was able to jump right in because I knew the world and the people. And the story was just engrossing. I wanted to know who was after Brysen, why they were so intent on killing her. I wanted to know (and still want to know) who is threatening Race’s precarious hold on the Point. And like with any good NA book, it certainly didn’t hurt that I loved the romance part of the story. Much like with the first book in this series, the romance in Better When He’s Bold is definitely more on the “adult” end of the New Adult spectrum. But considering the setting of the story, it couldn’t really be any other way. It just works and it makes it all feel very real and very raw. And I loved reading about it. Though that was probably because I really liked Race and Brysen.

Race and Brysen were people I only got slight glimpses of when I was reading Better When He’s Bad. He’s Dovie’s brother and Bax’s best friend, while she is Dovie’s best friend. But in Better When He’s Bold, they were front and center, and it didn’t take long at all for me to completely fall in love with them. While I was reading, I could see how much Race struggled with what he had to do, how he saw himself as the lesser of two evils. But at the same time how afraid he was that in the long run he would become exactly what he was hoping to protect people from. But with Brysen by his side, that wasn’t going to happen. Brysen wasn’t from the point, it was a place she typically avoided, but she had been forced to make a lot of decisions that kept bringing her to the edge of the Point. But Race and Brysen were good together. Brysen brought out the good in Race and made sure he would never become what he was scared of becoming. And Race was the only person who was making sure Brysen was okay, who was actually taking care of her. And I rooted for them. I mean, how could I not? They were great together and honestly, I could have kept reading about them for much longer than the length of this book. But that’s besides the point. I also really liked how much I got to see Bax and Dovie in this story. I was happy to be able to check in on them and make sure they were still okay in light of everything. It made me happy.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I loved Jay Crownover’s Better When He’s Bold. The story was fast-paced and engrossing and I kept wanting more. For that, though, I’m just going to have to wait until the third book in the series, Better When He’s Brave comes out later this year. In the meantime, I should probably check out Jay Crownover’s other series…

Giveaway!

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Better When He's Bad by Jay Crownover

Title: Better When He's Bad (Welcome to the Point #1)

Author: Jay Crownover

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: June 17, 2014

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

Welcome to the Point.

There’s a difference between a bad boy and a boy who’s bad…meet Shane Baxter.

Sexy, dark, and dangerous, Bax isn’t just from the wrong side of the tracks, he is the wrong side of the tracks. A criminal, a thug, and a brawler, he’s the master of bad choices, until one such choice landed him in prison for five years. Now Bax is out and looking for answers, and he doesn’t care what he was to do or who he has to hurt to get them. But there’s a new player in the game, and she’s much too innocent, much too soft…and standing directly in his way. 

Dovie Pryce knows all about living a hard life and the tough choices that come with it. She’s always tried to be good, tried to help others, and tried not to let the darkness pull her down. But the streets are fighting back, things have gone from bad to worse, and the only person who can help her is the scariest, sexiest, most complicated ex-con The Point had ever produced.

Bax terrifies her, but it doesn’t take Dovie long to realize that some boys are just better when they’re bad.

Over the last year, I’ve been loving New Adult, but until recently I had stayed away from Jay Crownover’s books. Why? Beats me. But now that I’ve read Better When He’s Bad, I can say that I won’t keep making that mistake. With just that one book, I am now a Jay Crownover fan.

Everyone in The Point knows that Bax is the kind of guy you stay away from. Bax has always made bad choices, not thinking of the consequences. Now that he’s back after having spent five years in prison for one of those choices, Bax wants to know what exactly happened on the night that his life changed. But finding answers always seems to lead Bax back to Dovie, the girl he should stay away from, no matter what. Dovie hasn’t had an easy life, but she is determined to find a way out of The Point. But before she can do that, she needs to work with Bax. Every one of Dovie’s instincts is screaming at her to stay away from Bax, but she can’t help it. No matter what she does she is drawn to this truly bad boy.

Despite everyone talking about them, it wasn’t until I received a copy of Better When He’s Bad that I (finally) read one of Jay Crownover’s books. As soon as I started reading this one, I knew what everyone had been talking about. Let me just say, this book was addicting as hell. No matter what I did, I couldn’t put it down. This is the kind of story I would have read in one sitting had work and life not gotten in the way. It’s not that the story was particularly mind-blowing or that the writing was beyond exceptional. It was just engrossing. There were so many layers to the mystery within the story, and until the very end, I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go. And the romance was HOT. As much as with many of the other New Adult titles I’ve read I can say with confidence that they would appeal and would be appropriate for older teens to read, Better When He’s Bad is definitely closer to the “adult” end of the New Adult spectrum. This story is explicit in more ways than one and there is very little that is held back. Because of that though, the story feels very real. The fact that everything about this book is dark and gritty just adds to the darkness of the story itself and reinforces that Bax, the main character, isn’t your typical bad boy, he’s bad in every possible way.

When I first started reading Better When He’s Bad, I wasn’t sure how I would feel about Bax. I love my dark angsty boys as much as the next girl, but I wasn’t sure how I would feel about a character who was truly bad. And I have to stay, that Bax completely won me over. The more I read, the more I wanted to root for him, the more I wanted for him to finally find a way out the life he was seemingly stuck in. But I also realized that Bax wasn’t quite as bad as he came across. His intentions came from a good place, he just kind of sucked when it came to executions. And there was no one that brought out Bax’s good side more than Dovie did. And Dovie worried me. Don’t get me wrong, I more than liked her. But she also had this tendency to put herself in particularly dangerous situations and it worried me. And much like I kept rooting for Bax, I kept rooting for Dovie no matter what happened. These two were fantastic together and they brought each other out of their comfort zones, for better or worse. And based on all that, it goes without saying that I obviously loved Bax and Dovie together. Basically, I’m very happy they found each other. On a different note, I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book to some of the characters I only briefly met in this one.

I loved reading Jay Crownover’s Better When He’s Bad. This book took me completely by surprise—I didn’t expect to love quite as much as I did. You can be sure that I am now making a point of reading any and all Jay Crownover books I can get my hands on.