Rome by Jay Crownover ~ Blog Tour & Sarah's Review

Cora Lewis is a whole lot of fun, and she knows how to keep her tattooed bad boy friends in line. But all that flash and sass hide the fact that she’s never gotten over the way her first love broke her heart. Now she has a plan to make sure that never happens again: She’s only going to fall in love with someone perfect.

Rome Archer is as far from perfect as a man can be. He’s stubborn and rigid, he’s bossy and has come back from his final tour of duty fundamentally broken. Rome’s used to filling a role: big brother, doting son, super soldier; and now none of these fit anymore. Now he’s just a man trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life while keeping the demons of war and loss at bay. He would have been glad to suffer it alone, until Cora comes sweeping into his life and becomes the only color on his bleak horizon.

Perfect isn’t in the cards for these two, but imperfect might just last forever . . .

Title: Rome (Marked Men #3)
Author: Jay Crownover
Genre: New Adult
Publication Date: January 7, 2014
Publisher: William Morrow an imprint of HarperCollins PublishingEvent organized by: Literati Author Services, Inc.

Rome can be read as a stand alone, technically, but there is so much overlap with Rule's story and that I would not suggest you read it that way.  If you did you would want to go back and read Rule & Jet anyway so you should just start there any way.

For those of us who have read Rule & Jet we know that Rome has had some rough stuff to deal with.  He is not in a great place.  Little do we know just how bad it is for him.  He is really floundering and it is hard to watch after getting to know what we have through Rule & Shaw.  I was really heart broken for him.

I DEFINITELY have a thing for military boys, seriously give me a boy in uniform and I'm sold.  Same with Rome.  Add his brokeness and his desire to protect everyone around him and I am done.  Seeing him so broken was hard for me to read.  I love seeing my men vulnerable and sad but it is so much more with Rome.  I don't know why, but his particular brand of devastation just did me in.  I think that I was completely head over heals in love with him from the moment we saw him so upset at the end of Jet, which coincidentally is exactly where his book starts.

Cora had only heard about how amazing big brother Archer was but she is definitely not seeing it for herself.  She is only seeing the mess.  However Cora is a consummate fixer, so she sees something that she wants to patch together and give back to his friends and family whole.  I love Cora on so many levels.  She is strong as can be.  Even when she was 'weak' she was far stronger than just about any other female lead that I have ever read.  I think that there is no way that she could be any sort of match for Rome if she was anything but though.  I loved her hard headed stubbornness, it was quite refreshing.

When the book first started I wasn't sure that he was going to be able to get his shit together quite honestly, but he had a number of perfect people put into his life and guide him out of the hole that he was floundering in.  I won't give up anything plot-wise, but I think that if Rome hadn't stumbled into the situation that he does in the very beginning of the book there is no way that he would have ended up where he does.

I really enjoyed the twists and turns that Jay took us through in Rome.  Nothing was completely unexpected, for me, but the timing of almost everything took me by surprise.  I really enjoyed it.  I was also REALLY happy to see that Rome didn't just get magically healed like we so often see in romance novels.  The fact that he worked on himself was wonderful.  I felt like Jay has a really good hold on what is actually real and what is fanciful and keeps her books in reality, even especially when it's not pretty.

I loved Rule, I really liked Jet, but my heart definitely belongs to Rome.  Definitely my favorite in this series.  I cannot wait for Nash's story, the glimpses that we've got into what is going to be going on with him are quite intriguing.  I don't think that he'll replace Rome in my heart, but I think that he'll give him a good run for his money!!

                  

RULE

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1cWcv6X
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/KvwDSx
Amazon CA: http://amzn.to/K2af2x
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1dO3yN6
iTunes: http://bit.ly/1koo7oH
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1cyp9rp
IndieBound: http://bit.ly/1cypjPE

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1faXMIr

JET
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1acKZ4k
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1acLfjH
Amazon CA: http://amzn.to/JFG8yg
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1cNvMCT
iTunes: http://bit.ly/KAahzW
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1dt39vS
IndieBound: http://bit.ly/1a4yofW
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1eEGOxD

I’m supposed to share interesting details about myself so that my readers get to know me so here we go in no particular order: I’m an natural redhead even though I haven’t seen my real hair color in years, I’m a big fan of tattoos and have a half sleeve on either arm and various other pieces all over the place, I’ve been in the bar industry since I was in college and it has always offered interesting insight into how men and women interact with each other, I have 3 dogs that are all crazy, I live in Colorado and love the snow, I love music and in all reality wish I could be a rock star not a writer or a bartender but I have zero talent so there is that.

I love to write, love to read and all I’m interested in is a good story with interesting characters that make the reader feel something.

Connect with Jay:  Facebook | Twitter | Website | Goodreads

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