Monday, April 6, 2015

*Challenge Review* Touch Screen by L.B. Dunbar


Genre: Erotic Romance
Published: March 3, 2015
Pages: 521
Ages: 18+

Synopsis

The prodigal son. A second chance. The long kept secret. 

Home?

I had returned. I hadn’t been here for seven years. I was angry that last summer, and once I got away, I didn’t want to come back. The irony was the career I sought to escape this small town was the very reason I was here. My first movie was a featured film at the Traverse City Film Festival. As an independent film director, my premiere brought me back home. Home. A place I didn’t recognize.

Or maybe home didn’t recognize me? 

I had it all in California: a girlfriend who was the daughter of a movie financier, a job that led to connections in the film industry, and a condo overlooking the ocean in Malibu. What I didn’t have was family. I had left them all behind. I was the prodigal son.
The last person I expected to see was her. Britton McKay. She had been my summer love as a teenager. Not just once, but over several summers; until the last one. That was seven years ago. Now, she looked more beautiful than I remembered. Seeing her again flooded me with memories long suppressed. She reminded me of everything I once had and left behind. 

Now, she had returned too.

Can lost romance be rekindled? 
Can unanswered questions be revealed? 
Can I make this place my home again?
++++++
L.B. Dunbar reunites you with the Carter and Scott families as all are gathered home. 

Your favorite families await with flashbacks, celebration, and heartbreak.

Welcome back to Elk Rapids.


Review

I had the honor of Beta reading this book, which means that I received a copy of this book in exchange for my comments on ways to make it better (my comments were almost exclusively spelling and grammar error related, so if you find spelling and grammar errors in this book, I'll accept partial blame for that.) This review is based on my beta reading with the assumption that the errors I commented on were corrected. 

This is the 4th book in Dunbar’s Sensations collection, and the second one that I’ve read, and they truly can be read as standalone novels. If you choose to read them out of order you will expose yourself to some minor spoilers and a couple major spoilers, although I don’t think the major spoilers are that big of a deal because these books are in the romance genre. 

This story is told in first person from Gavin Scott’s perspective and I came away from the story feeling like he’s pretty much just an oblivious jerk. In most stories told in first person, I find myself empathizing with the narrator, but that wasn’t the case here. In this story, I basically only empathized with Britton McKay, from Gavin’s perspective, and I think that’s a large part of why I still feel like he’s a jerk. His attitude and obliviousness frequently led to me yelling at my Kindle like the crazy person that I am. 
One of the major highlights of this book for me was the chapter titles. Gavin Scott is a director and each chapter is started as if it’s a scene being shot for a movie. It wasn’t quite as awesome as the short, vague recipes for Taste Test, but it totally fits for the perspective and theme of the story. 

Now I feel the need to mention that at the moment, I’m not happy with this author. I do not like it when people make me cry and L.B. Dunbar did just that. In fact I cried through 4% of this book. I had to keep setting my kindle down to wipe my eyes so that I could see the screen to read. My throat hurt from holding back the sobs that should have accompanied the tears, and I was just basically a mess. You will definitely want to have some tissues handy while reading this book. 

Overall I give this book 5 out of 5 stars because it immediately captured my interest and it tore emotions from me that I didn’t want to feel. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that likes sweet but angsty romances. 

Buy the Book


About the Author

L.B. Dunbar loves to read to the point it might be classified as an addiction. The past few years especially she has relished the many fabulous YA authors, the new genre of New Adult, traditional romances, and historical romances. A romantic at heart, she’s been accused of having an overactive imagination, as if that was a bad thing. Author of the Sensations Collection, Sound Advice, Taste Test, Fragrance Free, and the upcoming, Touch Screen, she is also author of the Legendary Rock Star series, beginning with The Legend of Arturo King. When not writing, she’s usually driving one of her four growing children somewhere. She grew up in Michigan, but has lived in Chicago for longer, calling it home with her husband and children.

Chapter 1 Video



Challenge Scorecards

This book was published in March of this year, so it very clearly fits as a new release and I used it as such for my Book Bingo Challenge. For the Popsugar challenge, I used it to fulfill my "book that made me cry" category because Ms. Dunbar made me bawl. 

Other categories Touch Screen would fulfill include
Book with more than 500 pages
A book published this year
A book by a female author
A book from an author that I hadn't read yet
A book set in high school (sort of, there are several flashbacks to the MC's high school years)






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