Blog Tour: The Redemption by S.L. Scott

The Redemption
by S.L. Scott
Release Date: November 3rd 2014

Rate: Enjoyed it (4 stars)

Synopsis:

The Redemption is a standalone novel. The Resistance is a standalone novel, but the two books share characters and background.

He was everything she never wanted. Yet, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Soulful, amber eyes 

A sex, drugs, and rock n’roll reputation

A body that beckoned for sin

Three years ago Rochelle Floros was living her dream come true… then lost it all. On the worst day of her life, the last person she expected to be there for her was a rock star and tabloid favorite. Now, she’s trying to rebuild her life after the tragedy that destroyed her fairytale. Slowly, she found herself captivated by a sexy, bad boy drummer she had known for years. 

Rochelle was caught between the grief that shrouded her heart and the charismatic man that made it race. What she didn’t know is if he was being sincere or toying with her heart. The Redemption is about finding the pulse of your soul in the most unlikely places and giving love a chance to grow.

Can what she wants really be what she needs? With his rhythm and her passion, can they make music together? Or will their harmony be lost forever?

The Redemption might catch your attention because of The Resistance. Rock stars are one of my weakness and I tend to read all books with them in it, but The Redemption explores more than the relationship between a rock star and a girl. It's about losing a person you love and try to survive after it while giving love a second chance.

I haven't had the chance to read The Resistance, another novel that is related to The Redemption, and that's probably why, when I started the book, I felt like I was missing something, like I didn't quite fully understand what it means to be a part of The Resistance. Despite this, after I kept reading the first few chapters, I understood what it truly meant to be part of this music group.

The author not only focuses on what it means to lose someone as important as the love of your life, the father of your kids, but gives us an insight of Rochelle's grieving and healing time. However, this story is not only about Rochelle, but about Dex, The Resistance's guitarist who has always been in love with his best friend's woman. He's the type of guy you expert no compromise and someone you would not expect to have a relationship with. He's a womanizer, he used to use drugs and he's some demons to battle that makes him do spontaneous and crazy things. 

The author uses Rochelle's loss and Dex's story to bring these two together. They heal one another and their relationship is definitely not a constant one. You don't know what it's going to happen next between these two and that's how two lost people like them acts and definitely it felt more real than any other relationship I've read about. 

S.L. Scott also had the ability to write the story in order to express all the emotions the characters were feeling at each chapter. And the reader is part of the story, because he or she is capable to feel it. The desperation, the anger, the loss, the frustration... all those feelings the characters are feeling throughout the story.

Meeting Rochelle and Dex is definitely worth your time. It might not be an easy path and the read might held lost of emotions, but is definitely a book you need to read. And I just hope there are more The Resistance novels coming. 

Since The Redemption is also related to music and what music means to the characters, I couldn't stop thinking about one song and relating them with each mean character.

For Dex: Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield

For Rochelle: Can't Stop This Feeling by REO Speedwagon

S.L. Scott is a former high-tech account manager with a journalism degree pursuing her passion for telling stories. She spends her days escaping into her characters and letting them lead her on their adventures. 

Live music shows, harvesting jalapenos and eating homemade guacamole are her obsessions she calls hobbies.

Scott lives in the beautiful Texas hill country of Austin with her husband, two young sons, two Papillons and a bowl full of Sea Monkeys. 

Her novels include Naturally, Charlie, Good Vibrations, and A Prior Engagement.

Shutdown (Glitch #3) by Heather Anastasiu

Shutdown (Glitch #3)

Heather Anastasiu

320 pages

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Release Date: July 2nd, 2013

Rate: Loved it

After everything Zoe's been through, the battle is not over. Along with the Resistance, they would find a way to win the cruel and manipulative Chancellor. But the battle is not Zoe's only problem. Adrien is different, he does not recognize Zoe or remember anything about their relationship.

Still trying to find the Adrien she fell in love with, Zoe will find any way possible to plot against the Community and destroy the Link. 

We don't know why we didn't start this series before, but we are madly in love with them. With Glitch we saw the beginning of everything, the introduction of this dystopian society. The second book was about the Resistance and Zoe being in a sort of school for special kids like her and Adrien. And now, with Shutdown we have all the action, sci-fi and romance that we were expecting.

In Shutdown, we have a more mature Zoe, that would fight for what she thinks is right and for the love of her life. Even though Adrien is been brainwashed, she stills fights to help him remember what they had. She has it really difficult, because Adrien's mother blame her for what happened to Adrien, but she still keeps fighting. 

The plot was amazing and more than we were expecting. We love the mix of dystopian and sci-fi, mixing all the technology with the need to survive and, to add more interest to the story, the gifts the glitchers have that made them special and part of what the Resistance needs to fight against the Community.

Zoe is the perfect character. We have learn that she's someone that inspires others. Not just as a Resistance leader, but as a living person. She inspired our beloved Adrien in the first book. Without knowing, showing how beautiful life can be. She's strong and fights for what she believes. She'd do anything for the people she loves and she'll try hard to be what everyone is expecting her to be. She's also sincere and doesn't hesitate in telling her fears. We totally respect her and like her. She's one of our heroines now, for sure.

About the boys... We love Adrien. He's sensible, cute and a gentleman. A good guy. Not to talk about his hotness. He's everything Max is not. We totally hate Max. He's a self-centered, stupid and moron guy. He hurts our beloved Adrien and that's what we hate him even more. If that was possible. 

We don't like how Max treats Zoe and neither his behavior. In this third book, Max makes us wants to kill him even more than he did in the second book when we found everything he did. 

We read this book in a day. We were eager to know what happened to Adrien and if we would see him being himself again. We cannot tell you that, because we would spoil everything, but we can assure you that this book would put in on edge! Besides that, we wanted to know if Zoe'll take down, finally, the Community and the Link and overall we wanted to see the Chancellor burn! Well, maybe not burn, but reading that she'd not longer hurt our main characters. She's a total witch, so you can imagine that she's, along with Max, in our black list. After what the two of them made to Adrien, (more the Chancellor, but Max helped and lied to Zoe, so he is on the list, too), you can understand how much we hate them.

We saw the changes of the characters in the three books. The things they live and the scenes they survive, changed them and you can perfectly see that. Apart from that, we have new characters, some we met at Override, but that play an important part in the story. 

If you have read the other two books long ago, you may want to re-read them to keep track of everything. Or at least just Override. When there's a long distance between the books releases, we may forget some things that may be important to keep track of everything in the following book. So, re-read Override if you don't remember, before reading this wonderful book! 

Heather Anastasiu did not disappoint us at all and made us have lots of fun with this book. We cried and laugh and breathe with relieve while reading the story. We fall in love with Zoe's world and we are going to miss it. The only thing we regret is that we ended the third book so fast. However, we already have planned to re-read this books when we feel nostalgic. So not a problem.

Full of action, love (even a lot of the sexual tension we have been waiting for!), more sci-fi, powers, friendship and Resistance. Shutdown would make you want to read even more and want to be part of Zoe's word, that's why it has a five gorjuss dolls.

So don't hesitate Book Addicts, read Shutdown and now what happens with our beloved couple: Zoe and Adrien, and with the Resistance and the Community!

Part of the fun of writing dystopias is diving into that age old struggle between good and evil. I don’t tend to think of good and evil in terms of supernatural forces or anything like that. Instead, the battleground for me always comes down to the conflict within people themselves and the choices they make as a result.

Writing bad guys is actually one of my favorite things, but I don’t think any of the bad guys in my books are completely evil. Well, maybe the Chancellor, but in her deluded eyes, she’s trying to bring about a peaceful, controlled and orderly society… only, you know, it’s at the expense of everyone’s freedom to feel any emotion at all! So maybe that is how evil works. People tell themselves certain lies to justify their actions to themselves, when maybe what’s REALLY driving them all along is a lust for power.

My other bad guy is Max, who plenty of readers have loved to hate = He was actually the character I had the most fun writing out of everyone. He too justifies all the bad things he does, but at least, on occasion, he struggles with it.

Because the thing is, good and evil are never as black and white as we’d like to imagine they are. Life’s full of a lot of murky in-between feelings and motivations. My ‘good guys’ are still willing to do bad things, like Commander Taylor. In Shutdown there’s a big argument between all the characters about whether they should stand and fight or just leave all the danger behind and go somewhere to hide away and be safe. At what point does letting evil continue to thrive without fighting become evil itself? It’s the same question as faced those in Nazi Germany who saw their neighboring Jews be carted and away and yet did nothing to help or resist.

But some did resist, and those are the heroes. I guess that was my question going into this series, especially since the book is in first person: what does it mean to be a hero? What does that feel like? Do you go into it all determined and self-assured, or do you constantly question yourself every step of the way, drawn by temptations to take the easy way out? I think if we’re trying to depict a real, full picture of a person, it should be a mix of both those impulses. That’s what it means to be good in this world of shifting grays. And sometimes being evil can be as simple as doing nothing at all.

Heather Anastasiu

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