Title:
While It Lasts (Sea Breeze #3)
Author:
Abbi Glines
Publish Date: April 2013 by Simon & Schuster
Synopsis:
Cage brings his playboy prowess to the countryside as the Sea Breeze hookups continue, from self-published phenomenon Abbi Glines. Low broke Cage’s heart by getting with Marcus in Because of Low. Cage went into a tailspin that ended in a DUI. In order to salvage his baseball scholarship—the one thing he truly valued besides Low—Cage must take a summer job. At a farm. Away from Sea Breeze. With lots of cows, but no hot girls. Maybe that’s what Cage needs to get back on track.
But wait—there’s that hostile daughter of the farm boss. She’s pretty and occasionally sweet, and there seems to be a lot of sadness and mystery behind her anger. Cage is dying to strip her down—physically and mentally—in the back of the barn. But is he prepared for what will happen afterward?
Abbi Glines is known for her sexy New Adult novels, among them, The Vincent Boys, many of which are in a series that are out right now, self-published and published by houses like Simon and Schuster. I hadn't read anything by this author prior to While It Lasts. This is my first audio book of a New Adult novel so I'm not sure if my initial response (not digging it) will happen every time I listen to a New Adult audio book, but I hope they all turn out the same way (me totally digging it)!
This is the third book in Glines’ Seabreeze series, but I was able to pick up along the lines of the story very easily without having read the first two books in the series. Knowing that I probably wouldn't be able to read the first two books by the time I got around to listening to this audio book, I did a little bit of research and I found out the main characters of the first two books and when they happen to come up in the story during the third book, so I knew who they are and the reason why they're there. (Although I will now be adding books 1 and 2 to my TBR pile!)
My first reaction to this audio book was holy cow, their accents are so exaggerated. Cage and Eva, the main romantic interests of the story are both from the south, so they have southern accents. As I live in New England, the only accents I’ve come accustomed to hearing are along the lines of, “pahk the cah in hahvad yahd (park the car in Harvard yard). This would be the Boston, MA accent that found its way into Rhode Island as well. Dropping r’s and adding them in other words (idea = idear, for example) is the accent of choice where I live. So to have the audio book read by a male and female voice actor with southern accents threw me off. I admit I kind of hated the characters in the beginning because of how annoying their accents were to me. It seemed like they were being forced a bit too much.
The two main characters are Eva, daughter of a farmer and widow to Josh (fiancé killed in Baghdad), and Cage, who is stuck on the same farm helping Eva’s father who also happens to be Cage’s baseball coache’s brother. In exchange for working on the farm all summer, his coach will wipe the slate clean for Cage’s baseball scholarship.
When we are first introduced to Eva, she is reading a letter Josh had written prior to his death in case he did die in the line of duty. As Eva is reading the letter she has a hard time getting through it because while she doesn't blame Josh for his death fighting for their country, she blames him for leaving in the first place and not caring enough to make sure they would live together forever, growing old together.
What’s great about first impressions is that they change. As I listened to Eva and Cage’s interactions and how they grew to know each other and that love spark got hotter and hotter, their accents became less of a concern. Although they did talk slower than I’m used to, I found myself enjoying the build up between Cage and Eva. They DID NOT get along in the beginning. More so on Eva’s side, there was definite dislike between the two and it was one of those cases where they didn’t lie to each other, but they withheld the truth so they doubted each other. A lot of those moments where you shake your book and yell out “just tell them already!” happened to me, except it was my kindle and every time I shook it, I would then hug it and apologize.
The audio book is about six hours long, and within the first hour we see a hint of the steamy scenes to come for these characters. There is the typical scene where Cage tries to make Eva jealous with her neighbor, only it doesn’t work out so well for any of them. There’s a few hot lake scenes (they live on a farm, and it’s hot, like they need a reason!), and I just generally enjoyed getting to know Eva and Cage’s back stories. I was surprised at how touching yet simple Glines was able to incorporate the war in Baghdad into her story without it overwhelming the plot. I’m never drawn to stories about the war overseas, but I do like how it's subtly there, holding Eva back from opening back up again and it makes the scenes where she is able to open herself even sweeter.
The only thing I didn’t like about this story was Cage’s cursing at the beginning. I realize that people curse in real life and it's a part of our generations language, but whether or not it was the way the voice actor was saying it every time, it just felt extremely cheesy and it didn't feel warranted. Every time cages character cursed it didn't seem realistic. It's one thing to have a character shout or yell a bunch of expletives, but with Cage it felt forced and just pointless. But I’m realizing that it may have been part of his character development, to have him curse and act a certain way at the beginning, only to behave and become more of a gentleman after spending time with Eva throughout the course of the story.
I recommend this audio book for anyone who wants their southern accent fill, but who also wants to enjoy a coming of age love story between two people who did not see it coming. There are some mature scenes, so I would say this would be a 17+ novel. I’m looking forward to checking out the first books in this series!
My Over All Rating:
