Blog Tour Review: Giving It Up – Amber Lin

Allie prowls the club for a man who will use her hard and then ditch her. Hey, it’s not rape if she wants it. Instead she finds Colin, who looks tough but treats her tenderly, despite her protests.

He tempts her, but kindness and a few mindblowing orgasms aren’t enough to put her back together again. Allie has no hope for a real relationship. Two years ago her best friend betrayed her in the worst possible way – she’d be stupid to trust a man again. Besides, she has her daughter to think of, the only good thing to have come from that dark night.

But when her rapist returns, threatening her sanity and custody of her daughter, Allie turns to Colin. Under his protection and patient touch, Allie begins to heal and learns to hope. Colin’s no saint, though, and his criminal past draws danger of its own. Allie must fight to protect her child and the man she loves, hoping her newfound power will be enough to save them all.

Series:
Release Date:  June 18, 2012
Publisher:  Loose ID
Source:  Goddess Fish Promotions
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Reviewer’s Thoughts:

This was such a great read.  Don’t let the blurb fool you, this is so much more than a woman going out to find sex with a partner who would hurt her.  This is about a woman building a relationship with a man after being misused by the men she should have been able to trust.  It’s gritty, emotional and powerful.

Allie spends one night a month going to a club to find a man who will use her for rough consensual sex.  She doesn’t want any emotional ties to the men she’s with, she just wants an outlet for release.  The other 29 days she’s a mother of a two year old and a lowly paid baker at a local bakery.  She scrapes to get by and trusts no one except her best friend, Shelley.

That all changes when she picks up Colin Murphy.  While Colin initially agrees, somewhat, to her terms, the encounter is both rough and sweet, causing Allie to question what she was doing.  When Colin asks to see her again, she tells him no and leaves.  But a trip to that same bar one month later and a run in with a man who won’t take no for an answer, Colin rescues Allie.  Soon Allie and her daughter are moving in with Colin, but is this what Allie really wants?

Allie has a lot of emotional baggage to weed through to determine if what she has with Colin is truly what she wants.  Every man she’s ever trusted has broken that trust in some way, shape or form (two of them rather brutally), but for some reason she can’t explain, she feels safe with the quiet Colin.  Despite what he may do for his brother, outside of his restaurant, she knows he would never hurt her. 

But Colin has his own emotional baggage that Allie has no idea about.  Because of that, they tend to push each others button and cause doubt in each other.  However, even when you can see Colin questioning Allie and/or her motives, he still looks out for her.

The only thing I wished for in this was Colin’s point of view.  Since it’s told first person from Allie’s perspective, it felt like we were missing some vital information as to how or why Colin reacts to a situation the way he does.  If we had his perspective, I think it would have taken this already emotional read to the next level.

That said, I really, really liked to story.  It was an emotionally challenging read that had me questioning what I would do if I found myself in Allie’s position.  Allie was a strong woman who was determined to do what she needed to in order to ensure a somewhat happy life for her young daughter.  She only grew stronger as she understood what she wanted in her relationship with Colin and finally reached out to get what she wanted.