Blog Tour Review & Giveaway: Salvation – Noelle Adams

Title: Salvation 

Author: Noelle Adams

Release Date: February 21, 2014

Genre: Adult/New Adult Contemporary Romance

Reviewer:  Shannon

Rating:

You get to the point where you can just say it. There was never anything special about me, except my father is rich and important. That’s why it happened.

It was just a normal Tuesday afternoon. I was twenty-three and thinking about my new designer boots. They kidnapped me for ransom. They raped me before I was rescued. My therapist says that talking about it means I’m starting to heal.

I don’t really think I am.

It’s even harder to talk about Gideon. He couldn’t save me when it really mattered, so he keeps trying to save me now. He refuses to give up on me, and I can’t make him understand. There are some things you just can’t be saved from.

Warning: Salvation is a love story that follows a difficult path of healing after sexual assault. It is a true contemporary romance, but it addresses very hard issues, including rape and attempted suicide. Please consider whether this book is for you.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble  | All Romance Ebooks

Reviewer’s Thoughts

4.5 Cocktails

SALVATION is an absolutely remarkable book. It’s emotionally challenging to read, but the perseverance of these characters was extraordinary.  

Diana was a twenty three year old girl without a care in the world when her worst nightmare happened.  Taken, because of who her father was, she soon learned that everything that she thought was important no longer was and she needed to fight to survive.  Her one salvation that night came in the form of undercover FBI agent Gideon.  With a blown cover, Gideon is as much a captive as Diana, but he manages to give her a small coping mechanism to get through what was about to happen.

Noelle Adams gives us a powerful story of two people trying to dig out from under the shear ugliness of they endured.  That one night changed both of their lives forever, leaving a permanent mark.  But, as they discover, it also gave them each other.  Their relationship, which grew out of an unlikely friendship, proved many things to Diana and Gideon.  Diana learned to trust again.  To understand that yes, she was beautiful despite what happened to her.  And that some is absolutely worthy to love,  Gideon’s changes may not have been at the forefront of the story, but we saw him communicating more.  Sharing his feelings and learning to trust that Diana would tell him when she needed something.

This is by no means an easy read.  The author puts us in that basement with Diana and Gideon, forces us to follow Diana into that other room and endure her pain with her.  Because of that, I was invested in these characters.  I wanted to cry with them.  Rage when they did.  And fell for these characters long before they fell for each other.  If you can get through the first chapter, I promise this is a book that absolutely makes going through the first chapter worth it.

You see, I was still incredibly, stupidly naïve. Even then, after having been kidnapped off the street. I actually felt better that they weren’t going to kill me, that I wasn’t in this room alone, that I had this strong, decent guy—one who seemed to know what he was doing—to help me through this.

My dad and I weren’t close, but he would definitely pay the ransom. I could get out of here and go back to my normal, sheltered life, surrounded by smiles and pretty things.

We tell ourselves stories—over and over again—about how help comes just in the nick of time, about how we get saved at the very last moment, about how the bomb is defused with only a few seconds left on the timer. I was still scared, but something inside me believed that would be my story too.

This was bad. It was really, really bad. But I would still somehow be okay.

Then I remembered I wasn’t the only one in this room. “What about you?” I asked, looking over at Gideon. He was slouched against the wall with his face turned in my direction, his eyes resting on my face.

He blinked. “What about me?”

“They’re going to kill you?”

“That’s generally what they do to people who betray them.”

I started to feel sick again because I didn’t want that to happen. I scrambled to my feet and ran over to the window. “Are you sure there’s no way out of here?” I tried to reach up towards the window, even though there would be no way of getting through the bars.

The window was too high for me to reach.

“There’s no way,” Gideon said. “All the walls are reinforced, and there’s no way of getting out that window.” He walked over so he was behind me as I tried to get a foothold on the cement block wall.

He gently pulled my hands away and, in the process, showed me his. His fingers were bruised and bloody. He murmured, “I promise I tried.”

I drooped, believing the evidence of his damaged hands, if nothing else.

About the Author

Noelle handwrote her first romance novel in a spiral-bound notebook when she was twelve, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. She has lived in eight different states and currently resides in Virginia, where she teaches English, reads any book she can get her hands on, and offers tribute to a very spoiled cocker spaniel.

She loves travel, art, history, and ice cream. After spending far too many years of her life in graduate school, she has decided to reorient her priorities and focus on writing contemporary romances.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway