Blog Tour Review & Giveaway: A Stone in the Sea – A. L. Jackson

Shannon’s Thoughts

If you’ve never read an AL Jackson book before, let me start by saying this:  She knows how to write angst.  Gut-wrenching, “please no more” angst.   With this new series, she dips into rocker romances and let me tell you, she gives us a whole new level of angst.

Forced to hide in Georgia while his latest PR nightmare hangs over his bands head, Sebastian “Baz” Stone is hoping he can figure out a way to turn his life around but at the same time not take those his considers his family down with him.  He wasn’t supposed to find a girl who would turn his world upside down, but that’s exactly what he did.

Shea has her own set of issues, but she’s determined to ensure those she holds close know unconditional love…something she didn’t have a lot of.  The moment she sets eyes on Baz, she knows he’s someone she should stay away from but can’t seem to follow her own advice.

Both of these characters are overloaded with all sorts of emotional issues.  They weigh both of them down, but it’s clear Shea is better at dealing with hers.  She doesn’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for herself or flying off the handle at people, like Baz.  Instead, she knows what she can change and what she can’t and moves forward.  Her influence on Baz, once he accepts his feelings for her, has an immediate effect.  But I was often left wondering if Baz was going to be able to continue on the path of happiness or if someone or something was going to set him off.  By the time I reached the end of the story, I knew it was going to be a combination of both.

Baz and Shea have incredible sexual chemistry and the scenes where they finally give into that chemistry are extremely hot.  It’s at those times that we see these two characters at their most honest and it’s a nice change of pace.

The ending is a bit of a “WTF” moment, which will have readers eagerly awaiting the next book in the series.  But for followers of this author, we know that AL Jackson is good at leaving us at the edge of our seats through an entire series of books.

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I froze when I felt the presence behind me. The song slowly blinked out, the last note lingering in the dense air, before I slowly looked over my shoulder to find Shea. Thoughtful eyes met mine in all their warmth—covering me, pulling me in, dragging me under.

“You play,” she said, a statement rather than a question.

“A little,” I said with a shrug.

She scoffed. “I would hardly classify that as a little.” She shuffled toward me, barefoot, and still wearing that robe. “You have a beautiful voice,” she whispered, and again it took on that reverent tone, like she was recognizing something inside me I didn’t see.

She ran her fingers up the back of my neck and into my hair, and I lifted my head to it and tried not to moan like a girl when she pressed her hot mouth to my Adam’s apple, kissing me there like the temptress she was.

“Such a beautiful, beautiful voice for a beautiful, beautiful man.” The words vibrated against my throat.

“Shea.” My response was hoarse, uttered toward the ceiling as she kissed up and down my throat. With her daughter’s innocent face running like a reel through my mind, I searched inside myself for some kind of resolve. For courage. For a speck of integrity. “I should go. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have stayed. Shouldn’t have come back.”

Never should have come in the first place.

“You’re exactly where I want you to be,” she coaxed against my skin.

“Shea.” It was a plea for one of us to find reason.

“Please,” she whispered, hands sinking into my shoulders.

Weak.

Weak.

Weak.

That’s what she made me.

Groaning, I gave, because she already had me, and I swiveled a fraction, grabbed her by the hips, and pulled her onto my lap. She was quick to straddle me, a smile taking over her face as I palmed her ass, all those waves of shiny soft hair falling down around us.

“It’s hardly fair, you know,” she said.

“What’s not fair?”

“You…looking the way you do. Then you turn around and have a voice like that? Singing and playing that way?” She pulled back with a grin. “Tell me you don’t play guitar. You know what they say, a man with a guitar automatically becomes ten times sexier than any other guy in the room.”

I curbed a snort.

Didn’t I know it.

And that was exactly the shit I’d come to hate.

“Pair that with this face and this body…” she continued, purely playful.

Any other girl started talking like that and I’d have tossed her from my lap.

Instead, I kneaded my fingers deeper into the flesh of her ass, rocking her into my cock that was at the ready and begging for more.

Shivers rolled through her. “…and I would say you’re irresistible, Sebastian Stone.”

“Is that all you want me for…my body?” I teased, running my hands up her back, eliciting a pleasured whimper from her.

Fingertips played across my chest, and her expression turned vulnerable, that storm collecting speed. “Yeah. I do want this body.” Those fingers fluttered up to my jaw. “And I want this face.”

Eyes not leaving mine, she slowly leaned down and kissed me over my heart. “Most of all, I want this,” she murmured, hiding nothing, laying herself bare.

A.L. Jackson is the New York Times bestselling author of Take This Regret and Lost to You, as well as other contemporary romance titles, including Come to Me Quietly, Come to Me Softly, Pulled, When We Collide, and If Forever Comes.

She first found a love for writing during her days as a young mother and college student.  She filled the journals she carried with short stories and poems used as an emotional outlet for the difficulties and joys she found in day-to-day life.

Years later, she shared a short story she’d been working on with her two closest friends and, with their encouragement, this story became her first full length novel. A.L. now spends her days writing in Southern Arizona where she lives with her husband and three children. Her favorite pastime is spending time with the ones she loves.

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