Author Archives: Jason

Restore Me
Series: Wrecked #1
Author: J. L. Mac

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

Navigating the world alone is all Josephine Geroux has ever known. Life altering tragedy struck early on for her. She endured an admirable struggle through her youth and learned the hard way how to adapt and survive. She managed to arrive at adulthood in one piece in spite of it all. 

After such chaos, maintaining a life free of complications is a priority for her. 
Everything changed when a man with amber eyes came through her door and claimed her heart. She fell hard in more ways than one. The pull between Jo and Damon seemed like fate bringing things full circle.

With another devastating loss looming, Jo fights to hold on to the very thing that brought her to her knees. She finds herself torn between a promising future and clinging to a devastating past.
But that’s not the most worrisome problem on her hands. 

She must convince more than just herself to let the past stay in the past, where it belongs, but on her journey to find closure and resolution, she does the exact opposite. An old wound caused by a heinous act becomes exposed for what it is. The truth is catastrophic and Jo is helpless, watching as the ruins of her fragile world endure more turmoil. 

Can something conceived from tragedy and malice end well? Can something so completely poisoned conquer adversity? Jo is left to make a decision; accept the circumstances she finds herself in or fight with unwavering ferocity to restore what has been damaged.

Restore Me is the second book in the Wrecked series by author J. L. Mac.

Talk about going from one end of the character personality spectrum to the other!  In the last book, I couldn’t stand Jo’s attitude and I thought Damon was a whipped puppy at times.  With this second book in the series, Damon became a cold man and Jo became the whiny and wimpy girl.  Granted, at times Jo was still bad mouth tough with a chip on her shoulder, but overall she was the one who did most of the begging in this book.

While the writing was much better in this one — with a better pace than the previous one — I still couldn’t connect with the characters.  I think it was mainly the fact that the characters were complete opposites of what they started out to be in the first book.  I will say that Grams might have been even better in this book and I think even though she is a side character, she is still my favorite.

The revelation at the end was kind of predictable only because this character is mentioned and brought into the story much more than in the previous book.  I also have a ‘feeling’ about another side character that could be a problem in the next book.

While I enjoyed this book better than the first one, I am still on the fence about this series as a whole.  I feel that the characters just didn’t ‘speak to me’ and it makes me hesitant on reading the next one.

Wreck Me
Series: Wrecked #1
Author: J.L. Mac

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

Life can be cruel. People can be ruthless and evil. The world can be cold and uninviting. No one knows these things better than Josephine Geroux. By her own definition, she is a twenty-five year old “nobody with nothing,” and she is content to stay that way. Growing up an orphan has made her tough and indifferent to the people around her until she meets a strangely familiar man with a face that haunts her for reasons she can’t understand.

Despite the pain that will inevitably ensue, she makes it her mission to discover what parts of her tragic puzzle she is missing. On her journey to discovering why the she feels an alarming connection to an absolute stranger, her greatest fear is reawakening the demons and darkness from the past that will surely overtake her if she lets her guard down. 

Little does Josephine know that the past should be the least of her worries. She is toying with a man who has already broken her heart once. She just doesn’t realize it.

Although she makes it a point to avoid interactions with others, Josephine’s life becomes entangled with the enigmatic stranger. Before she realizes it, she has given herself over to the one person who is close enough to wreck her.

Wreck Me is the first book in the Wrecked series by author J.L. Mac.

This has to be one of the hardest reviews to write.  I am so on the fence with the rating that I am still not sure if I the one I give is the right one or not.  I had a really hard time reading this book.  The other reviews were so conflicting that I ended up buying it anyway to form my own opinion.

The pacing of this book is fast.  I am talking instant love and devotion in the space of 24 hours or less. Not only do they start sleeping together right away — which I can handle in a romance book — the showering of gifts and attention is almost instant.  I was shaking my head through the first half of this book.  I even complained about reading it to the point of forcing myself to read the rest of it.  Jo was not a character I enjoyed.  Sure, she has had a rough life but her attitude was rude and obnoxious.  Damon could be Alpha Male in the bedroom, but the rest of the time he was like the puppy he bought for Jo.  He bordered on sappy at times and trying too hard with Jo. I think my favorite character of this book though is a Damon’s Grandmother.  She was funny and kept my interest when she was in the scenes.

There are also grammatical errors that could be annoying to some readers, but honestly I don’t usually pay attention to those things since I make plenty of mistakes myself.  So if this is a big thing for you as a reader, be prepared for some.

As I approached the last quarter of this book though, it started to turn around.  I started to fall for Damon and I felt his pain.  While I don’t agree with his final decision in the last chapter, I can see the setup for the next book because of it.  This is where it is hard to make a final decision for my rating.  I hate that I had to wait until the last part of the book to finally find myself feeling for the characters and starting to enjoy the writing.  I couldn’t understand why the first 2/3 of the book couldn’t be as good as the last 1/3.

Since the ending is left on such a cliffhanger, I am compelled to read the next book. Now that I have made a connection with the characters, I need to see the outcome of the decisions they have made.  I am hoping that the next book will have the gusto that the last part of this book had.