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AGAINST THE WALL
Jill Sorenson
Jill Sorenson
Releasing on February 2, 2016
Loveswept
Fans of Katie McGarry, Simone Elkeles, and Tammara
Webber will love Against the Wall! As teenagers, they fell for each other
despite the odds. But now that Eric and Meghan are all grown up, they’re
reunited by fierce passion and dangerous secrets.
Eric Hernandez is the bad boy of every schoolgirl’s
fantasies—and every mother’s nightmares. But after serving time for manslaughter,
he’s ready to turn his life around. He just needs a chance to prove himself as
a professional tattoo artist. The one thing that keeps him going is the memory
of the innocent beauty he loved and left behind.
Meghan Young’s world isn’t as perfect as it looks. The
preacher’s daughter is living a lie, especially now that Eric is back. Tougher,
harder, and sexier than ever, he might be the only person she can trust. But
there’s no telling what he’ll do to protect her if he learns the truth, and that’s
a risk Meghan won’t let him take. And yet, back in the arms of the troubled boy
with the artist’s soul, Meghan can’t help surrendering to the man he’s become.
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Excerpt
I
didn’t want a party.
I’ve
been out three months, living in the court-mandated halfway house in Chino
Hills. I did thirty months of hard time and I’ll be on parole for another
thirteen—if I stay out of trouble.
Easier
said than done.
Today
is my first day back in Chula Vista, the border town where I was born. It’s the
only place I’ve ever called home. The only place I’ve ever been,
besides Mexico. And prison. I’m still down for my barrio, Castle Park. I can
hold my head high on these streets. I’ll probably die on these streets.
I
told April not to make a big deal out of my homecoming, but I can see the
decorations as soon as Jenny opens the door. Pink fucking balloons, like my
prison release is a baby shower. I gave birth to a violent criminal record.
Congrats!
Jenny
is my niece, the daughter of my dead brother, Raul. She’s eight years old and
cute as hell. I’ve only seen her a few times since I got locked up. April
brought her to visit on my twenty-third birthday, about nine months ago. My
eyes feel funny when I look at her.
She
doesn’t hug me or say a word. She just smiles shyly, revealing a gummy gap
between her front teeth. It reminds me of Chucho, one of my cellmates. He had
missing teeth and a goofy smile that lit up his tattooed face.
“I’m
looking for a little girl named Jenny,” I say. “She’s about this tall.” I hold
my palm at my side, indicating a shorter kid.
“I’m
Jenny,” she says, giggling.
“You
can’t be! You’re too big.”
She
steps aside to let me in. I set my backpack by the door. I took the bus from
Chino Hills to the Chula Vista transit station and walked the last six blocks
to the house. April is standing a few feet away next to her husband. She’s
already crying.
Jee-sus.
How
am I supposed to hold it together when she’s falling apart? I clear my throat
and focus on Jenny again. She’s wearing a green dress. Her dark, shiny hair has
pink ribbons in it. She’s the spitting image of her mother. Pretty and sweet,
untainted by my brother’s bad blood.
I
crouch down and remove a hastily wrapped present from my backpack. “I’m sorry I
missed your birthday.”
Birthdays,
plural. I’d missed three of them.
It’s
just one of those balero cup toys, the kind with the
ball on a string, but Jenny acts like it’s the best gift ever. Her delighted
expression makes my eyes burn again. I have to take a deep breath to recover.
“What
do you say?” April prompts.
“Thank
you,” Jenny says, a dimple appearing in her cheek.
I
straighten to greet April next. Her face is rounder, her body lush in a new
way. She’s wearing a flowery top that clings to her breasts but hangs like a
drape over her middle. When she steps forward to embrace me, her stomach bumps
into mine.
“You’ve
gained some weight,” I say in Spanish, a kinder language for pointing out such
things.
She
releases me with a laugh, wiping the tears from her eyes. Then she rests a hand
on the gentle slope of her belly. She’s always been beautiful. Her pregnancy
accentuates her best qualities, giving her softer features and fuller breasts.
Noah
steps forward and slides his arm around her. His big hand covers hers,
protective. He’s noticed my appraisal of his wife’s new curves, but he’s too
pleased with the proof of his virility to glare at me.
He’s
okay, for a cop.
Officer
Young spoke on my behalf at the sentencing hearing. If he hadn’t, the judge
might have slapped me with ten years, the maximum for manslaughter. Instead I
got the minimum, minus six months.
I’m
lucky to be out. Lucky to be alive.
“Looks
like you’ve been busy,” I say to Noah. I shake his hand and pat him on the
back, as if he’s accomplished this feat on his own. He laughs and April rolls
her eyes at us. I’m grinning from ear to ear, happy for them both.
“We’re
due in August,” April says.
“Boy
or a girl?”
“We
don’t know. We want it to be a surprise.”
A
surprise. Like this party. In addition to pink balloons, the living room is
decorated with pale blue streamers and a handmade sign that says welcome home, eric. But this isn’t my home, and it never will
be. It’s Noah’s home, and April’s and Jenny’s.
And
. . . Meghan’s.
I
realize that I’m searching the background for her. My smile slips and my chest
tightens with unease.
Meghan
won’t be happy to see me. The last time I saw her, when she’d visited the jail
where I was processed, I said a lot of nasty things to her. I said she was an
easy lay, that I’d had better, that I didn’t care about her.
Lies.
Noah
doesn’t seem mad at me for disrespecting his little sister, so I’m assuming she
didn’t share the details of our breakup. Or maybe he’s so high on baby-making
with his hot wife that he can’t be brought down. They look great together, like
a perfect family from a TV show. Except that April and Jenny are of Mexican
heritage, same as me.
I
feel a mild sort of resentment over the situation: Tall, handsome white guy—a
gang unit cop, no less—swoops in and snaps up one of the nicest, most beautiful
girls from the hood. Then I remember that I fucked his sister. And probably
broke her heart, if only for a few brief weeks during an already tumultuous
time.
“Meghan’s
not here yet,” April says, as if she can read my thoughts.
I
shrug it off. “I said I didn’t want a party.”
“This
isn’t a party. It’s just us.”
What I thought about Against the Wall
Jill Sorenson is one of my favorite romantic suspense authors, so I was absolutely thrilled to read and review this title.
Just released from prison for serving time for manslaughter, Eric Hernandez is determined to make something of his life through his art, but staying out of trouble isn't easy. There's lots of temptation in front of Eric. His old friends in the gang are seeking him out and he's living with his ex-girlfriend's brother while he's getting on his feet. He hasn't forgotten Meghan, not by any means, but he knows Noah won't be happy about his sister taking up with an ex-con. He tries to keep his hands off but that isn't easy, especially after three years in prison.
Meghan never forgot her first love, and even though she's living with Chip, she can't wait to see Eric when he gets out of prison. They have history together, and just having Eric around opens up her eyes to the problems in her relationship with Chip. When Chip becomes abusive to her, it's Eric that saves the day, resulting in these two live wires living in the same house.
Figuring out how that would end was a no brainer. There's a lot of chemistry between these two and it goes beyond physical attraction. Neither Eric nor Meghan have forgotten their feelings for each other, and things follow the course nature intended.
But Eric's past catches up with him in a major way, and he's got to make some serious decisions about his future -- does he want to return to the gang life or not?
Jill Sorenson is a master at taking a flawed character and making him likeable and redeemable. I adored Eric in Against the Wall. He's rough around the edges, but he's committed to staying out of prison, and his resolve is evident even though he's facing many challenges. Meghan is a likeable character, too. She's trying to do the right thing too, although her consequences aren't as serious as Eric's.
There are some lovely secondary characters that work with Eric to put him on the right path and I loved that part of the story. It gave me hope that Eric would keep it together in a permanent way.
Overall, I enjoyed Against the Wall and was invested in finding out whether Eric could give up the gang life in the face of challenges and whether he could make a go of it with Meghan. Jill Sorenson did not disappoint!
ARC provided for review.
Jill Sorenson is the RITA-nominated author of
more than a dozen romantic-suspense novels. She has a degree in literature and
writing from California State University. Her books have been selected as
Red-Hot Reads by Cosmopolitan magazine, and have received starred reviews from
Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. Sorenson currently lives in
the San Diego area with her family. She’s a soccer mom who loves nature,
coffee, reading, Twitter, and reality TV.
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