Author: Leigh Talbert Moore
Publisher: Leigh Talbert Moore
Published: July 18th 2013
Format: eBook | Pages: 239
Genre: Mature YA+, Contemporary, Romance
Source: Blog tour ARC in exchange for an honest review
★★★★ (4/5) Stars!
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"An incredibly powerful sequel to Dragonfly. I found myself riveted to the last page by the dept of feeling, loss, tragedy, and love in this gorgeously woven story. This is a definite must-read." --Jolene Perry, author of Out of Play
Falling in love will pull you under...
Bill Kyser has a plan to take the sandy farms of his hometown and turn them into a world-class tourist destination--and become a billionaire in the process.
Alexandra "Lexy" LaSalle has a plan to change her life by becoming a world-famous artist.
Meg Weaver has a plan to hold onto Bill no matter what she has to do.Three friends, three dreams.
One fatal decision will change all their lives forever.
In Dragonfly, Bill Kyser gave Anna the three journals that held the story behind the powerful developer's seclusion and the damaged lives of his family members.
Anna hoped to find a way for Julian to know the truth, but as she digs deeper into the tragic events of the past, she realizes silence could be the only option.
Now she's in an alliance with the man she formerly feared. And if Julian finds out what she knows, she could lose for good the boy she's starting to love.
My Review:
I received a copy of this book for a blog tour in exchange for an honest review. For the majority of Undertow, we follow along as Anna takes advantage of her parents being away for the weekend, to start reading the journals that Bill Kyser gave her at the end of Dragonfly. The journals allow us to dive into the parental love triangle from the past. Honestly I was a bit worried before starting this. I was really excited to get back to Julian and Anna, well mostly Julian. You know one track mind and all. But did I really want to be that involved with all the baggage from the past? Turns out I did. I was truly fascinated with their stories. It was very emotional and tough to read each one of their journals and interpretations of how the fateful events took place.
I wavered in my liking of Meg, from not only her journal but reading each one of their journals. You get to see so many sides of each of them, yet Meg inspired quite a bit of sympathy from me. Well, for obvious reasons. When first introduced to her through her journal, she seemed to represent everything that annoys me. She's like one of those southern belle/socialite/debutante types you know? A bit self absorbed. She has her life all planned out. The perfect wedding to the perfect guy, four perfect children, ruling the town so to speak. But the more I read the more my heart started to break for her. Anyone can see she really lived in this fantasy bubble, completely blind to the reality of her situation. Sort of made me tear up a bit too. She was so young and naive in so many ways and yet also devious and manipulative. She had her plans and she wouldn't let anything or anyone stop her from achieving them, least of all her husband. She was far from innocent and the lengths she would go to were so beyond selfish and, like I said, manipulative. But still my heart hurt for her.
The same couldn't be said for Alex. Absolutely could not stand her. I know for the most part it was because of what she did to her best friend, whom she considered a sister. Sorry you don't betray people you care about that way. She was the only person I never felt anything except total dislike for. Probably not fair because she wasn't the only person involved. But she completely disappointed me and was the target of all my built up frustration in the situation. Had we been in Salem in the late 1600s I'd have been shouting for someone to burn her at the stake! And the deeper it got into her journal it never lessened. It just got worse.
I think of all people, believe it or not, I felt the most for Bill. He was pretty much screwed from the very beginning. He had his life all planned out before he even graduated high school. It was impressive actually, you don't see that a lot. And he was driven and focused. It's so different from how I felt about him in Dragonfly. There I found him to be cold and mean and distant and just a complete and total prick. I know I'm good at sugar coating things right? Ha! But truly, this book has completely flipped my view on him and I can understand why he is how he comes off. It's still no excuse for his actions. But I get it. He wanted his life to go a certain way and he faced all of that being taken away from him through another's lies and deception. Once again nobody was innocent but in the end Bill really got a bad deal.
Overall delving into the complicated, swirling emotions and lives of Meg, Alex and Bill was far more interesting than I thought it was going to be. It pulled me in and had me hanging on each and every word just dying to know find out how the story plays out to each one of them. I didn't get to see as much of the present time as I would have liked, but in the end...I'm okay with that and what I read. Very excited to move on to Watercolor in October. That's just so far...
About the author:
Leigh Talbert Moore is the author of the popular young adult romantic comedy The Truth About Faking, its companion The Truth About Letting Go, and the mature YA/new adult romantic suspense novel Rouge, a Quarter Finalist in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.
She is an award-winning journalist and editor, who has also worked in marketing and public relations for many years. Her writing has appeared in newspapers and magazines across the southeast and Midwest U.S., and she runs the popular writing-craft blog That’s Write.
A southern ex-pat and beach bum, she currently lives with her husband, two young children, and one grumpy cat in the Midwest.
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