One Favorite Moment Event and Giveaway: Ten Tiny Breaths Series by K.A. Tucker

I'm sort of happy and slightly sad to see this series ending.  I've loved each and every book in this series. With the release of In Her Wake tomorrow, author K.A. Tucker will be putting some of my favorite characters behind her (for now hopefully), as she explores the other stories clamoring to be written.  I think the idea to share one favorite moment is wonderful, but I have so many, four books worth, so I decided to share one moment from each novel.

You can click on each cover and it'll take you to my review.  This series is a must read for any one who loves romance and suspense.  

The best place to start is where this journey all began, with Ten Tiny Breaths.  I'd read it on;y after it'd been published by Atria and when I went to my local Barnes & Noble to see if they had it, I had to place an order to get it.  I told the gentleman at the customer help desk, "I'm looking for Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A. Tucker."  He typed it in and looked it up and told me, "I'm sorry we don't have it."  It turns out he'd heard Ten Tiny Breasts and not Breaths.  :p

Just breathe, Kacey. Ten tiny breaths. Seize them. Feel them. Love them.

Four years ago Kacey Cleary’s life imploded when her car was hit by a drunk driver, killing her parents, boyfriend and best friend. Still haunted by memories of being trapped inside, holding her boyfriend’s lifeless hand and listening to her mother take her last breath, Kacey wants to leave her past behind. Armed with two bus tickets, twenty year old Kacey and her fifteen year old sister Livie escape Grand Rapids, Michigan to start over in Miami. Struggling to make ends meet, Kacey needs to figure out how to get by. But Kacey’s not worried. She can handle anything—anything but her mysterious neighbor in apartment 1D.

Trent Emerson has smoldering blue eyes, deep dimples, and perfectly skates that irresistible line between nice guy and bad boy. Hardened by her tragic past, Kacey is determined to keep everyone at a distance, but their mutual attraction is undeniable and Trent is determined to find a way into Kacey’s guarded heart—even if it means that an explosive secret could shatter both their worlds.

***Caution: Mature content! Not suitable for younger readers. Contains reference to drugs, swearing, and sexual content ***

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I have so many favorite moments from this book.  One that stands out in my memory as being both hilarious and hot is the shower scene when Kacey sees something disturbing and starts screaming at the top of her lungs.  For those of you who've read the book, you'll know what I'm talking about.  I was laughing so hard I was crying and then the next moment my body temperature was going through the roof because of what happened after Kacey got out of that shower.

Livie has always been the stable one of the two Cleary sisters, handling her parents' tragic death and Kacey's self-destructive phase with strength and maturity. But underneath that exterior is a little girl hanging onto the last words her father ever spoke to her. “Make me proud,” he had said. She promised she would...and she’s done her best over the past seven years with every choice, with every word, with every action.

Livie walks into Princeton with a solid plan, and she’s dead set on delivering on it: Rock her classes, set herself up for medical school, and meet a good, respectable guy that she’s going to someday marry. What isn’t part of her plan are Jell-O shots, a lovable, party animal roommate she can’t say ‘no’ to, and Ashton, the gorgeous captain of the men’s rowing team. Definitely him. He’s an arrogant ass who makes Livie’s usually non-existent temper flare and everything she doesn’t want in a guy. Worse, he’s best friends and roommates with Connor, who happens to fit Livie’s criteria perfectly. So why does she keep thinking about Ashton?

As Livie finds herself facing mediocre grades, career aspirations she no longer thinks she can handle, and feelings for Ashton that she shouldn’t have, she’s forced to let go of her last promise to her father and, with it, the only identity that she knows.  

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You may not know this, but I actually read One Tiny Lie first.  I wasn't very impressed with the blurb for Ten Tiny Breaths, but this book had an athlete and a girl going off to college for the first time, who was completely out of her comfort zone, and that's all I needed to know.  It had actually sounded less angsty, but I quickly realized how much I loved all the emotions I felt as I read this book.  It's actually what led me to read Ten Tiny Breaths.  I remember thinking, "If this book is this good, the first one has to be as good too.  I mean she went from being indie to publishing traditionally, all those rave reviews couldn't have been wrong." 

Once again there so many parts of this book I love, but there's nothing as exciting to me as the first time Livie and Ashton meet. There's something so sweet and funny about the way they find themselves in each other's lives.  I love seeing a happy Kacey in that scene too.  You sort of get a sense of what's to come from that meeting and the scene that follows the morning after.  

I believe you don’t have years, or months, or weeks to impact a person’s life. You have seconds. Seconds to win them over, and seconds to lose them.
Owning a strip club isn’t the fantasy most guys expect it to be. With long hours, a staff with enough issues to keep a psych ward in business, and the police regularly on his case, twenty-nine-year-old Cain is starting to second-guess his unspoken mission to save the women he employs. And then blond, brown-eyed Charlie Rourke walks through his door, and things get really complicated. Cain abides by a strict “no sleeping with his staff” rule. But being around Charlie challenges Cain’s self-control . . . and it’s been a long time since any woman has done that.

Twenty-two-year-old Charlie Rourke needs a lot of money, really fast, in order to vanish before it’s too late. Taking her clothes off for men makes her stomach curl, but Charlie tells herself that at least she’s putting her acting and dancing skills to good use. And though her fellow dancers seem eager to nab their sexy, sophisticated, and genuinely caring boss, she’s not interested. After all, Charlie Rourke doesn’t really exist—and the girl pretending to be her can’t get distracted by romance.

Unfortunately, Charlie soon discovers that developing feelings for Cain is inevitable, and that those feelings may not be unrequited—but losing him when he finds out what she’s involved with will be more painful than any other sentence awaiting her.

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I've never been able to look at strippers and strip club owners the same way after reading this book and series. Cain was an enigma from the very first book and I was very excited to be getting his story.  As I read this book, there were moments when the knot of apprehension in my stomach was enough to make me stop breathing.  I was terrified for Charlie and Cain.

My favorite moment from this book is actually at the end.  Cain does something for Charlie that goes against his grain, his moral code, and who he is, to ensure that Charlie is free from the demon that chases her relentlessly.  Love is always powerful, but he redefines it.  And just thinking about it bringing tears to my eyes.  As scared as I was to read this book, I think it's one of the most powerful I've read.  

Sometimes you can’t change—and sometimes you just don’t want to. Discover Ben’s side of the story in this fourth novel by the beloved, top-selling indie author of Ten Tiny Breaths, One Tiny Lie, and Four Seconds to Lose.

Purple-haired, sharp-tongued Reese MacKay knows all about making the wrong choice; she’s made plenty of them in her twenty-odd-years. So when her impulsive, short-lived marriage ends in heartbreak, she decides it’s time for a change. She moves to Miami with the intention of hitting reset on her irresponsible life, and she does quite well…aside from an epically humiliating one-night stand in Cancun with a hot blond bouncer named Ben. Thank God she can get on a plane and leave that mistake behind her.

Football scholarship and frat parties with hot chicks? Part of charmer Ben Morris’s plan. Blown knee that kills any hope of a professional football career? So not part of the plan. Luckily Ben has brains to go with his knockout looks and magnetism. After three long years of balancing law school with his job as a bouncer at Penny’s Palace, he’s ready to lead a more mature life—until his first day of work, when he finds himself in the office of that crazy, hot chick he met in Cancun. The one he hasn’t stopped thinking about.

If Ben truly were a smart guy, he’d stay clear of Reese. She’s the boss’s stepdaughter and it’s been made very clear that office romances are grounds for dismissal. Plus, rumor has it she’s trouble. The only problem is, he likes trouble, especially when it’s so good-looking…

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Ben was another character I loved from the first book.  He was lovable but unabashedly a man whore.  When I met Reese, I thought, "She's perfect for him!" and I was right. 

My favorite moment from this book takes place at Ben's family home.  I got to see a side of him at home I'd never expected to see.  The way Ben helped his mom melted my heart and I loved how much he opened up to Reese while there.  I loved how Reese softened too.  It's like the best parts of their personalities came out when they were there.

Author’s Note: Although it is a prequel, In Her Wake is best read after completing Ten Tiny Breaths.Before you knew him as Trent in Ten Tiny Breaths, he was Cole Reynolds—and he had it all. Until one night when he makes a fatal, wrong decision…and loses everything.

When a drunken night out at a Michigan State college party results in the death of six people, Cole must come to terms with his part in the tragedy. Normally, he’d be able to lean on his best friends—the ones who have been in his life since he could barely walk. Only, they’re gone. Worse, there’s the shattered body of a sixteen-year-old girl lying somewhere in a hospital bed, her entire life ripped from her because of a case of beer and a set of keys.

Everyone assures him that they know it wasn’t intentional, and yet he can’t ignore the weight of their gazes, the whispers behind his back. Nor can he shake the all-consuming guilt he feels every time he thinks of that girl who won’t so much as allow him near her hospital room to apologize. As the months go by and the shame and loneliness festers, Cole begins to lose his grip on what once was important—college, his girlfriend, his future. His life. It’s not until Cole hits rock-bottom that he can begin to see another way out of his personal hell: forgiveness.

And there’s only one person who can give that to him…

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I can't wait to share my review and favorite moment from In Her Wake with you tomorrow!

About K.A. Tucker:

Born in small-town Ontario, Kathleen published her first book at the age of six with the help of her elementary school librarian and a box of crayons. She is a voracious reader and the farthest thing from a genre-snob, loving everything from High Fantasy to Chick Lit. Kathleen currently resides in a quaint small town outside of Toronto with her husband, two beautiful girls, and an exhausting brood of four-legged creatures.

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