Release Blitz + Review | Defiant Attraction by V.K. Torston --> 3 Stars
TITLE: Defiant Attraction AUTHOR: V.K. Torston GENRE: New Adult, Erotic romance
RELEASE DATE: November 16th, 2017
Dan might be the enemy of my enemy, but I’m not sure that makes him my friend. He’s definitely not my ‘step brother’, no matter what everyone at school says. Honestly, I don’t know what he’s supposed to be to me. Or what he’s becoming…
Fact: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In the yearbook, I’ll be Sophia Ramos: Valedictorian. Years of honor roll certificates, AP classes, and lugging around an obnoxiously large cello case are about to finally pay off. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll escape these decaying suburbs for a top university across the country.
The problem? A few years ago, my mom met someone just as broke, just as drunk, and just as impulsive as she is. Approximately five seconds into their relationship, they decided it would be an excellent idea for him—and his son, Dan—to move in with us. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t).
Now I share a house with none other than Daniel Cole. Even though Dan dropped out two years ago, he’s still the tattooed, bad boy, heartthrob, legend of St. Anthony’s Academy. He and I aren’t supposed to have anything in common.
Living together means war. First, Dan and I were at war with each other. Now, our rivalry is giving way to an unlikely alliance—two opposing sides teaming up against a common enemy: our respective parents.
Which is to say, we’ve been hanging out.
Question: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
Here’s the thing: My brain is a complex organ. One hundred billion neurons, each with an average of seven thousand synaptic connections to other neurons. My brain is my ticket out of here.
My heart, by contrast, is a pump. It moves blood around.
I know Dan is off-limits. I know I shouldn’t do something I’ll regret. And I know how much is at stake (my family, my future).
So why can’t I stop thinking about him? Those inscrutable jade eyes. The smile that can say a thousand different things at once. That tattoo curving across his abs…
Even though I know better, I feel that pounding in my chest. And it’s getting harder to ignore.
But if I follow my heart, I can never go back.
Answer: There is no such thing as an immovable object.
⭐️ 3 Stars ⭐️
I was intrigued by Defiant Attraction when I was offered a copy to review by the author. While this book didn’t completely convince me, I still enjoyed parts of it.
"His nearness feels like torture. His distance feels even worse."
Sophia lives in a dysfunctional home with her drunk mom, her mom’s boyfriend and his son Dan. In spite of this less than stellar living situation, she’s a determined heroine dreaming of evading to Stanford after graduation. She connects with Dan and they soon jump into a somewhat forbidden relationship. It’s where the drama starts to really unfold.
I enjoyed the beautiful way the author wrote the story, sometimes poetic. However, I had difficulty to understand the instant lust between Sophia and Dan that came from nowhere in my opinion. They’re barely interacting and suddenly they’re always trying to sneak some sexy times together. I didn’t feel their connection at the start, but this couple gradually grew on me. The story was lacking feels and development for me to be totally believable, but the second half was really better. I appreciated the way the story took a little intrigue and was entertaining.
"He gives me one soft kiss like a punctuation mark. A period, or maybe an ellipsis. I pull him to me one last time and kiss him deep - an exclamation point.
In definitive, V.K. Torston presented a first novel that is interesting, but still need a little more feels in my opinion to be completely attention grabbing. Still, she did a nice work and I’m looking forward to read her next books.
T.K. TORSTON
V.K. Torston is a millennial and ‘cool aunt’ to a brood of nieces and nephews. She was born and raised in San Francisco, attended university in New York City, and aspires to one day live in London. A veteran of the independent music scene, she began writing nonfiction in her late teens. Then she realized that making up stories was way more fun than coming up with endless synonyms for ‘frenetic’ and ‘danceable.’ Her hobbies include drinking too much coffee, making up stupid songs, and ranting about current events. Defiant Attraction is her first novel.
