Reality Bites! Let's Get Lost!: Blog Tour Review & Giveaway: Making Faces by Amy Harmon

Making Faces

By: Amy Harmon

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18301124-making-faces?from_search=true

Ambrose Young was beautiful. He was tall and muscular, with hair that touched his shoulders and eyes that burned right through you. The kind of beautiful that graced the covers of romance novels, and Fern Taylor would know. She'd been reading them since she was thirteen. But maybe because he was so beautiful he was never someone Fern thought she could have...until he wasn't beautiful anymore.

Making Faces is the story of a small town where five young men go off to war, and only one comes back. It is the story of loss. Collective loss, individual loss, loss of beauty, loss of life, loss of identity. It is the tale of one girl's love for a broken boy, and a wounded warrior's love for an unremarkable girl. This is a story of friendship that overcomes heartache, heroism that defies the common definitions, and a modern tale of Beauty and the Beast, where we discover that there is a little beauty and a little beast in all of us.

*ARC provided by author for an honest review*

I have started and stopped this review so. many. times! Nothing I write seems to do it justice. It is the kind of story that makes me want to stand up on my soapbox and shout "Just trust me, this is a book you MUST read!!" To anyone who will listen.

The end.

But then I know that isn't far to the author nor the characters. Because they gave me so much of themselves in this book. They bared their heart and soul while telling their stories. So, I am going to attempt to write a review that will do an adequate job of expressing how I feel about this book.

Here goes nothing....

Sometimes, you find a book that takes your breath away. One that wraps itself around your heart and holds on tight from beginning to end, and even long after. Making Faces is definitely one of those books for me. I cried so may times through out the pages of this book. But all the tears were worth it because the messages are valuable ones.

Fern, Ambrose and Bailey are all faced individual struggles. Each one different, but each just as important as the other. I don't want to go into any details about what those struggle were as i feel that would be ruining the story for you. What i will say is, I loved that even though they handled them valiantly most of the time, there were bad days. They were strong yet vulnerable at the same time. They all had moments of weakness of asking why me, but it wasn't the sum of who they are. And for me, it made their message that much stronger.

My take-away from this book is this...don't judge others. Not by the way they look, because of their choices in life, or because of their circumstances. Some of the toughest people out there are the ones you would least expect to be. And the ones who struggle daily, are the one you believe are flying high and have it all. You never know what someone goes through on a daily basis.

Definitely a book that now sits amongst my all time favorites!

He didn’t know how to make her understand that she was so much more than just pretty. So he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. Very carefully. Not like the other night when he’d been scared and impulsive, and smacked her head against the wall in his attempt to kiss her. He kissed her now to tell her how he felt. He pulled away almost immediately, not giving himself a chance to linger and lose his head. He wanted to show her he valued her, not that he wanted to rip her clothes off. And he wasn’t sure when it came right down to it that she wanted to be kissed by an ugly SOB. She was the kind of girl that would kiss him because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. The thought filled him with despair.

She let out a frustrated sigh and sat up, running her hands through her hair. It flowed through her fingers and down her back, and he wished he could bury his own hands in it, bury his face in the heavy locks and breathe her in. But he’d obviously upset her.

“I’m sorry, Fern. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why?” she snapped, startling him enough that he winced. “Why are you sorry?”

“Because you’re upset.”

“I’m upset because you pulled away! You’re so careful. And it’s frustrating!”

Ambrose was taken back by her honesty, and he smiled, instantly flattered. But the smile faded as he tried to explain himself.

“You’re so small, Fern. Delicate. And all of this is new to you. I’m afraid I’m going to come on too strong. And if I break you or hurt you, I won’t survive that, Fern. I won’t survive it.” That thought was worse than walking away from her and he shuddered inwardly. He wouldn’t survive it. He had already hurt too many. Lost too many.

Fern knelt in front of him, and her chin wobbled and her eyes were wide with emotion. Her voice was adamant as she held his face between her hands, and when he tried to pull away so she wouldn’t feel his scars, she hung on, forcing his gaze.

“Ambrose Young! I have waited my whole life for you to want me. If you don’t hold me tight I won’t believe you mean it, and that’s worse than never being held at all. You better make me believe you mean it, Ambrose, or you will most definitely break me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Fern,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Then don’t,” she whispered back, trusting him. But there were lots of ways to cause pain. And Ambrose knew he was capable of hurting her in a thousand ways.

Ambrose stopped trying to pull his face away, surrendering to the way it felt to be touched. He hadn’t allowed anyone to touch him for a long time. Her hands were small, like the rest of her, but the emotions they stirred in him were enormous, gigantic, all-consuming. She made him shake, made him quake inside, vibrate like the tracks under an on-coming train.

Her hands left his face and traveled down the sides of his neck. One side smooth, the other riddled with divots and scars and rippled where the skin had been damaged. She didn’t pull away, but felt each mark, memorized each wound. And then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his neck, just below his jaw. And then again on the other side, on the side that bore no scars, letting him know that the kiss wasn’t about sympathy but desire. It was a caress. And his control broke.

BN: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/making-faces-amy-harmon/1117181228?ean=2940148553083&itm=1&usri=making+faces

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Making-Faces-ebook/dp/B00F0XL3B2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1382544744&sr=8-2&keywords=making+faces

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00F0XL3B2

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/366894

Amy Harmon knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story.

Amy Harmon has been a motivational speaker, a grade school teacher, a junior high teacher, a home school mom, and a member of the Grammy Award winning Saints Unified Voices Choir, directed by Gladys Knight. She released a Christian Blues CD in 2007 called “What I Know” – also available on Amazon and wherever digital music is sold. She has written five novels, Running Barefoot, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue and coming October 20, Making Faces.