Title:
Sweet Fall (Sweet Home #3)
Author: Tillie Cole
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Publication Date: 26th August 2014
Blog Tour Organised By: Kelly @ Have Book Will Read
Author: Tillie Cole
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Publication Date: 26th August 2014
Blog Tour Organised By: Kelly @ Have Book Will Read
From
the USA Today Best Selling Sweet Home Series, comes Sweet Fall;
a tale of heartache, beating the odds and finding strength in the most
unlikeliest of places.
We all have secrets.
Secrets well buried.
Until we find the one soul who makes the burden of such
secrets just that little bit easier to bear.
Lexington "Lexi" Hart is a senior at the
University of Alabama. Surrounded by her best friends, her loving family and
having fulfilled her life-long dream of making the Crimson Tide cheer squad,
everything is going exactly as she always dreamed it would. But beneath her
happy exterior, demons lurk, threatening to jeopardize everything Lexi has
worked to achieve.
When events in her life become too much to cope with, Lexi
finds herself spiraling down into the realm of her biggest fear. Lexi falls
hard, victim once again to the only thing that can destroy her and, on the way,
finds herself falling straight into the dangerous tattooed arms of a guy from
the wrong side of the tracks.
Austin Carillo, starting Wide Receiver for the Alabama
Crimson Tide, must get picked in this year's NFL draft. He needs it. His
brothers need it. Most importantly, his mother desperately needs it. Brought up
in a world where the poor are forgotten, the sick are left to fend for
themselves and no hero miraculously appears to pull you out of hell, Austin had
no other choice but to make a living on the wrong side of the law—until
football offered Austin the break to get his life back on track.
But when a family tragedy drags him back into the clutches
of the gang he believed he had left far behind, Austin finds himself falling.
Falling back into criminal ways and falling deep into a suffocating darkness.
Until a troubled yet kindred spirit stumbles across his path, where Austin
quickly finds he is falling for a young woman—a young woman who might just have
the power to save him from his worst enemy: himself.
Can two troubled souls find a lasting peace together? Or will they finally succumb to the
demons threatening to destroy them?
New Adult/Contemporary Romance novel—contains
adult content, sexual situations and mature topics. Suited for ages 17 and up.
*CAN BE READ
AS A STAND-ALONE NOVEL*
Almost black-brown eyes
narrowed as Austin studied my face, and I gripped my gym bag harder. But
something in his expression changed as his eyebrows rose, and I frowned.
What’s he seeing that’s so
shocking?
And then I remembered. I
hadn’t reapplied my makeup. I’d been so shaken by how easily the voice had
gotten through to me I’d just wanted to flee home.
I felt embarrassment, an
intense embarrassment that he was seeing me so raw and imperfect. I couldn’t
understand why it bothered me so much. He hated me, and I feared him. But I did
care. I cared so deeply that he’d seen the real me.
The girl who didn’t measure
up.
The girl with too many flaws.
“What the hell’re you doing
in here?” Carillo said coldly, shattering my thoughts, his emotionless
expression again firmly on his face.
“I-I-I—”
Austin stepped farther
forward. From his nearness, I could smell his scent, a deep woodsy musk, the
smell of a hard-played game. It just added to his darkness.
“I-I-I what?” He
laughed, unfeeling. “Why d’you always turn up where you’re not wanted? When
you’re not wanted? In places you ain’t supposed to be?”
I swallowed back nerves and
tried to back away, but he thrust out his hand, gripped my arm, and jerked me
forward.
I let out a small yelp. His
touch wasn’t painful. In fact, he was barely touching me at all, but he’d
surprised me, and I reluctantly looked into his eyes.
“Did you tell that guy
cheerleader anything today?” he hissed quietly.
Unable to find my voice, I
just frantically shook my head ‘no’.
Austin’s fingers tightened on
my arm. I instinctively tried to pull away.
“Answer me! He was staring at
me in fear the whole fuckin’ game!”
Inhaling deep, I managed to
squeak out, “I didn’t tell him anything.”
Austin’s narrowing eyes told
me he didn’t believe me.
“I promise, I didn’t. I swear
it. I told the dean nothing when he spoke to me. And Lyle… Lyle caught you
staring at me a few times and warned me about it. That’s all.” Wrenching back
my arm, I rubbed at the tender skin.
Austin ran his hands over his
dark hair and exhaled a relieved breath. But his eyes didn’t leave me for one
second.
As I watched him, it seemed
like he was fighting against something inside. But then his face frosted over.
His intimidating Heighter mask was back in place.
“You better not let what you
saw get out,” he warned icily. “I’m watching you.”
Finding strength from
somewhere unknown, I moved right before him, and this time, he stilled.
“I told you I wouldn’t say anything, and I won’t. I know what it’s like to have
a secret, to have something revealed that you want to keep well hidden. Believe
me, I do. So I won’t say a thing to no one, but you are making
people talk. You are the one messing up, glaring at me like you wanna
murder me, garnering people’s attention when the dean already suspects I’ve
seen something. You’re not successfully hiding your emotions.”
He didn’t say anything in
response, and I lowered my eyes from his intense gaze, only to come face to face
with a huge tattooed crucifix on his bare chest, a crying Mary, Mother of
Christ at its base and Mary looking up at Jesus in agony, her face ripped apart
by grief at seeing her son strung up on the cross… dying.
They were
everywhere—religious tattoos—covering almost every inch of his upper body, and
he had full sleeves on each arm. Most were religious, some in a foreign
language. It looked like Italian.
Austin’s huge arms suddenly
crossed over his chest and his nostrils flared with anger. “Just get the fuck
out,” he ordered coldly.
Without hesitation, I turned
around to leave, only glancing back to bravely say, “You terrify me, Carillo.
I’m afraid of you. Are you happy about that? I know who you are, the
family you come from, where you come from. I’ve been reliably informed.
So you can stop with the threats, the dirty looks. I get that you’re bad news.
I get it. You’ve got me unable to sleep at night with fear. I know
you’re dangerous and you would probably have no remorse in harming me, if I
talk. I’m not dumb. So I beg, please, just leave me alone. I will never speak
about what I saw. But I need you to leave me alone.”
I didn’t stick around to see
his reaction. I just ran all the way back to my sorority house and up to my
room on the fourth floor.
Tillie Cole is a Northern girl through and
through. She originates from a place called Teesside on that little but
awesomely sunny (okay I exaggerate) Isle called Great Britain. She was brought
up surrounded by her English rose mother -- a farmer's daughter, her crazy
Scottish father, a savagely sarcastic sister and a multitude of rescue animals
and horses.
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