Blog Tour / Review / Giveaway: Secondhand Sinners by Genevieve Lynne

23 May of 2016 by

Reviewer's Rating : 4
4.0Overall score

A closet full of skeletons

In Bokchito, Oklahoma, you know everyone and trust no one…Emily Matthews swore she’d never expose her son Jack to her dysfunctional family that sent her running from Bokchito at only seventeen. The sins of her past still haunt her, but when her brother lands in jail, she has no choice but to go back and face her old demons.

Miller Anderson has never forgotten about the girl who ran out of his life thirteen years ago…

And with the secret he’s keeping from Emily, he knows he most likely never will. But when his daughter Abby plays matchmaker to set him up with his lost love, he can’t resist the resurgence of emotion that has them reliving their high school glory days.

Evil has a way of waiting for what it wants…

Just when Emily and Miller discover their old flame hasn’t died, they learn another fire has been smoldering in Bokchito. Her family’s long line of sins, kindled with a generation-old grudge, ignites when Emily discovers the truth about Miller’s daughter and is forced to choose between protecting Miller’s secret and the one thing she can’t afford to lose…her son Jack.

Caught up in a game of lies and dirt road scandal, Emily must risk everything to save her son and preserve Miller’s good name, or let her family’s darkest secret ruin them both.

 

 

Review

Reviewed by Jean

A closet full of skeletons

Everyone has their skeletons.  Some are little sins, some so much larger.  In a small town, even the smallest of sins is fodder for gossip.  Everyone is certain they know everything there is to know about their neighbor and yet we all have our secrets.  Emily’s family is chock full of secrets and skeletons, the closet bursting at the seams.  Sometimes an obsession with secrets truly drives a person over the edge.  Such is the case with Emily’s grandmother and mother.  Their obsession with cleansing Emily of imagined sins by whatever damaging and abusive means necessary led to her running away at seventeen on the night her best friend committed suicide.  She left behind the boy she loved and a younger brother.  They were the only ones she cared about.  But Emily knew it wasn’t safe to stay and she couldn’t drag Miller down with her into the insanity that was her family.  He had goals in his life and staying with Emily would ruin them all.  So she let him go and ran.  With no high school diploma, life wasn’t easy but she managed to get her GED and hold down a receptionist job until she married and became a mom.  Jack is her joy and perhaps her bane on some days.  When her husband couldn’t deal with an autistic child he left them for a new wife and a new family.  It’s been fourteen years and she’s never been back to the podunk town of Bokchito.  That is until she got a call that her brother was in jail for assaulting her father.  She could never have expected to run into Miller again or the many skeletons that would escape their closets when she did.

Miller has his secrets too.  He’s loved Emily since the third grade, even when he thought she was his best friend’s girl.  Then Emily became his girl in the secret of the night.  That is until the night his best friend Daniel committed suicide.  That same night Emily left after having promised she’d talk to him first.  He’s never forgotten his one love and he’s never forgiven her either.  Nor has he gotten over the guilt of betraying Daniel.  Now he’s a single father of a lovely thirteen-year-old Abby.  She is the light of his eyes.  She’s also not above a bit of manipulation when she decides that Miller and Emily make a nice couple.  Now Miller is seeing what drove Emily all those years ago to run.  The boy has become a man and his love is that of a man as well.  Then secrets start spilling and everything Miller holds dear is at risk.

Neither Miller or Emily expected their secrets to come to light.  Nor did they expect the deeper secrets that spill forth at the hands of evil when they find their children held hostage to a madman’s greed.  Secondhand Sinners is full of twists and turns.  The danger and action will keep you on edge as each new secret is exposed.  You’ll fall totally in love with Jack and Abby.  Having children with mental health disorders, I had a healthy appreciation of Emily and Miller and the challenges they faced.  Ms. Lynne penned a wonderful story and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

♥♥♥♥

O Factor: Spicy

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Excerpt

Emily was in the water up to her waist when she twirled around and motioned for him. “Are you coming, or are you too afraid?” she yelled and then laughed.He pulled his boots and his socks off and ran out to meet her. When he got close enough to grab for her, she screamed and dove under the water. He dove under too, and swam as hard as he could, despite his wet jeans weighing him down. Even in the murky water, he got hold of her leg. She kicked free.

“See?” she said, swimming backward and splashing water at him, “I’m not afraid.”

“Neither am I.” He lunged for her once more, seizing her wrist, and pulled her to him. To his surprise, and delight, she didn’t resist. Maybe it was because she couldn’t touch and he could. Feeling more confident than he had in years, he took hold of her around the waist and pulled her closer. They stared at each other as they sucked in deep breaths.

“I’m out of shape,” she said.

“You’re in great shape.” He couldn’t stop looking at her lips. They were so inviting and he wanted to kiss her worse than he’d wanted anything.

Emily wrapped her arms around Miller’s neck and her legs around his waist, putting them face-to-face, nose-to-nose, lips-to-lips. Other body parts were touching too. He didn’t dare concentrate on those.
“I think about that time we swam in the rain too,” she said. “All the time. I wanted to get you out here so I could tell you that without the little ears listening. I also wanted to thank you for being so nice to Jack.”

“You’re welcome.” He couldn’t stop staring at her lips. What was wrong with him?

She gently bit her bottom lip as she pushed his hair off his face. It was so simple yet so intimate that it sent a surge of desire through him that was so strong it nearly overwhelmed him. He had her in his arms again. How could he ever let her go? He couldn’t. Yet every decision he’d made up to this moment in his life was based upon the belief that Emily didn’t want him, that she would never come back, and that he wouldn’t want her even if she did. A few drops of rain fell around them.

She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and shook her head. “I can’t—”

“Mooooom! You’re scaring all the fish!”

Emily sighed. “I almost forgot about Jack and Abby.”

Jack and Abby? Who were Jack and Abby? And what was she about to say? She couldn’t what?

“I guess we should get back.”

He nodded like an idiot, and, like an even bigger idiot, he let her go. Again.

 

Baseball Stadium with lights . baseball Background.

 

A young loving couple hugging and kissing on the beach at sunset. Two lovers, man and woman barefoot near the water. Summer in love

 

Once Upon a Space series. Abstract design made of fractal clouds on the subject of Universe cosmos astronomy science and education

 

sunny bike way in green tree tunnel

 

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Giveaway Red

Genevieve will be giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card + a Alex & Ani Bracelet! US shipping ONLY.

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About Author

Meet Genevieve:

Genevieve Lynne grew up in a small Texas town where everyone knew each other and gossip was considered a legitimate news source. She was raised on heaping doses of her grandmothers’ fabulous cooking, sweet tea, hot summer nights at the lake and maternal guilt. Even after moving to Austin to pursue her bachelor’s degree in English at The University of Texas, she never could shake the small town out of her. She’s still working on the guilt thing.She loves to incorporate the charm of crazy close families and small-town life into her stories. She now lives in Fort Worth with her husband and three sons.

 

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