A Moment ( The Moments #1) by Marie Hall – a review

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A MOMENT (Moments #1) by Marie Hall

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date March 12, 2013

Ryan Cosgrove and Liliana Delgado are on a collision course with destiny. They don’t know it yet, but before the night is over their lives will be forever changed.

Spending Valentine’s Day at a burlesque bar hadn’t been Liliana’s ideal way of spending a Friday night. She’d much rather be back on campus doing homework… until she meets Ryan. Tall, athletic, and gorgeous, Lili can’t keep her eyes off him, and despite his gruff manners and drunken disposition she’s intrigued.

Ryan’s got demons, and they’re deep, dark, and eating him alive. Regardless of his attraction to the petite brunette he’s tired of fighting, of pretending the last fifteen years haven’t been a daily struggle just to get out of bed every morning. That night he decides to end his pain, to leave it all behind and float away into the blessed darkness of oblivion. But fate has other plans for him, Lily finds and rescues Ryan, determined she’ll not only save his body, but his soul too.

This is their moment…

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REVIEW: A MOMENT is the first storyline in Marie Hall’s new adult, contemporary romance Moments series. The first installment focuses on Ryan Cosgrove-a twenty five year old MMA fighter with demons buried so deep, the pain and suffering in the ring are the only thing keeping the memories at bay; and Liliana Delgado-a twenty one year old, single mother of a seven year old autistic child who works nights to keep food on the table and attends college to ensure her son has a future.

A Moment is a storyline filled with characters that have suffered and loss at the hands of someone they trusted. It is a study in poor family dynamics where the children are made to suffer for the sins of the parents. But the children are now adults themselves, and the demons from their past surface time and again.

What the reader is faced with are several moments in the life of two people who want to be loved and to love. From their first non-moment seeing each other seven years earlier to the last moment in the book, Marie Hall takes the reader on an emotional journey of heartbreak and sorrow, betrayal and pain, and finally acceptance by the one person you care most about in the world.

Liliana is a strong and independent female character but at the end of the day she is like everyone else-she wants to be needed as more than a mother and a daughter. Ryan is a man bordering on the edge of sell-destruction. Fear of losing the woman that he loves, he begins to push Lili away without explanation. It is only when he finally reveals the truth to the nightmares and pain, will Ryan begin the long journey towards healing and self-acceptance.

The storyline reads like a psychiatric nightmare-sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, autistic children, dying parents, betrayal and aggression. The expression ‘home is where the heart lies’ is true when Ryan’s heart lies with Liliana Delgado. There is no looking back-only forward, and A Moment will end with one couple looking towards a future where the demons can finally be buried-once and for all.

I had a few issues with this particular storyline or perhaps it was the writing. There were some problems with grammar and spelling, as well as character switch-a-roo. Many times the names would be reversed; characters would be talking to and about themselves; but a good editor would catch all these problems. If a reader can locate that many problems, a proof-reader and editor should be able to correct the issues before publication.

A MOMENT is an interesting storyline about two people who crossed paths-one moment in time- and their lives would be forever connected the moment they meet again seven years later.

Copy supplied by the author.

Reviewed by Sandy