On The Rocks (Last Call #1) by Sawyer Bennett -a review

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ON THE ROCKS (The Last Call #1) by Sawyer Bennett

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date February 17, 2014

He left to travel the world for fame and glory, but only after spurning Gabby Ward and crushing her young heart. Now Hunter Markham has come back home to the sand and salty breeze of the North Carolina Outer Banks so he can open up Last Call, a beach bar nestled among the dunes of the Atlantic.

Gabby Ward is not happy that Hunter has returned. Bitter over his rebuff years before, she’s content to stay far away from him and his dangerously charming ways.

Gabby’s well-schemed plans to ignore Hunter go up in flames when he presents an offer to her that she simply can’t refuse, throwing them together in a common quest to each reach their goals. Working together day in and day out proves to be problematic for Gabby, who soon realizes that the feelings she had for him are still very much alive. Hunter struggles to reach through to Gabby’s cold heart, all while starting a new career away from his life as a top ranked, professional surfer.

What starts out as a mutual business arrangement soon turns into a passion that neither of them can continue to deny.

Hard choices lay ahead for both of them when Hunter is offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to return to the pro surfing tour.

Choices that could destroy what they have built or take them further than they ever had dared to hope.

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REVIEW: ON THE ROCKS is the first storyline in Sawyer Bennett’s contemporary, new adult, erotic LAST CALL series focusing on a group of family and friends in Hatteras Island, North Carolina. This is a friends to enemies to lovers storyline that follows 22 year old Gabby Ward and 26 year old Hunter Markham as they dance around the elephant in the room-their mutual attraction and love for one another.

The storyline premise will find up and coming professional surfer Hunter Markham walking away from Gabby on the night of her high school graduation. Their first kiss ends with Hunter pushing Gabby away. Fast forward five years and Gabby’s anger over Hunter’s apparent disgust of their kiss has fueled the fires that continue to eat away at Gabby’s heart. With Hunter’s return to North Carolina Gabby knows there will be no way to avoid the beautiful boy she once loved. But avoiding Hunter is next to impossible when circumstances find the couple working together towards a common goal.

ON THE ROCKS introduces a tight knit groups of friends including Hunter’s twin brother Brody and, his sister and Gabby’s BFF Casey; Gabby’s roommate Savannah; Hunter’s surfing buddy John and his sister (and Hunter’s ex) Sasha; as well as Alyssa Myers-the woman who will help heal Brody’s broken and fragile mind. Much of the storyline finds the friends at Hunter’s new bar-The Last Call-where hearts will be broken and futures unveiled.

The relationship between Hunter and Gabby is initially icy as Gabby’s continuous anger towards the man that she has loved for years interferes in their daily lives. She is a woman scorned; beaten down by what she believes is rejection; and there is very little room for negotiation when the heart wants what the head pushes away. At times, Gabby is a difficult person to love-for Hunter and for the reader. Her child-like behavior was questionable; her intent was to break the heart of the man who broke her own.

Sawyer Bennett pulls the reader into a story about one kiss, two people and five years of heartbreak. Told in alternating first person POV from Hunter and Gabby’s perspective, On The Rocks is a story where mistaken beliefs fuel the hatred and pain of rejection, in the end, to discover that falling in love with your sister’s best friend is probably the thing that you have ever done. But convincing your sister’s best friend is another matter-all together.

Copy supplied by the author.

Reviewed by Sandy