Blog Tour Review: Across the Horizon by Aly Martinez
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Synopsis:
“Sometimes love happens when you least expect it.” That was what my husband’s mistress told me the day I found out about their affair.
I didn’t believe it until five minutes later when mouth-watering celebrity chef Tanner Reese walked up, tossed his arm around my shoulders, and told my cheating husband to take a hike.
Tanner and I couldn’t have been more different. He spent his weekends at clubs, rubbing elbows with fellow A-listers. I spent mine in yoga pants with cheese boards and a glass of wine—or six.
Our relationship shouldn’t have worked, but it did. That is until Tanner proved to me that even though love happens when you least expect it...
So does heartbreak.
Review:
Across the Horizon was a wonderful read. It is not as heart-wrenching as some of the author's other works, not as devastating as The Darkest Sunrise (note: if you have read The Darkest Sunrise books you will see the characters from that in here as this is Porter's brother's story!). It is more fun and light-hearted, but it still has some moments where you feel so much for these two. It is not easy and you don't always find the other half of you at the right moment, but if the stars align you may still be able to make it work.
Tanner is a celebrity chef, he has his own TV show, but he is getting tired of people only wanting celebrity Tanner, not just plain old Tanner. He has a really crazy ex whom he thought was with him for him, but turns out she is just like everyone else. He definitely had a lot of fun in his twenties, but he thought once he was ready to settle down he would flip the switch and find his other half. Only that hasn't happened. He is not really happy with his job even though it makes him a ton of money, he is lonely, he is tired of people only wanting him when he is "on."
Rita has been married for seven years, but just found out her soon to be ex-husband has been cheating on her for months. Things haven't been wonderful in a long time, but she is not a quitter so she stuck with him. Only to find he has been sleeping with another women. Once she finds out that is it. She is done. She wants a divorce. I absolutely loved how she didn't put up with any of her soon to be ex's nonsense. She made the decision to leave and that was that. Nothing he could say could get her back (and man he is horrible! I don't know why she was with him for so long!!).
The way these two meet was super cute. Rita hasn't been single long and she uses Tanner to try and make her ex leave her alone. She doesn't even recognize him as celebrity chef Tanner, she just uses mystery hot guy to try and get rid of the ex. Which Tanner loved. Because, like I said above, it has been a long time since someone has just treated him like a normal person. These two were so much fun. They have the same sense of humor and oh, I loved them. Rita makes Tanner work for it. She is not in the place to really start dating, she just broke up with her husband, but he knows she could be it for him so he is willing to do whatever he has to to be with her. Especially when she keeps treating him like a normal person even after realizing who he is. He has never had that, or not in a long, long time, so it was so cute how he was constantly blown away by things like her wanting to just hang out and watch TV together. They were adorable.
Now neither of them are really in a place to start a long-term soulmate type relationship, but they can't stay away. I was worried that the drama would be too much towards the end but I loved how the author dealt with what happened. How Rita dealt with everything and she was wonderful. They both have issues they need to deal with, and it did get a bit emotional as there were some obstacles to overcome. I really enjoyed this read a lot. It had a bit of everything, but mostly it was a super fun, cute story! I loved it.
*Note: I received a free copy of this book for voluntary review consideration
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★1/2
Excerpt:
I shifted the phone to my other ear and asked her, “Did you just get in bed?”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★1/2
Excerpt:
I shifted the phone to my other ear and asked her, “Did you just get in bed?”
“If, by bed, you mean carrying a glass of wine out back to swing in the hammock, maybe.”
I bit my bottom lip, my head falling back against the headrest. For most men, this would have been an innocuous statement. But for a hammock connoisseur like myself, this was the normal guy equivalent of her saying that she liked to give blowjobs during halftime.
“You have a hammock out back?”
There was a delay in her response, which was followed by a subtle kiss of her lips on what I assumed was a wine glass. “Don’t knock it until you try it. It’s one of the most underrated luxuries in outdoor furniture.”
“Oh, I’m not knocking anything. Rope or quilted?”
“Mayan, actually.”
“Oh, sweet heavenly baby Jesus, she’s beautiful and knows her hammocks. I’ve never been so turned on in my life.”
She giggled, pausing for another sip. “You know, if you leaked this hammock fetish to the press, you could probably increase demand by five million percent and singlehandedly lower the country’s unemployment rate.”
Okay, so at some point during the day, she’d figured out who I was.
But! Even with this knowledge, she was trying to avoid a date with me and was not elbow-deep in planning our televised wedding. This was a definite plus in my book.
“Yeah, but then, when I talked to beautiful women like yourself, I’d have no idea if the hammock was your idea or a ploy to impress me.”
“Jeez, that’s sad, Tanner,” she said, her sweet Southern accent like a wave rolling over my name.
I’d meant it as a joke, but it was the absolute truth when it came to dating. Early on in my career, I’d done a rapid-fire interview about my personal life. One of the questions had been: What would your ideal woman order on the first date? Truth be told, the only thing I hoped my ideal woman would order was something she wanted. I didn’t factor into that. But I’d been on my last question in my last interview of the last day of a month-long press tour. My face had hurt from fake smiling, I’d been in desperate need of a shower, a smoke, and sleep, and my mind had been mush, so I’d prattled off the first thing that had come to mind: shrimp and grits.
That one little answer somehow made it onto my Wiki page, and after that, every woman I’d taken out ordered shrimp and grits. One of them even had a shellfish allergy and nearly ended up in the hospital.
And this insanity was not limited to women outside of the spotlight.
I’d once gone on a date with America’s princess of pop, Levee Williams. We’d hit it off at a charity event. For one of the most famous women in the world, she was a surprisingly nice girl, gorgeous, and funny as all get out. But the first time I took her out? One guess what she ordered.
I was at the end of my rope with dating and lost my freaking mind before storming out like an asshole. That night, as I was reporting shrimp and fucking grits as an error to Wiki, I noticed that her page listed it as her favorite food. I’d never had the balls to contact her again, and I once hid behind a palm tree on Rodeo Drive when I heard the clamoring of paparazzi calling her name. But that’s neither here nor there.
In short, while finding a woman was all too easy, dating was hard.
But that wasn’t about to stop me from trying with Rita.
About the Author:
Originally from Savannah, Georgia, USA Today bestselling author Aly Martinez now lives in South Carolina with her four young children.
Never one to take herself too seriously, she enjoys cheap wine, mystery leggings, and baked feta. It should be known, however, that she hates pizza and ice cream, almost as much as writing her bio in the third person.
She passes what little free time she has reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a super-sized tumbler of wine by her side.
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