Tag: Tibby Armstrong

Outtakes by Tibby Armstrong

18052848Title: Outtakes

Series: Hollywood, #4

Author: Tibby Armstrong

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Length: Novella (137 pages)

Publisher: Loose Id (August 19th, 2013)

Heat Level: Explicit

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥4 Hearts

Reviewer: Thommie

Blurb: After actor Kit Harris tells the world he’s gay, life isn’t all cupcakes and rainbow flags. It’s decidedly less tasty and a lot less colorful. Coming out might not have been the best thing for a Hollywood career or a high-profile love life.

Try as he might, rising star Jeremy Ash can’t seem to stir Kit’s interest long enough to heal his bruised ego or fragile heart. Complicating matters, a celebrity chef enters with plans to cook up a new angle on Kit’s career.

Jeremy’s worried Kit’s going off half-baked, or worse, turning up the heat on a new relationship. Either way, Jeremy knows the situation is a recipe for disaster if he and Kit can’t come up with the ingredients to love.

Product Link: http://www.loose-id.com/hollywood-4-outtakes.html

Review: Tibby Armstrong comes back with my favorite couple from the Hollywood Series, Jeremy and Kit, with excruciating story. Let me tell you, half the time reading this book was spend biting my nails, and the other half wanting to smack some reason at either one of the characters.

After Kit came out at the Awards three years have gone by. Three years but things didn’t get better, neither remained the same. Jeremy made a leap in his career, being the new favorite boy of the city, while Kit’s career is hitting bottom hard. His whole life is changing and Kit finds it difficult to adjust or even take control back. The self-assured, over-confident, and favorite paparazzi boy is now buried underneath a strong layer of self-doubt and fear. Fear for his work, fear for his life, and fear for his love.

Jeremy on the other hand has made leaps from that starry-eyed kid Kit first met. No longer a newbie in the scene, his confidence shines bright, and he appear to need Kit and his experience less and less every day, making Kit’s panic attacks rise and that fear of being left behind overshadow everything.

The first thought that came to mind while reading this book was how real this all seamed. The problems a long-time relationship accumulates, the fears, the inability to make things work because you simply don’t know how, all that made me feel like I was observing a real couple out of their window, instead of read a book. The most impressive thing of all was that Tibby made a great job not making one the jerk and the other the martyr. In this relationship there is not only one’s fault. Both Jeremy and Kit make their own mistakes, both help to create a chasm between them, both men’s fears and insecurities coming out in knee-jerk reactions, creating monsters out of shadows. All their differences that once upon a time helped them stick together now are tearing them apart.

When Kit fails to find that balance in his life he dives into the only thing that can ground him; his baking. More and more nights he spends cooking little things at the only place that gives him a semblance of peace; his kitchen. He manages to win a celebrity show and that’s how we get introduced to a new character, Andy, a famous chef who has his sight on Kit.

You know how they say no one can tear you apart from your mate, unless the tears are already there. Grabbing opportunity of the fragile relationship between Jeremy and Kit, Andy is determined to win him the prize with a scary obsession. Fear of rejection for his new dreams has Kit hiding them from Jeremy, along with the new excitement that someone new is seeing him and wanting him again, and things steadily reach rock bottom.

And you can’t imagine how very easy it was to dislike and despise characters this time around. I felt like really hitting Kit, his selfishness at times made it hard to think clearly. I also got angry with Jeremy, too. As I said, there was not only one to blame here. But I despised Andy with a passion. I literally saw red with this one.

The entire book was an angst-fest, with things going hot and cold in a matter of seconds. One moment we were reading the most powerful lovemaking from Jeremy and Kit, sexual scenes that were so freaking easy to immerse in them, and the other everything, everything crashing down. Painfully sad at times, this book manages to steal your breath away, shake, and spin you around not letting go for a moment to clear your mind. Gripping is inadequate a word to describe it. Torturous would be more like it. It tortures you with the ever-increasing intense scenes that follow one another unfailingly, with a speed that makes you gasp and pant in order to follow and not be left behind.

As much as I liked Jeremy’s and Kit’s first story Acting Out, I think I liked this even more. It was what I expected, and definitely didn’t let me down.

 

Full Disclosure by Tibby Armstrong

Title: Full Disclosure

Series: Hollywood #3

Author: Tibby Armstrong

Genre: Contemporary

Length: Novel

Publisher: Loose Id (August 14, 2012)

Heat Level: Explicit

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥5Hearts – OMG!!

Blurb: Weddings are stressful under the best of circumstances, which this certainly isn’t. Following the release of his debut movie, No Apologies, Greg Falkner is working hard to be a better man to fiancé, Aaron Blake, despite his baser instincts. When their alma mater contacts Greg and asks him to serve as their celebrity master of ceremonies, for an upcoming charity event, he grudgingly accepts at Aaron’s urging.

Aaron admires the new man Greg has become, yet craves the old independence of his lover. He’d love to strike a compromise in the relationship and hopes that returning to their beginning will help Greg lay some personal demons to rest.

Neither man anticipates the violence that will befall one of them, potentially changing both lives in unimaginable ways. What emerges from the darkness, through frustrations and determination, is true deep love.

Product Link: http://www.loose-id.com/full-disclosure.html

Reviewer: Thommie

Review: Oh my, what a book! I knew it; I knew Tibby would deliver yet another fantastic novel, but still, what a book! I don’t know where to begin and where to end. The protagonists, yes, Aaron and Greg. We met them through “No Apologies”, we saw glimpses of them on “Acting Out” and we see them bloom in “Full Disclosure”.

With their wedding approaching Aaron needs to see both himself and Greg letting go of the past and the shadows that still lurk in the corners. Both he and Greg decide to go back to the place where it all started, the place that held their best and worse memories of their life. Aaron, in an attempt to reconcile his relationship with his family and Greg, in a last attempt to let go his fears and darkness for his hatred Lawson. Ten years have passed and although a lot seemed to have changed, the pair soon learned that a lot still remained the same, if not a tad more dangerous. Prejudice once again proved to be their worst enemy, an enemy making a strong attempt to take even Greg’s life.

This book highlights the scars and the trauma that is left from bullying so strongly it makes your heart tighten at the wrongness and the unfairness of it all. The emotions generated are strong and tug at your heart, making you want to swap at the ugliness and wipe it off of the face of the earth. The proverb “Live and let live” was constantly been present on my mind while reading this book. Is it so hard for people to do at least that? Tibby Armstrong makes quite the statement through her story and she doesn’t sugar coat it. No, she rather lets it slip bluntly through her text.

There are also those great moments in this book that makes your heartbeat go faster. Sensual, sexy and playful the sex between Aaron and Greg is almost painfully stimulating. Enwrapped in humor the light dominion/submission games are hard to resist and not dive in the feeling that the author so artfully created. The chemistry of these two characters is amazing, lacking no strength, sensuality or intimacy. It is deep and profound and you can sense it in every word and line. You can clearly see that, through their stupid displays of sacrifice too. Greg, being the self-loathing bastard that he is, with that slight tendency toward self-destruction, nearly blows it all; condemning both him and Aaron to misery. Yes, the display of how love makes us too blind to see the obvious isn’t missing from this story and although at times it seems that this won’t have a happy ending, one must be expected as this certain author has a love for happily ever afters, even through the darkest of the stories, which is the reason why I like her so much.

I do recommend this book to anyone who has even a slight tendency for romance. Even if you haven’t read the previous books you will enjoy it. The flashbacks to the past make it easy for someone who is reading this book as a standalone to understand the pair’s connection, their whole existence. You don’t feel the need to read the previous books in order to understand, rather to feel and live this great romance to its full extent. But, at some point, I recommend you go back and check them out.

So take a nice and long breath and make sure you have hours ahead of you because I can guarantee you will not put this down until it’s over. Enjoy!

 

 

Acting Out by Tibby Armstrong

Title: Acting Out

Series: Previous book No Apologies

Author: Tibby Armstrong

Genre: LGBT Contemporary

Length: Novel

Publisher: Loose Id (May 8th, 2012)

Heat Level:  Explicit

Heart Rating:  ♥♥♥♥♥4.5Hearts

Blurb: Jeremy Ash, aspiring actor, is single, gorgeous…and openly, quietly gay. When he lands a starring role opposite America’s favorite former child star, 21-year old Kit Harris, he’s ecstatic and more than a little attracted to the enigmatic star.

Kit Harris’s career has been flagging and his agent promises this new film, an edgy coming out story with a famed director, is just the thing to get it back on track. The problem is that the film is relatively intimate in nature, and Kit’s definitely not gay. He’s not even slightly bent.

When the two men collide in a crushing first test kiss, Kit’s left reeling and Jeremy’s left wanting, and both are left gasping for air. And that was just the screen test. When filming starts and the two men are brought into close proximity every day, passions ignite and souls collide–both on screen and off. The two men find that the only way to assuage their mutual lust is to give in to it. Kit’s sure this strange new attraction will run its course; Jeremy’s hoping it never has to end.

But when a manipulative model obtains salacious film footage of the two men in bed, Kit’s prepared to do whatever it takes to save his career. But how far is too far to push the boundaries of love and how long can one man hide from himself?

Product Link: http://www.loose-id.com/Acting-Out.aspx

Reviewer: Thommie

Review:  I found this book great and very captivating. It starts with its near end and makes you want to scream out of agony for the entire duration with Kit and Jeremy having a break up fight followed by Kit’s bike accident on the very first chapter.

Greg and Aaron from the first book “No Apologies” are continuing with their relationship, which is as stormy as ever. Greg writes their story and is casting for the actors. He has already found his “Aaron” on the face of Kit Harris, a very attractive, straight and already accomplished actor. Kit has been a child star looking for a new turn to highlight his career and “No Apologies” is just perfect for that. He is the typical Hollywood actor, all charm and confidence, wearing a very James Dean personality. He is what every new actor’s dream.

Jeremy Ash has been looking for a serious role for a long time. New to the ways of Hollywood he goes from casting to casting trying to make it through. He’s tired of being rejected and constantly fighting for next month’s rent or money for his next meal even. When he gets pick in Greg Falkner’s co-leading from the hundreds of other actors waiting in line, he gets no high expectations that he’ll actually going to get the part. Not even when he meets Falkner himself and it’s like seeing through a mirror and some years ahead in the future. Falkner is captivated by Jeremy’s resemblance to him and the way Jeremy seems to get into the part.

During the casting, Kit and Jeremy have a very strong chemistry together and when they kiss, it turns from a part of their role to a very substantial one that leaves Kit confused about its meaning. During their months on the set, the two men get into a very intense, yet complicated relationship, with Kit trying to find his identity, as in what he actually is and Jeremy trying to find a place in his heart. Although their chemistry is acknowledged by everyone, Kit’s denial keeps getting in the way. Along with his abusive past, Kit’s non-commitment is tearing Jeremy’s heart apart.

It is very frustrating and at some point I am compelled to have some strongly negative feelings for this character. Wanting Jeremy, yet not, going forward to claim him. It got me really charged at some points. It wasn’t until the near end of the book that I got to actually see and feel the position Kit was in. Blinded by the force of his emotions, he gets pushed and pulled into a painful game played by his “girlfriend”. Ms. Armstrong, congratulations, you made me for the first time to want to punch a fictional character. I didn’t get satisfied at all by her “ending”.

And the end comes the same way it began. After their final fight Kit gets on his bike to go and find Jeremy and finally explain to him how much he loves him and why did he had to be so cruel for the past 4 months. The bike slides and the world goes black, with the last thoughts of love on Kit’s mind….

Highly recommended “Acting Out”.  It is a very well written story, full of emotions, suspense, hotness, humor and a view on those hard parts of life. this book lacks nothing. Enjoy!