Monday, August 31, 2015

Book Review & Giveaway for Joni, Underway (Hey That Rhymes!)






I am super excited to be part of the blog tour for Joni, Underway by Kelly Oram and Jonathan Harrow. I wasn't sure what to expect with this book, but I have to say, I was impressed.

We first meet Joni while she's in the middle of a college softball game that her team will win or lose depending on what she does at the plate. I loved her inner voice and how easy it was to relate to her and not wanting to screw up.  During the aftermath of the game, however, Joni gets devastating news---her brother has been killed in a car accident.

That event turns her life upside down. She hadn't been close to her brother for years and now that chance was taken away forever.  He'd been the traveler of the family and had an amazing trip planned that he was weeks away from taking before he was killed.  Joni ends up going on the trip herself to escape everyone who is trying to help her cope with her loss. But it's on the sailing ship that she truly finds herself.

I loved the characters in this story with all their quirks and warts.  Their personal stories and how they were all meshing into each other's lives kept me turning pages long after I should have been asleep. (For my gentle readers, there is strong language in this book.) I liked the growth in Joni's character, which only added to her relationship with Reid and how it evolved over the trip. *le sigh* (Reid was an amazing hero. Truly.)  They all became family and with the way it was written, the reader became family along with them.

This is a story that will make you think about it long after you've read the end.

You can download your Kindle copy here for $4.99!

Here's the back copy:

Nineteen year old Joni is loving life as an adult—living on her own, dealing with grown-up things like jobs, hook-ups, and doing her own laundry. Best of all: after finishing her first year at ASU, she will never again be called a freshman.

But when her brother is suddenly killed in a car accident, Joni’s adult life is turned upside down. Struggling to cope with loss, guilt, and anger—not to mention the meddling of friends and family trying to “fix” her—Joni is relieved to be presented with an escape in the form of a sailing trip her brother had been planning for months before he died.

With her first step onto the sailing vessel Lady Marguerite, Joni plunges into an adventure that will mark the beginning of her real adult life—a journey across the ominous dark blue of the Atlantic Ocean with a small, eccentric crew, and the young Captain Reid, whose gorgeous looks are only outmatched by his talent for care and kindness. Unfolding through the ups and downs of life at sea is an unforgettable story reminding us that love will always be a work-in-progress and coming of age never gets old.



About the Author




Kelly Oram wrote her first novel at age fifteen--a fan fiction about her favorite music group, The Backstreet Boys, for which her family and friends still tease her. She's obsessed with reading, talks way too much, and likes to eat frosting by the spoonful.

Jonathan Harrow left a career in Hollywood to pursue his dream of writing novels. He has an author crush on Charlotte Bronte, and a real crush on his author wife, YA bestseller Kelly Oram.

They live in Phoenix with their four kids and their cat, Mr. Darcy.

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