review || SEARCHING FOR ME { blog tour }

  

Searching For Me by Kaydee Mavericks 

Publisher: Self-Published (5/19/2015)

Genre: Age of Romance 

Hosted by: SBB Promotions

Rating: ★★★1/2

People looking at my life would think ‘wow she’s so lucky’ but I’m far from it. Five years ago my entire world changed. The older I get the more I start to think that maybe what I know about my family is all an illusion. Maybe the family business isn’t just what it looks like on the outside, but the cause for my devastation when I was sixteen. 

I never thought five years later my world would start to unravel around me. Some parts amazing, other parts a nightmare. 

The amazing part was hard to let in. He was everything I wasn’t looking for but turned out to be everything I needed and more. 

The nightmare was… well let’s just say a nightmare. Something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I knew I would need to fight with everything that I had to make the nightmare go away. 

My name is Gabriella Ashford and this is my story.

    

about Kaydee || Kaydee is married to her high school sweetheart and the mother of two beautiful children. She’s always been in the book world but it wasn’t until recently that she decided to take the plunge into the author world and write her first novel.    

      

{ excerpt } .

People looking at my life would think ‘wow she’s so lucky’ but I’m far from it. Yes on the outside my life looks amazing, I have a nice townhouse I share with my best friend, and my family has more money than I ever knew possible. But when you dig in deep, you see the true life that I live. I live everyday remembering my parents being murdered. Everyday reliving that day and everyday just trying to get by. Seeing your parents murdered isn’t something any child should have to witness, but having to stay quiet while it occurs is even worse. When it happened, I knew if I wanted to survive that night, I would have to stay quiet and not move a muscle. Even after the killers had left I didn’t move for so long that my body ached all over. I thank God every day that my brother, Max, was staying at a friend’s house that night. After what seemed like forever, I left the house and went to my best friend’s not knowing what to do. I was only sixteen when they were killed but I still knew that the men responsible weren’t good people. Don’t get me wrong, I have my uncle and aunt who took my brother and me in when we lost our parents, but the more I’m here, the more I realize that maybe my family, including my parents, aren’t what they seem. And maybe the family business isn’t all that legal. My name is Gabriella Ashford and this is my story.

{ review } .

In Kaydee Mavericks’ SEARCHING FOR ME, we have the story of Gabriella – a twenty-one year old whose parents were killed, as she watched silently, five years ago. She believes that her family’s business is a front for a different type of business, and feels that that was what got her parents killed. Their murders have gone unsolved, and the police have chalked it up to a home invasion gone wrong – which Gabriella does not believe is the case.

Since then, she’s been living with her aunt and uncle. Her uncle loves to throw parties, and while Gabriella would rather just go out with her friend, Kaci, she knows she has to make an appearance at her birthday bash. Before leaving for the night is when she first sees him…

Standing with her uncle and her uncle’s friend John is a good looking guy – one who Gabriella immediately dubs a man-whore. The good looking guy is John’s son, Kaleb. After fumbling through a nervous introduction, Gabriella and Kaci go to the club as previously planned – where Kaleb also ends up.

My problem with Gabriella was she was very good about judging by appearances. After a Google search of Kaleb, she found that John had been married to a late actress and therefore Kaleb was part of the Hollywood scene; he was in numerous pictures with different women, and that further had him a man-whore in her opinion. Later, yet again she jumps to conclusions and blames Kale for something he didn’t do.

I also found her to be rude – when seeing  Kaleb another time, she said some snarky, off-handed comment about how her night had been ok until she’d seen some man-whore all over another woman (to which Kaleb cornily replied that maybe that man-whore had only been with that other woman because he couldn’t be with Gabriella).

All in all, this was a likeable book. It’s another one of those quick and easy reads based off of the way it is written; the style written wasn’t my favorite and I personally found the dialogue to be lacking, but again, all in all, it was a likeable book. Those looking for an easier New Adult aged suspense will find themselves enjoying this story!