Review – Wait by AL Jackson – Bookalicious Babes Blog

Wait Cover

“The truth is, I gave my heart away a long time ago. My whole heart. And I never really got it back.” ~Sweet Home Alabama

Have you ever read a story that has stolen your soul? Has a book broken your heart, hitting it so hard, that even after it’s mended, its pieces are still stuck in the story? I gave my heart to Wait where it still remains long after I turned the last page. I gave my soul to this story—as if I had a choice—for it to be sucked in like a song, dragging me in, pulling me under, like a big wave. Wait is the newest roller coaster of a rock star romance from AL Jackson’s Bleeding Stars series, and oh did my heart bleed.

I devoured Wait in small doses to give my heart time to slow its beating, my body time to slow its breathing, and my brain time to process all of the feelings floating around in my head. I did not want to put Wait down, yet I had to calm my emotions from this story’s sensory storm.

By just the second page of the book—the Prologue—my emotions engulfed me, soaring like soldiers ready for battle. This battle was one of feels; a fight I would not win. A fight I did not want to win. I knew this story starring Baz’s little brother, Austin, a broken boy who is now a broken man would break me. I just did not know that Edie, an equally broken girl and now a wounded woman, would break me just as hard.

“I trusted this broken boy. So I whispered my secret. Offered it up to him. To hold it. Protect it. Until the day he crushed it in his hands.”

Baz’s little brother, Austin, left four years ago at age 17 to treat the wounds that were embedded so deep into him, making him bleed for the past that held him prisoner. One where he still feels unworthy. Tall, muscular, inked, brown-haired and grey-green eyes, Austin could be older brother Baz’s twin. While not the lead singer for Sunder like Baz, he could easily be Sunder’s front man, but plays in smaller venues on the West Coast.

“I felt that fragmented piece inside stretching out its fingers. Searching for all that had been lost. For that piece I could never reclaim.”

Damn if Baz’s little brother didn’t burrow right next to Baz in my heart.

Just one chapter in and my heart was breaking. WAIT…I had to catch my breath as my lungs breathed in every wondrous and wielding word. The words quickly became flames, lighting me up. A fire that burned me inside, guiding me to its flames, to the light that I needed to see. Needed to feel when darkness tried to hijack my head and heart.

“His voice…that unforgettable voice that washed over me exactly the way it once had. With comfort and joy and an aching hope. I hadn’t seen him since the night this broken boy had crushed the fragile piece of myself I’d given to him. Only Austin Stone was no longer a boy.”

The past collides with the present when beautiful blonde and aqua-eyed Edie Evans, Ash’s little sister, and Austin’s best friend and love of his life stumbles into the bar where he is playing one night after four years apart. Secrets and lies destroyed them but each has always held the other’s heart.

“He’d been my safety. My haven. Until he dragged me right back into hell.”

Two chapters in and I broke as I bled for both the hero and the heroine. Two broken souls who should be one. WAIT…I had to catch my tears as I willed them not to fall. Tears that teased the dam of waterworks waiting to burst from the words that clutched my soul, extracting every emotion. Beckoning me. Binding me. Becoming me.

“The girl was the only one who shed a light strong enough to pull me from the dark…that girl had given me air. A reprieve from the unending storm.”

Austin is rough around the edges but light lingers through that dark exterior, ready to burst and break free. Edie is the angel who saves him from the dark. Austin is the comfort in Edie’s raging storm. Two broken souls who have been through hell find their way back to each other, hoping for redemption. A second-chance. One where their hearts will resume beating as one.

“Because I’d known it since the moment he’d crawled into my bed and whispered his ease. Since the moment his spirit had sank into my soul.”

These broken beauties need to be together. Austin and Edie’s pain is mine and only they can pick up each other’s shattered pieces.

“He was anchored to me so deeply I could feel him pulling at me from every angle. We were magnets in opposition. Trembling lures.”

I swooned so much. My heart was hit so hard, it spun right into my soul. This broken boy and this broken girl…they broke me. Again and again.

“This girl was the only thing I could see…Did she get it yet? Did she know she was always going to belong to me?”

I could not help but smile a grin filled with hope as I was sucked into a wave of passion, one of soul mates, one of love as deep as the ocean.

“I should have known it would always be him.”

One third into this soul-searing story and the tears trickled, harder and harder, as that dam of waterworks started to break. Permanent tears became etched into my eyes. I sighed. Wait filled my lungs, words filtering into my very core. WAIT…I had to catch my heart that this story so forcefully claimed.

“He kissed me…as if I was the center of his world. And I knew without a doubt, this boy was the eye of the storm. The eye of my storm.”

Their chemistry is passion. Their chemistry is pure. Austin and Edie are perfect together, dark mixed with light with a love that has never died. Oh do I LOVE THEM so!

“She kissed me so deep I was sure this girl managed to touch my soul.”

An angel, Edie is Austin’s light. Like he needs her, she needs her dark knight, the one who has rescued her from hell as she has pulled him from the darkness.

Three-fourths into the book and I was broken … gutted … unglued. Wait pulled me into the dark; I was drowning in tears mixed with hope and heartbreak. My soul screamed for mercy, so lost it may never be found. WAIT…I had to take another breath as this book buried itself so deep into my soul that it may never leave.

“How do you both break my heart and heal it at the same time?”

“I don’t want to break you.”

“You broke me a long time ago.”

Wait, oh did it break me. This book…it’s EVERYTHING!!! An intense, intoxicating, and incredible story of epic love, Wait hit my heart hard and fast like lightning, scorching my soul while my emotions poured like a rain storm.

I felt every word I read in Wait where I was left gasping for air, drowning to breathe in a sea of emotions so deep that they stole every feel and every thought in a book that owned every piece of me. I lived Wait. I breathed Wait. I was bound to Wait. I became Wait.

AL Jackson writes from the heart and you can tell her heart is poured into every beautiful and brilliant word. Her heartfelt writing hits my heart hard like a hurricane in every single story of this Bleeding Stars series. EVERY WORD MATTERS. Meaningful. Mesmerizing. Magnificent.

Everything AL Jackson pens is paint to a canvas, so vivid and valuable. Stories that steal your soul and stay with you forever. Oh did Wait sing to my soul so very much in a beautifully broken story of epic love that was so worth the wait.

5 but should be 10 beautiful, broken, brilliant, and imperfectly perfect stars

View all my reviews

Edie Evans is gorgeous.
Sexy.
Kind.
She’s also the definition of off-limits.
But that didn’t stop me from sneaking into her room to comfort her at night.
But guys like me? We destroy everything, so it should have been no surprise when I destroyed us, too.
The night I sent her running, I thought I’d never see her again.
Until I saw her standing like a vision in the crowd.

Austin Stone is dangerous.
Alluring.
Tempting.
He broke my heart and I refused to give him the chance to do it again.
It’s been years since I’ve seen him, and now I can’t do anything but stare at the gorgeous, tattooed man playing onstage. I should run. I know I should. But like a fool, I run straight back to him.
Our desire is overpowering.
Our need unrelenting.

She is my hope.
He is my weakness.
We should have known a passion this intense would burn us right into the ground.