Monday, March 10, 2014

Four Years Later Bog Tour: Guest Post, Review, and Giveaway.


 
I'm sitting here tripping over my words, trying to find the right ones to explain the awesomeness of this post. Today we are SO lucky to have Fable (the AMAZING Fable!!) from One Week Girlfriend and Second Chance Boyfriend on the blog talking about Owen and Chelsea from Four Years Later. If you're a fan, you are SO not going to want to miss this. I read this after I wrote my review, but the last line, it just tears me up. This is something die hard Monica Murphy fans are going to love, so here you go....




On Owen and Chelsea…by Fable

 
Being Owen’s big sister and the one who basically raised him his entire life, I’m sort of protective of him.

 

Okay, fine. That’s a complete understatement. I’m like an overprotective mama bear who can’t help but wonder and worry and hope that everything Owen is doing, saying, etc. is the right thing. I may have been a pain in his ass sometimes, but I always wanted what was right and good for him.

 

Always.

 

I must admit though, that I turned a blind eye to the way he treated girls. Because I know he didn’t treat them very well. He went through a lot of them too. Not that I can judge him or blame him for that. He had a terrible influence, what with our mom and how she couldn’t stick with any one man for a long period of time. Relationships scared the hell out of him.

 

They scared the hell out of me too. It took a long time for me to get over it, even after Drew and I were together. But that’s another story for another time…

 

So when Owen started talking about his tutor Chelsea, I knew something was up. He sounded different. He acted different. And when he brought her to meet me and Drew, I knew just from looking at her, how she acted, the way Owen acted around her, that having Chelsea in his life was a good thing.

 

A very good thing.

 

Not only does she keep Owen on the straight path, she makes him smile. She makes him laugh. She gives him the love and affection and support that he needs. I may be his sister and offer him love, support and affection as well but it’s not the same. We’ve both grown up. I got married and had a baby. I couldn’t give him everything he needed and it wasn’t my job anymore to do so either.

 

So enter Chelsea. She balances him. And he balances her because we know she’s not perfect and I wouldn’t expect her to be. In fact, when everything went down between them (can’t say what happened because hello. Spoilers) and they almost split up, I was so pissed. Not at Chelsea though. I was mad at Owen for yet again screwing up a good thing.

 

Luckily enough he got his head out of his butt. I’m so thankful Chelsea has come into our lives. Yes, I said our lives because she feels like the sister I never had. She’s so sweet and thoughtful and I consider her my friend. Drew adores her. So does our daughter.

 

Owen better do the right thing and marry that girl someday. Not that I’m worried he won’t. I know he will. He’s not that dumb to let such a good girl get away from him. The time will come and he’ll know when to make a proposal happen. Our little family of two has expanded so much and it fills my heart with love and hope and happiness.

 

We’re lucky, Owen and I. We found love despite everything that worked against us. I guess we were both strong enough to rise above it.
 
 
 
 
 
About Four Years Later:
 
 

New Adult bestselling author Monica Murphy winds up her sensational series with this sexy story of two college kids with nothing in common but a bunch of baggage and a burning attraction.

Over. That about sums up everything in my life. Suspended from my college football team and forced to cut back my hours at The District bar because of my crappy grades, I can’t keep turning to my sister, Fable, and her pro-football playing husband, Drew, to bail me out. I just can’t seem to find my own way. Weed and sex are irresistible temptations—and it’s messed up that I secretly hand over money to our junkie mom. A tutor is the last thing I want right now—until I get a look at her.


Chelsea is not my type at all. She’s smart and totally shy. I’m pretty sure she’s even a virgin. But when she gives me the once over with those piercing blue eyes, I’m really over. But in a different way. I won’t deny her ass is killer, but it’s her brain and the way she seems to crave love—like no one’s ever given her any—that make me want her more than any girl I’ve ever met. But what would someone as seemingly together as her ever see in a screwed up guy like me? 


 

 
 
My thoughts:
 
If anything sums up my feelings about Owen, it's this quote from Monica Murphy in the acknowledgments of Four Years Later:

"I never planned in Owen having his own book. He was just Fable's brother, a secondary character Fable needed to ground her and give her something to love before she met Drew. He was a total pain in her ass that she had to deal with, but she loved him so fiercely. So did I. Then he grew into this...thing. He became this man-boy who punched Drew in the face, who loved his sister just as fiercely as she loved him and had all this guilt to deal with because of his mom. He DEMANDED a story. So here it is. And dare I say I love Owen just as much as I love Drew? Yes. I do. I hope you do to."

Well, Ms. Monica Murphy, you hit the nail on the head. I LOVE Owen more so now than I ever did before. In fact, I think I love him just a teeny-tiny bit more than I do Drew!!

Poor little Owen. At the beginning of the book his attitude made my heart hurt for him. After looking up to Drew for so long, he tries becoming his carbon copy, with somewhat disastrous results. He's always had Drew or Fable to pick him up when life gets difficult, and with them living out of town and his mother butting into his life again, he's smoking too much pot and partying way too hard as a form of escaping from reality. He has to learn how to pick HIMSELF up and deal with his problems head on. Fable's not going to swoop in a make it alright, or let him run from it. It's time for him to grow up. Like it or not.

I adore Chelsea!! She feels like she's always been a nobody. A straight A, straight laced, virginal, predictable nobody. All she wants is to be "someone's somebody" and to know what it "feels like to be cherished". (Those two parts just made all the feels pour out of my heart!!) The example her mother has set for her with men, including her own father, had Chelsea, at one time, deciding she was a lesbian. Her mother pretty much choses her philandering, corrupt father over her, resulting in her becoming a mature adult long before she should have.

I think what I love the most about Owen and Chelsea's relationship is that they don't swoop in and solve each others problems, and that they are not perfect, but are a perfect fit for each other. Their both a little insecure, in different ways, but it makes the story so, SO sweet! And how scenes can be written that are equal parts heat and sweet innocence, I'll never know. It's totally brilliant. Usually you can tell when a series has a book added that wasn't in the initial concept, but with Four Year Later, it's just the cherry on top of an amazing series. Four Years Later cements this series as a guaranteed classic that generations to come will be reading.

A few things I really loved:

MORE POEMS!!!! HOT poems!!

I loved the little inspirational quotes at the beginning of each chapter. They round out everything perfectly.

We get to see more into Drew, Fable, and baby Autumn's lives. (Because God knows, we will NEVER get enough of that!!)

The ending. The end of one of my favorite series. As bittersweet as it was, it ended perfectly. I needed tissues, but they were for happy tears!!

The best part of the book?? I want to quote it, but that might be considered a spoiler, so about 97% through the book there's a paragraph about Owen and Fable's luck that should be read slowly. Savored. Remember where you were when you read it. It would have been a crime if this series had ended without it. It definitely is the chapter my mind goes to when I think if Four Years Later.



Buy Links:

 

 
About Monica Murphy:
 
 
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Monica Murphy is a native Californian who lives in the foothills below Yosemite. A wife and mother of three, she writes New Adult and contemporary romance for Bantam and Avon. She is the author of One Week Girlfriend and Second Chance Boyfriend.
 

 

 
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