The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines
October 12, 2011 by Author {Indie eBook}
Kindle/Nook 260 Pages
Free Download from Smashwords

Ashton, Beau and Sawyer grew up together as the best of friends. Days running around outside, climbing trees, pulling pranks...well Beau and Ashton did most of the prank pulling while Sawyer got them out of trouble. Inseparable would be the word to use for them, until Ashton hit that age were the boys took notice of her in a new way. Staking his claim early, Sawyer gobbles her up and the once inseparable friendship becomes obsolete with Beau out of the picture.

Sawyer is the towns beloved good boy and leader of the school. He's the Quarterback, good son and outstanding golden boy of wealthy well to do parents. Ashton the daughter of the towns preacher, trys her best to live up to his reputation becoming the quiet, well mannered good girlfriend, but she struggles inside to hold back her true nature. Beau, the son of the towns most gossiped about white trash waitress, takes the total opposite direction and becomes the towns bad boy. He's gorgeous, dangerous and every girl {including our good girl} wants him.

When Sawyer takes off for the summer and asks Ashton to keep an eye on Beau, who by the way is also his cousin, she does so knowing he makes her blood boil, knowing he makes her heart race. The two have chemistry that sizzles in the air whenever they're in the same room and over the last three years Ashton's done everything to ignore it. So of course with Sawyer out the way the two finally rekindle that childhood friendship which almost immediately turns into a hot volcano of sexual chemistry and intense longing. The two start a summer affair and we watch as they fall in love with ease and as a reader you can only fall in love with the bad boy Beau as he struggles to make everything right. Sawyer is his cousin and outside of Ashton the only person he loves, making a decision is hard but he'll choose Ashton a hundred times if given the choice.

When Sawyer comes home, things are crazy. Beau and Ashton are totally in love and tons of things have happened to Ashton that makes it impossible for her to remain hidden behind the good girl facade. Sawyer is shocked by the change of personalty but he adores her and wants to marry Ashton, no way even with his bad feeling lurking in his gut, is he giving her up to Beau. Family history between the boys, their parents and money issues compound everything and Beau will have to choose between the love his life or the love of his only friend while Sawyer will have to do the same.

I held off on reading this book due to the cover, it screams sleazy to me and I tend to avoid sleazy books, but a friend named Jen from In the Closet convinced me to give it a try and Im glad I did. The cover girl doesn't match the book girl at all and the book wound up being fun, that being said though, not everything was smooth sailing in this story of love and lost chances. Sentences were choppy and whether it was due to my Smashwords to Nook edition I don't know, but the formatting had major problems. Plot threads which could have been flushed out with perhaps an extra 50 pages got wrapped up way to fast and the ending I hate to say fell in the predictable category. Characters came off as cliched {take main character Ashton, she's the good girl preachers daughter who really is a bad girl inside and just wants to lose her virginity to the bad boy} and really don't attach themselves to us. I also didn't like the fact that Ashton cheated on Sawyer (cheating=low and dirty) but I did like that she thought about her actions and cut the cheating off and stayed true to Sawyer until things were brought out in the open and wound up making the right choice for her life. 


So here's where I tell you, those problems aside the writing had great potential and I think Glines can and will grow as an author. Id recommend this book and tell you not to go into it with expectations of deep character development, as the characters only hit us at surface level, more so go into it for a few hours of guilty beach reading....because in the end scandal in fiction is fun. I did overall enjoy reading The Vincent Boys and despite the few hiccups I mentioned it was well worth the read. The Southern flair, the small town feel, the gossiping ninny's that come with small town churches, it all worked. Looking forward to checking out The Vincent Brothers.

Rating

Recommended to mature teens 17&up and contains: Violence (boy on boy) sexuality including sexual dialog and acts, strong language, underage drinking and family scandals.

3/5- Mature YA- Contemporary Romance
*Why Buy the Cow Challenge*