New Review + GIVEAWAY + EXCERPT: Hallowed Ground (Flight and Glory #4) by Rebecca Yarros
There are some debts you can’t repay.
Josh Walker is loyal, reckless, and every girl’s dream. But he only has eyes for December Howard, the girl he’s craved since his high school hockey days. Together they have survived grief, the military, distance, and time as they’ve fought for stolen weekends between his post at Ft. Rucker and her college at Vanderbilt. Now that Josh is a medevac pilot and Ember is headed toward graduation, they’re moving on—and in—together.
Ember never wanted the Army life, but loving Josh means accepting whatever the army dictates—even when that means saying goodbye as Josh heads to Afghanistan, a country that nearly killed him once before and that took her father. But filling their last days together with love, passion, and plans for their future doesn’t temper Ember’s fear, and if there’s one thing she’s learned from her father’s death, it’s that there are some obstacles even love can’t conquer.
Flight school is over.
This is war.
GISELLE’S REVIEW:
Bittersweet. If there’s one word that comes to mind as I’m writing this, just having finished Hallowed Ground and, in turn, the Flight and Glory series, it is bittersweet. Hallowed Ground is not a story about new, never-seen-before characters, but rather the characters that started it all in this series- Ember and Josh from Full Measures (Flight and Glory #1). Readers of this series know these characters, they’ve seen their start and now, with this book, you’re ending and incredible series with them. It’s like going on vacations with a bunch of your oldest close friends you hadn’t seen in a while; you still know them so well and it feels like no time has passed since you last saw them.
Reading Hallowed Ground made me fall in love with two characters I already loved, but this story, the continuation of their story, made me fall twice as hard for Ember and Josh. This story also managed to break my heart (several times) in way that Rebecca Yarros had never done before.
Before I started Hallowed Ground I binge-read all the other books in this series, so reading Hallowed Ground immediately after was both amazing and incredibly sad because my love for all the other characters in this novel was so fresh and not only was I reading the conclusion of Ember and Josh’s story, but that of Jagger and Paisley and Sam and Grayson- however I will still hold out for more books about them in the future! 😉
Reading the books in this series back to back also made Hallowed Ground stand out, especially in terms of writing. Rebecca will most definitely drag out some raw emotions with this book using her talented writing skills, and I feel like that really makes this book stand out amongst the rest.
This book was the definition of an emotional rollercoaster read that literally had my heart pounding during, at least, every other chapter, if not every single one; both from the incredibly sexy scenes Rebecca is an expert at writing and those gritty scenes that made my chest feel like it was going to explode. My heart hurts now that I am finished with this series, but I know I will be re-reading all four books very soon and I am so excited to read whatever Rebecca Yarros has in store for us next because I have no doubt it will be incredible!!
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EXCERPT:
I pushed my chair out and reached for her, lifting her tiny, curved frame into my lap. Her head tucked beneath my chin, and she curled into me, fitting right where she was always meant to be. My arms closed around her. “We have a month.”
“It’s not long enough.” Her fingers gripped my shirt like she could keep me here if she just held on tight enough. God, what I wouldn’t have given to stay with her.
“Forever isn’t long enough for us, December, but that’s what we’re going to have. You and I have never chosen the easy path. This is just another hurdle.” I rubbed my chin over her soft hair and tried to soak in every detail of holding her—the sweet way she smelled, the smooth texture of her skin beneath my hands.
She leaned back in my arms and cupped my face. “I can’t lose you.” Her voice broke, and tears pooled in her eyes.
I’d never hated myself more than I did in that moment. She’d made it through a nightmare no one should have to face, and I was about to ask her to chance that fire again. My breath hitched, barely passing the lump in my throat. “You won’t. It would take something a hell of a lot stronger than a war to keep me from you.”
I sealed that promise with a kiss, tasting her fear and desperation as she responded. She opened underneath me, and I fused my mouth to hers, surrendering to the heat between us to pull us through this moment. There was nothing hotter or sweeter in this world than kissing December, feeling her go soft and pliant.
We’d fought so fucking hard to get here, to be together. This wasn’t fair, and we both knew it. But we also both knew it didn’t matter. Fair wasn’t exactly in the U.S. Army vocabulary.
I retreated just enough to whisper against her lips, “I’ll come home. I swear it.”
Rebecca Yarros is a hopeless romantic and lover of all things chocolate, coffee, and Paleo. In addition to being a mom, military wife, and blogger, she can never choose between Young Adult and New Adult fiction, so she writes both. She’s a graduate of Troy University, where she studied European history and English, but still holds out hope for an acceptance letter to Hogwarts. Her blog, The Only Girl Among Boys, has been voted the Top Military Mom Blog the last two years, and celebrates the complex issues surrounding the military life she adores. When she’s not writing, she’s tying on hockey skates for her kids, or sneaking in some guitar time. She is madly in love with her army-aviator husband of eleven years. They finally can call Colorado home along with their gaggle of rambunctious kiddos and snoring English Bulldog.