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New Release Review! TEN THINGS SLOANE HATES ABOUT TRU (Creative HeArts #1)

Synopsis:

When life gives you a blank canvas, make art.

Sloane Whitaker hates everything about moving to Texas. She hates leaving behind her friends and half her family in New York, starting over senior year at Austin’s NextGen Academy, and having to say she lives in Texas. Most of all, she hates that it’s all her fault. If she wants to earn her way back to the Big Apple, she has to prove she can still be the perfect daughter.

Which means no vandalism art, no trouble at school, and absolutely no Tru Dorsey, her serial screw-up neighbor, who loves nothing more than pushing her buttons.

But from the moment he vaults onto the roof outside her bedroom, there is something about him that makes her want to break every rule. Suddenly it’ s not the ten things she hates about Tru that are at the top of her list. It’s the ten reasons she doesn’t want to be without him.

Review:

Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru is a highly readable contemporary YA romance. It’s the first in the Creative HeArts series, and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where this series is going.

Sloane Whitaker has made a bad choice–a choice that’s caused her to move across the country with just her mom to start her senior year in a new school, away from her friends, her father, and her brother–and worst of all, NYC. Things have been crazy strained with her mother lately, but she still manages to make a deal–if Sloane can keep her grades up for the first marking period and stay out of trouble, there’s a chance she can move back to NYC and her old school to finish off the year.

Easy-peasy, right? After all, The Incident was simply a case of bad judgement–Sloane won’t possibly do that again…

But the house her mom picks for them to rent is right next door to her old college friend, and Mrs. Dorsey has a too-good-looking, too-much-trouble-to-hang-around with son, Tru. Sloane’s drawn to him even as she knows she has to stay far, far away–nothing can jeopardize her newfound truce with her mother and Sloane’s only chance of salvaging her senior year. But Tru’s fast becoming one of the only friends she has at her new school, and Sloane finds trusts him when things start to fall apart…can he help her figure out who’s trying to sabotage the senior class’s chance at a kick-butt art school scholarship before they’re both expelled?

Sloane and Tru had a very sweet romance and a satisfactorily snarky relationship before that, and the slight mystery had me turning the pages even though I was pretty sure fairly early on who was behind it. I liked that Sloane’s mom was able to trust her–and by extension trust Tru–relatively soon after Sloane’s place at her new school was threatened, mostly on the word of her daughter even though they’d had a super-rocky time of the past year together.

The ending was a bit more of a happy-for-now than a true HEA–a few things about both Sloane and Tru’s situations aren’t *quite* resolved at the end. I’m not sure if the series will continue to be about the two of them or pick up with other main characters–I’m really hoping for more Tru and Sloane, because Tru’s position at the end of the book in regards to his home life is especially precarious, and I’d love to see that improved. Either way, though, I’ll definitely be there to see what direction Ms. Childs is going to take it.

Rating: 4 stars / B+

I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

 

About the Author:

Tera Lynn Childs is the RITA-award-winning author of the mythology-based Oh.My. Gods. and Goddess Boot Camp, the mermaid tales Forgive My Fins, Fins Are Forever and Just For Fins, and a kick-butt trilogy about monster-hunting descendants of Medusa that includes Sweet Venom, Sweet Shadows, and Sweet Legacy. She has published two e-novellas, Goddess In Time and Pretty In Pearls, and self-published her City Chicks sweet chick lit series. Tera lives nowhere in particular and spends her time writing wherever she can find a comfy chair and a steady stream of caffeinated beverages.

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