Christie's review: Full Tilt by Emma Scott

Title: Full Tilt

Author: Emma Scott

Series: Full Tilt #1

Release date: June 28, 2016

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis:

"I would love you forever, if I only had the chance..." 

Kacey Dawson has always lived life on the edge--impulsively, sometimes recklessly. And now, as lead guitarist for a hot up-and-coming band, she is poised at the brink of fame and fortune. But she is torn between wanting to be a serious musician, and the demons that lure her down the glittering, but alcohol-soaked path of rock stardom. A wrecked concert in Las Vegas threatens to ruin her career entirely. She wakes up with the hangover from hell and no memory of the night before, or how she ended up on her limo driver’s couch... 

Jonah Fletcher is running out of time. He knows his situation is hopeless, and he's vowed to make the most of the handful of months he has left to him. His plans include seeing the opening of his glass installation at a prestigious art gallery…they do not include falling in love with a wild, tempestuous rock musician who wound up passed out on his couch. 

Jonah sees that Kacey is on a path to self-destruction. He lets her crash with him for a few days to dry out and get her head on straight. But neither of them expected the deep connection they felt, or how that connection could grow so fast from friendship into something more. Something deep and pure and life-changing…something as fragile as glass, that they both know will shatter in the end no matter how hard they try to hold on to it. 

Full Tilt is a story about what it means to love with your whole heart, to sacrifice, to experience terrible grief and soaring joy. To live life with all its beauty, and all its pain, and in the end to be able to smile through tears and know you wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Full Tilt is a story that will reverberate in me for a long time. I feel like I've read my fair share of tear jerkers this year and they've been incredible hard hitters. I've been punched in the gut and unable to breathe past the huge knot swelling in my throat. So when I started reading this, I was determined to put on my armor and not allow myself to feel too much. I was going to cruise through this book with my eyes wide open that it would be sad, but I'd deal and let it slide off my back. That didn't happen. Emma Scott...*shakes fist* what have you done to me?

3 AM...
sniffling...
sobbing...
making grotesque faces trying to keep quiet...

I went there. I was wrecked and ruined and laying in a soggy heap.

Even with my walls put up, I couldn't help but fall for the beautiful soul named Jonah. From your first meeting you know that he sees the world as one of missed opportunities. A mixture of desperation and numbness filling him until he wants to scream but he has to stay silent. He has to soldier on and hold himself together for his family who want him to be happy. So he suffers his present walk in life and works toward his one and only goal. A legacy. He's a gifted industrial artist who doesn't have time for anything except the beautiful glass he creates.

Kacey is a musician on the precipice of fame. But success and money can't heal the hole in heart heart that eats away at her. She's in a tailspin towards destruction when she meets Jonah.

Drinking, sex with random men, and partying are her preferred methods of forgetting the abandonment and lack of love from her parents. By all counts, they were on separate paths and never should have connected. But when does love ever arrive when it's convenient? Drawn together no matter how wrong it might be, they hurtled toward the abyss in front of them. Not knowing if it would swallow them up or be their salvation.

Their future was uncertain. There was no room for guarantees, wasted words, or unused spaces. The more pages I read, the more my heart collapsed in on itself. How could any good come of what they were risking? Their love should have been devastating, but it lifted them up and made them better for experiencing it. Made me better.

She owned me. No other woman had ever made me feel like this: undone, completely unraveled and yet complete. Kacey made me whole. Healthy. Invincible. And my body was desperate to show her.

Full Tilt is a story you just soak up and let it expand in you. It fills you up with a hundred emotions and makes you hurt and want to fly all at once. I'm sitting here days after finishing this story and my eyes are welling up with tears again just thinking about Emma Scott's impactful love story. Would I recommend this if you're looking for some light reading? Most definitely not. This is a book for those looking for something unique, something unconventional that will really make you think.

This is my first book by this author and I know without a doubt I will be reading more in the future. Her writing was distinct, colorful, and rich with beautiful imagery. I was fully immersed and surrounded by the world she created. There is no HEA at the end of this book, but the following one in the series titled All In comes out in October. I look forward to seeing these characters find healing and happiness in their future.

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