Saturday, September 6, 2014

Blog Tour and Review: Shhh by Jettie Woodroof and M Robinson

 

Private message Jettie on FB to be let in the back door of her private group where the release day party for Mack's side will be held.



My name is McKenzie Perry. I’ve lived a life filled with secrets. Secrets that took me years to understand. 
Secrets that my bestie, Gia, and I kept from the world. Secrets that only I knew. I wasn’t afraid of the lies,
the secrets, or the hidden skeletons. That’s not what frightened me. I was afraid that one day they would come out, somebody would find out the truth. If I am the only one that knew the secrets, the lies, then they were safe, right? 

It took several years for me to understand the impact of lies. Lies I told, secrets I kept, and the lives they controlled. One of the things I know to be true is I did the things I did for a reason, even if I didn’t know it at the time. 

They all had a reason. 

My name is Mack and this is my side of the story. 

http://amzn.to/1pu7WlXhttp://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shhhmacks-side-jettie-woodruff/1120257227?ean=2940150310834









Jettie Woodruff is a lifelong writer, living in a pretend world since she was a little girl. Jettie spent hours filling pages of spiral notebooks with a number two pencil and a wild imagination. Her very first story was a scifi of all things.
 Jettie writes more along the lines of erotica now. She likes to keep her readers on edge, and deliver a story that will pull out every emotion possible. Writing on the edge of taboo and dark, Jettie hopes to distribute an adventure you'll not soon forget.

 Married for twenty five years, raising two boys and one girl has left lots of writing material. She has recently become a grandma to not one, but two of the most beautiful little girls on planet earth.


 Jettie also hates doing this bio. That's all you get. She loves to read and write. What else is there? <3









Have you ever lied? Held secrets? Betrayed someone?
I have.
McKenzie and I were best friends, soul sisters. We shared everything…or so she thought. To everyone I was perfect and happy. No one knew the real me. That was until I saw him. Everything changed the second we laid eyes on each other. The world stopped moving and only we existed in it. But it just added to the secrets and lies, it became too much and I couldn’t tell apart what was real and what wasn’t.
This story is for anyone who has ever lied and lived to regret it…

http://amzn.to/1Cv9beZ





M. Robinson loves to read. She favors anything that has angst, romance, triangles, cheating, love, and of course sex! She has been reading since the Babysitters Club and R.L. Stein.

She was born in New Jersey but was raised in Tampa Fl. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D in psychology, with two years left.



She is married to an amazing man who she loves to pieces. They have two German Shepherd mixes and a Tabby cat.

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon | Instagram







Shhhh.... by M. Robinson & Jettie Woodruff are two books like nothing that you have ever read before.  Two separate books written by two different authors tell the same story from opposing points of view.  Best friends Mack and Gianna see the events of their lives taking place in a much different manner, each believing that the way in which and why these things happened were the truth.  You will find Mack's book difficult to read at times due to the raw emotion that she deals with on a daily basis and Gianna's actions will anger you at time.  I would rate these two books with 3.5 stars and would recommend others read them.  I would suggest reading Mack's POV first, as it made reading Gianna's perception of the events have more clarity.

Mack and Gianna lived next door to each other their entire lives, doing everything together as any best friends from birth would do.  Their families did everything together and each girl was treated as a pseudo daughter by the other family.  What the reader finds out very quickly is the struggle that Mack faced since she was a small child.  The struggle to feel normal and to not have the voices in her head that she didn't understand.  Desperate to be like her best friend Gianna in every way possible she puts all of her efforts into being perfect, perfect grades, perfect daughter, perfect cheerleader, and perfect best friend.  A mental illness that was finally acknowledged by her parents, but once treated with medication was later ignored, plagues her daily and it seems that the only person who can truly understand and care about what she is going through is Gianna's father Kyle.  Mack becomes infatuated with making Kyle proud of her, to gain his approval in everything she does, something that she severely lacks from her own father.  The reader starts to believe that Mack probably has serious "daddy issues" however, that is anything but the case and the reader learns that the further into the story you get.  Through a series of flashbacks while talking with her therapist Lila, Mack tells of the ways in which her bipolar disease got the better of her at times because she was unable to control it, especially when she was off her medication, and because she had no one to turn to for help, not even Gianna.  A series of events that took place in high-school with Gianna leading the charge, forced Mack to lie about a situation she doesn't even remember putting an innocent man behind bars for ten years.  She leads a life that isn't really living and hasn't talked to Gianna in years; the strong friendship they once had in shambles.  It is only his release on parole that triggers memories that she has tried to bury for a long time, forcing her to do the only thing she knows how to do, run.  Coming face to face with Gianna once again while being held against her will and without her medication to regulate her thoughts, Mack almost loses her life.  The ending of Mack's POV gives the reader a sense of hope for her.  Hope that she can conquer the demons that have plagued her through-out her life.  Hope that she will eventually get to a place that she can have her own happily ever after.

Then the reader begins Gianna's POV and everything you thought you knew is smashed to pieces.  The way in which Gianna acted outwardly to please everyone, including Mack was almost odd to read.  After seeing how Mack described her childhood with Gianna and then how Gianna described it were to contradictory stories that the reader almost questions the validity of all of it.  Gianna wanted to be perfect and she desperately wanted everyone to stop comparing her to Mack, especially her father Kyle.  Once in high-school it seemed that Gianna had her chance to shine; being the head cheerleader and having the perfect boyfriend Jake; two things that Mack didn't have.  It was only at the start of an extremely inappropriate relationship with her English teacher her senior year that caused everything to come to a head and had her making choices that destroyed lives, including her own.  After being hurt from a rejection she didn't expect nor want from James Nichols.  After setting him up to take the fall for something he didn't do, Gianna and Mack went their separate ways; Gianna forcing herself to live a life that she didn't want, as Jake's wife.  It was only after having a miscarriage and almost a nervous breakdown that she walks away from her marriage and divorces Jake and continues her spiral downhill as an alcoholic because numbing the pain is better than feeling it.  After the parole of James Nichols; everything that she was afraid of comes to light as she is face to face again with Mack after all these years.  Both of them confessing to things that the other didn't know, the reader has hope that perhaps these two friends who seemed as close as sisters could mend their broken friendship and move on with their lives as stronger woman.  Unfortunately as the story comes to a close it doesn't seem that this is possible.

The ending.  Wow.  If I didn't know any better I would think that this was a serious cliff hanger.  But the truths revealed in the final pages of Gianna's story are mind-blowing to say the least.



THIS REVIEW IS FOR MACK'S SIDE...

  When I first heard about this book I was so intrigued. How can two authors write from the same story line but in different POV’s??? This pulled me in from the get go! I knew I had to read this… then when I read the blurb… secrets, lies… oh yes… this is my kind of book! I’m all on board when this is released! I was just blown away by both books. I tend to love the dark and twisted and not for everyone type of book and Shhh… Mack’s side was right up my alley! It was gripping, it had me on the edge of my seat, it had me devouring the pages, and I could not get enough! This could not have been an easy task for either M Robinson or Jettie Woodruff but I think they pulled it off and the result is a twisted tale where secrets, lies, and revenge distort everything in not just Mack and Gia’s life but in everyone they loved. Nobody’s life is the same after one night that will be the beginning of the end. Both books flip between past and present and I would highly recommend reading both starting with Mack’s and ending with Gia’s. Mack’s side has a prologue that sets the tone for the books and Gia’s ending is like a bomb! There is no way that is too good to be in the knowing going into the other book. So first Mack… then Gia.

Jettie Woodruff brings us Mack’s side… In the past, Mack appears to be the perfect all American girl. She’s an A student and top cheerleader. She is always competing with her best friend Gia. But what she keeps inside is that she feels like nobody knows her. She feels like a stranger in her own skin. She never felt the love of her Mother and Father. She always wanted to be like Gia. Even though they were best friends, she was envious of what Gia had.

“Nobody cared about what was going on inside me. I just wanted someone to care, someone to understand.”

But there is someone who understands her, someone that is there for her. When the story started to unfold I was literally picking my jaw up off the floor! Kyle is the one person who gets Mack. Unfortunately, he is Gia’s Dad. On so many levels I am thinking this is so wrong… she is a teenager and Kyle is a grown man. Gawh… seriously!!!!! I’m like noooooo!

“I didn’t see a thirty-eight year old man at all standing in front of me. I didn’t see a dad. I didn’t see any of that. I saw a man who loved me for who I was, every little hang up. He didn’t care.”

What we learn early on is that Mack is bipolar and many of the struggles she has is because of this. It’s sad to see a young girl so broken and so hurt and not have anywhere to turn but the arms of an older man. She knows being with a married man is not right and she wants to have a normal high school life. Unfortunately when Gia is failing English and comes up with a scheme to have Mack take her English test the pieces of her life start to unravel apart. Gia has her own secrets and Mack is just a pawn in her game. You see Gia has a major crush on the English teacher and when she convinces Mack to go along with her story that she was raped by him it starts a string of events that rips everyone life apart. Nothing will ever be the same after this.

Seven years later, Mack works for a successful fashion magazine. She pours herself into her work. She has to keep her time occupied, she has to keep her mind busy. When the alleged rapist is paroled, he seeks out the girls to get his own revenge. What he doesn’t know is just how messed up Mack already is. He keeps her in an abandoned asylum, sort of fitting because they are all just a little bit crazy! He leaves her locked in a room. She knows this is her sentence for what she did to him. She accepts it and doesn’t fight him.

“Call me crazy, but I found a peace that I never knew existed in the most fucked up place I could have found, I didn’t feel alone anymore. For the first time in my life I felt there was something bigger than me, bigger than anyone, a powerful force that told me none of us where alone. There was a higher power out there. If felt it, or maybe I was just crazy and needed my meds. That was also a possibility.”

Yup... I told you she was crazy. When he forces Gia and Mack to confront each other about that night of the alleged rape the secret and scandals unravel!!!!! The truth is finally exposed and there are so many twists and turns my head is swimming! I was literally saying.. oh my god!! Oh my god!! I felt so sorry for Mack. She always seemed so lost and struggling to find herself. It takes an act that is unimaginable to bring her to a place where she may be able to finally be happy.

The idea to write two books of the same idea by two authors is insane but the result was a masterpiece!! Both books are a MUST READ and you better believe after reading Mack’s side I dove into Gia’s. There are still secrets that we don’t have answers for and only Gia can give us to them! 5 huge stars! 

THIS REVIEW IS FOR GIANNA'S SIDE

How can one story line and two books from two different authors not intrigue you?? I was salivated to read these books!  I am a huge, huge, huge fan of M Robinsons… like I have a lady crush on her huge! She can write a twisted fucked up story like no one can!  If you have not read VIP and the Madam… get to one clicking because she has skills!  I just got done reading both sides of Shhh… Mack’s and now Gianna’s and I am again in awe of Ms Robinson.  After reading Mack’s side, you think you know the story of what happened. What drove everyone to that night that changes everything… but what you thought you knew is going to shit and hand basket real quick!  Because honestly, we know nothing until the end of Gianna’s side!  Since I read both books I must HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading both books.  I do not think I would truly appreciate Gianna’s side if I didn’t read Mack’s side first.

Gianna aka Gia and Mack appear to have it all. They are best friends and neighbors. They are the popular cheerleaders that everyone loves.  But Gia could never be good enough. She always was not smart enough, are pretty enough.  She had the love and adoration of the loving boyfriend but that was also never enough. She found out early own she could use her sexuality to get what she wanted and drinking to numb the pain.  She thought Mack was the perfect girl and hated being compared to her.  She put on a front and never let anyone see the real Gia. Not until the day she walked into her English class and laid eyes on the new teacher. 



“…the reality that I would learn much later, was that no one could see through me.  I was a chrome metal shield that no one could break or see through… with the exception of one person.”



She immediately was drawn to him.  James Nichols the new English teacher and she knew she had to have him.  For a while they would just flirt but after months, lines get blurred and they give into their lust.


“Obsessed is a term that needs to be used lightly, but Mr. Nichols possessed me, and from that day forth… I was his.”



Mr. Nichols is unlike any lover Gia has ever known.  She has been with boys, but he was a man.  He worshipped her.  He would recite Shakespeare to her, who would not love to hear love sonnets??  She was in love with him, more than just a school girl crush.  She was devoted to him.  He had told her that he was separated from his wife but she makes a surprise visit to his house, she sees them together and she is convinced that he lied to her the entire time.  Their love was not real to him, it was just a ploy to get her in bed.   That’s when she started her devious plan for revenge.  Little did she know how far things were go and instead of feeling vindicated, she is left feeling alone.  She knew she needed a plan that would hurt him just as she was hurt.   She would use everyone to get what she needed. It didn’t matter who was in the crossfire.



“That’s the moment I shattered. It happened right then and there for everyone to see.  He witnessed it, and for a brief second, I saw pleasure in his face, he wasn’t done hurting me.”



Her plan to hurt him not only devastated her life but sent him to prison for seven years.   In those seven years, sex and alcohol are still how she makes it through the day.  Her failed marriage to her high school boyfriend and her living off her parents are all as has to show for her life. She wakes up to drink to get drunk, to get a laid and to do it all over again the next day.  She doesn’t even realize when Mr. Nichols kidnaps her and seeks his own revenge for destroying his life.   Gia and Mack had taken everything from him. He needed to make them feel what he has felt… what being in prison for a crime he didn’t commit felt like.  He expected to find the same Gia and Mack he remembered from seven years ago, not the alcoholic and bipolar disasters he found.  Taking them to the abounded asylum he thought he could give them a taste of his last seven years.  He didn’t expect to find them both so broken and lost as he was.  But the pull that Gia has to him is still here… She knows she cannot resist him.



“I didn’t want any of part of it, but my body’s reaction to his touch proved that he still had power over me.  He would control me.  He still owned me.  Body, heart and soul.”



The turn of events while at the asylum just leave me speechless!  Mr Nichols wanted to inflict just as much pain and heartbreak into Gia and Mack.  When he brings them together the lies and secrets are exposed and we think we get the answers we are looking for.  In that dark and twisted place, can Mr Nichols and Gia find the love they shared? Are they truly soul mates?  Can the years of deceit, lies and revenge be replaced?  Can all be forgiven?? When you think you know the whole story and all the cards on placed on the table… the epilogue comes along and rips everything you know into shreds!!!!!! OMGAWD that epilogue!!!!!!!!! WOW… WOW… WOW!!!  Talk about the bomb of all bombs!  The twist and of all twists!  SPEECHLESS I tell you!!!!  I WAS SPEECHLESS!  This is why if you are going to read both books, read this one last!  You have to save the best for last!  And that last little savory morsel is something I never saw playing out!!!! 5 HUGE STARS!!
*************
Brought to you by Beauties and The Book