Run To You Read-Along!

Hey Everyone!

I just wanted to do a quick post today to let you all know about a really fun event coming up for Clara Kensie's paranormal young adult serial novel, Run to You. I had the opportunity a little while back to read and review the three parts of book one, and I highly recommend them if you're looking for quick, hugely entertaining reads.

To help celebrate the upcoming release of book two (also consisting of three parts), Clara is hosting a read-along for First Sight, Second Glance, and Third Charm to introduce new readers to the series before Tessa and Tristan's story continues.

I know a lot of you are probably going "I'm not a fan of serials, so this is not for me," but WAIT! What's so great about this serial in particular is one: All three parts of book one are already out, and two: This serial releases a week apart with part four (Fourth Shadow) actually releasing last week. Part five (Fifth Touch) releases this Tuesday, the 15th and the sixth and final part of book two (Sixth Sense) is out on July 21st. Hardly any waiting necessary. Win.

I've participated in a couple read-alongs and have had an absolute blast, so I encourage anyone who hasn't tried one yet to follow along, it's a fantastic way to share bookish excitement with fellow book lovers!

Below is the schedule for the read-along, but be sure and check out Clara's full blog post for all the finer details as well as a list of all the AWESOME prizes you can win for participating! From Clara:

The read-along is for Book One (FIRST SIGHT, SECOND GLANCE, and THIRD TOUCH).

• FIRST SIGHT: July 21 – July 27 (Moderated by Margie from Bumbles and Fairy Tales)
  
• SECOND GLANCE: July 28 – August 3 (Moderated by Patricia from The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club)
• THIRD CHARM: August 4 – August 10 (Moderated by Hannah from The Irish Banana Review)

As you read the corresponding installment each week, come to my Facebook page to discuss it with other readers. Margie, Patricia, and Hannah will ask some fun questions for you to answer, and you can ask questions of your own.

LIKE CLARA'S FACEBOOK PAGE TO PARTICIPATE!

Prefer Twitter? We will also post the discussions on Twitter, and you can participate by using the hashtag #readRunToYou. Follow @ClaraKensie and @HarlequinTEEN or save the #readRunToYou hashtag as a search for updates.

FIND CLARA:

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RUN TO YOU

 Part One: First Sight (from Goodreads)

Part One in the riveting romantic thriller about a family on the run from a deadly past and a first love that will transcend secrets, lies and danger…

Sarah Spencer has a secret: her real name is Tessa Carson, and to stay alive, she can tell no one the truth about her psychically gifted family and the danger they are running from. As the new girl in the latest of countless schools, she also runs from her attraction to Tristan Walker—after all, she can’t even tell him her real name. But Tristan won’t be put off by a few secrets. Not even dangerous ones that might rip Tessa from his arms before they even kiss…

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Run To You: Second Glance + Third Charm

RUN TO YOU
Part Two: Second Glance
Clara Kensie
Paranormal Young Adult
Ebook, serial novel
HarlequinTEEN
Available Now
Source: e-ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Part Two in the riveting romantic thriller about a family on the run from a deadly past and a first love that will transcend secrets, lies and danger…

Tessa Carson has unlocked her heart and her secrets to Tristan Walker—but Tristan has secrets of his own, and his might just mean the end of Tessa’s family. Unaware, Tessa embraces falling in love and being herself for the first time since she was attacked when she was only eight years old. But secrets can’t be run from forever, and sometimes love is too good to be true…

MY THOUGHTS
Part two of Run to You builds beautifully on the first, finally revealing in full exactly what happened to Tessa and her family to send them running for their lives, and while the reason why their family was targeted seems like a bit of an extreme reaction to an investigative journalist’s articles, we can’t help but be grateful some of the confusion resulting from book one is cleared up. What’s so fascinating about reading this story in sections is the way various pieces of information are tied together, forcing our brains to work just a little bit harder to recall expertly placed clues; ones that seemed small or insignificant in our initial pass only to have a later event trigger their importance and relevance to the story as we know it thus far. In the same vein, given part two is still but a piece of the whole even when combined with part one, we are left to gleefully wonder what events the concluding third might offer that will make things we may have unknowingly glossed over in Second Glance slide perfectly into place.

Though largely an improvement upon First Sight, Second Glance is still predominantly plot-driven, so those readers who revel in character subtleties and complexities will likely be a touch disappointed on that front. Tessa, her family, and Tristan remain fairly superficial for us, our time with them always seeming to move quickly; their story a river full of rapids rather than a smoothly flowing stream. The romance between Tessa and Tristan continues to remain shallower than we might like, declarations of love cast about with an ease that has us questioning the sincerity of their sentiments, but despite those niggles, there’s a highly addictive quality to this second installment that has us flipping the pages with impressive speed.

The concluding chapters of Second Glance absolutely fly by, our hearts pounding out an erratic rhythm as we try and make sense of the deliciously unexpected. We’re left with one of those revelations that, should it prove to be true in part three, will make us completely reevaluate everything we’ve read, the desire to return to the beginning and sift through each chapter with a fine-tooth comb on the hunt for previously-missed foreshadowing suddenly one we’re not sure we can refuse.

Rating: 4/5

RUN TO YOU
Part Three: Third Charm
Clara Kensie
Paranormal Young Adult
Ebook, serial novel
HarlequinTEEN
Available Now
Source: e-ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Part Three in the riveting romantic thriller about a family on the run from a deadly past and a first love that will transcend secrets, lies and danger…

Betrayed, heartbroken, and determined to save her family, Tessa Carson refuses to give in to Tristan Walker’s pleas for forgiveness. But her own awakening psychic gift won’t let her rest until she uncovers the truth about her family and her past. And Tristan is the only one who can help her sift through the secrets to find the truth hidden in all the lies…

MY THOUGHTS
The third installment of the Run to You serial brings with it a very different type of confusion than we experienced in part one; this the type borne of two seemingly opposing truths that require a great deal of questioning and soul-searching in order to sniff out which is actually an impressively constructed lie. We find ourselves in much the same state as Tessa after the shocking parting line of Second Glance, trying to sort through what we thought we knew about everyone and everything in her life up until that point, though where she despairs of all she’s learned, we can’t help but be perversely gleeful over the fact that Ms. Kensie threw us a curveball that promptly flew right by us and struck us out.

Tessa has been someone we’ve enjoyed spending time with throughout, her story drawing us in deeper and deeper with each installment until we’re eschewing all real-world responsibilities in favor of reading, but she remains someone we can’t help but wish was a bit stronger. Part of her apparent meekness stems from her entire family handling her with kid gloves given she’s the only one of them without a paranormal ability, and it's clear she's learned to view herself through the skewed filter of their eyes rather than her own. She has moments of fire in this last installment though, flashes of strong will and determination that let us know so much more lurks beneath the girl whose entire life has been ruled by fear.

There are still a few small drawbacks to the relationship between Tessa and Tristan that prevent us from fully embracing their love, but things between them are at their most interesting in this third installment, and Third Charm proves to be the strongest of the three parts in terms of their romantic development. We’re left with many of our questions answered and the main conflict with regard to who’s been terrorizing Tessa’s family wrapped up nicely, but there’s one main aspect of Tessa’s life left wide open for us to explore when Ms. Kensie’s next three part serial releases. Overall, Tessa and Tristan’s story is definitely one I look forward to continuing, especially now that Tessa has shown she’s got more than a little fight in her.

Rating: 4/5

Find Run To You:

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Review: Run To You: First Sight

RUN TO YOU
Part One: First Sight
Clara Kensie
Paranormal Young Adult
Ebook, serial novel
HarlequinTEEN
Available Now
Source: e-ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Part One in the riveting romantic thriller about a family on the run from a deadly past and a first love that will transcend secrets, lies and danger…

Sarah Spencer has a secret: her real name is Tessa Carson, and to stay alive, she can tell no one the truth about her psychically gifted family and the danger they are running from. As the new girl in the latest of countless schools, she also runs from her attraction to Tristan Walker—after all, she can’t even tell him her real name. But Tristan won’t be put off by a few secrets. Not even dangerous ones that might rip Tessa from his arms before they even kiss…

MY THOUGHTS
Run to You is a serial novel consisting of three parts released a week apart, each one delving us deeper into the life of Tessa and her family as they try to stay one step ahead of a hired assassin. A serial novel is somewhat of a unique and different reading experience, forcing us to examine the story in sections rather than as a whole, something that can be a bit tricky given an element or two that may bother us in the first installment could very well be remedied in the second–therefore becoming an irrelevant complaint overall–but because we approach each piece of this puzzle individually we’re left with our emotions a bit more in flux.

That being said, Run to You has us quite literally hitting the ground running, immediately caught up in Tessa’s terror over being discovered yet again. We as readers are the eye of a turbulent storm as it roars around us, Tessa and her family a whirl of movement of emotion as we sit quietly and try to make sense of the various pieces as they blow by us. Ms. Kensie teases us with fleeting glimpses of how Tessa and her family came to be in their current situation, showing us just enough to ensure our she has our attention and then quickly redirecting us before we can ask more questions than she’s prepared to answer in this first part.

Though we more than sympathize with Tessa and can’t fathom the fear she and her family live with day in and day out, as of this first installment the story seems to be more heavily plot-driven than character-driven, our emotional ties to them overshadowed by our immense curiosity as to what exactly happened that day eight years ago that started it all. There’s a romance between Tessa and a young man from her new school, and while a declaration of love seems to come far too early in their relationship, the fact that Tessa is keeping so much from him holds us captivated, wondering when the impressive dam holding her secrets back is going to crack and allow a few to slip through.

All in all, Run to You gets off to an intriguing start, light just barely beginning to shine on the complexities–personal and familial as well as normal and paranormal–to make a sometimes painful tangle of Tessa’s life, but there is clearly many a shadowed corner that remains as of yet untouched in this first installment, and I for one can’t wait to see how things develop.

Rating: 3.5/5

*Note: It was really difficult to rate this first installment individually since it's intentionally incomplete and leaves off mid-story, but I thoroughly enjoyed this serial it in its entirety (reviews of parts 2 and 3 posting tomorrow), and would give it a 4/5 when all three parts are read together!

Find Run To You:

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Find Clara:

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