Review – Playing Patience by Tabatha Vargo

Title: Playing Patience

Author: Tabatha Vargo

Series: Blow Hole Boys #1

Genre: NA Contemporary Romance

Published: April 22nd 2013

Book Description

Sometimes all you need is Patience.

Life’s been hard for Zeke. Being a punching bag for his alcoholic father has turned him into stone. Not even the dodgy trailer park he lives in can scare him. Fighting is his release and sex, drugs, and his guitar bring him peace, but deep down Zeke isn’t quite as hard as he makes himself out to be. When he meets Patience, she finds all his broken pieces and puts him back together, but she’s a ray of light in his shadowed life and the last thing he wants to do is bring her into his dark world. Playing careless is easy, playing the bad guy can be fun, but playing Patience is impossible, especially when she can see right through him.

Zeke isn’t the only one who’s broken, and for the first time, in a long time, Patience feels alive. Her black and white world gets a shot of color when she meets Zeke. He’s unlike anyone she’s ever met with his tattoos, piercings, and blunt honesty. She wants nothing more than to let go and ride the wild side with him, but some wounds never heal and the broken pieces of Patience aren’t so easy to find.

***Warning: this book contains graphic language, sex, and violence. Mature readers only. Not intended for young adult readers.***

  

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My Review

If you didn't know by now I have a soft spot for the bad boy in stories and this has another example of the perfect bad boy. Zeke is total hotness, he uses girls and tosses them away just as soon as they satisfy his urges. But beneath the surface are a lot of secrets that he hides from everyone, including his best friends. He does everything that I expect in a bad boy, drinks, smokes pot, plays in a band and bangs girls. He is from the wrong side of the tracks and lives in a trailer park with his father. But if you took the time to get past the front you can see there is more to him than what meets the eye.

Patience is a good girl from the high end of town. From the outside she looks like the perfect girl and daughter, but looks are pretty deceiving as we find out very early. She is a severely damaged girl and is able to lock her emotions and insecurities away. Her home life is not a real happy one and her mother is very sick. She is soon out of her comfort zone when she goes to a bar to see a band with her best friend and she is saved by a handsome stranger.

These two broken characters don't get along too well to begin with but soon their connection starts to grow and they can't deny that there is a spark between them. The more time they spend together, the stronger the pull. Zeke doesn't understand why a girl like Patience likes him and soon he tries to repel her with his smart ass comments and avoids her where possible. But somehow she has already crawled under his skin. He knows that she has her secrets as well but has no idea as to how bad things are for her.

Playing Patience touches on some very dark aspects of life and at times I was tearing up along with the characters. It is sad to know that the things that both of these characters have had to deal with occur in real life and to read about these characters going through it makes the story so believable. The way the author told the story from both POV’s gave great depth to the story and she some of the same moments were retold be both characters. I enjoyed the story from cover to cover and felt that I knew the characters personally. They learn so much about each other and they grow into better people themselves. Not everything goes to plan and they have to get over a lot of hurdles and face their worst fears before they can even think of being with one another. There are some nice romance scenes and even some fast hard loving between the characters as well. I was totally blown away by this story and I am looking forward to more from this author!