Blog Tour/Review/Giveaway: Need by Stephanie Lawton

Title: Want
Author: Stephanie Lawton
Series: Want #1
Release Date: June 7, 2012
Publisher: InkSpell Publishing
ISBN13: 9780985011574
Format: Paperback, 318 pages
Genre: NA, contemporary, romance
Source: blog tour

Julianne counts the days until she can pack her bags and leave her old-money, tradition-bound Southern town where appearance is everything and secrecy is a way of life. A piano virtuoso, she dreams of attending a prestigious music school in Boston. Failure is not an option, so she enlists the help of New England Conservatory graduate Isaac Laroche to help her.

She can’t understand why he suddenly gave up Boston’s music scene to return to the South. He doesn’t know her life depends on escaping it. Julianne must face down madness from without, just as it threatens from within. Isaac must resist an inappropriate attraction, but an indiscretion at a Mardi Gras ball-the pinnacle event for Mobile’s elite-forces their present wants and needs to collide with sins of the past.

Will Julianne accept the help she’s offered and get everything she ever wanted, or will she self-destruct and take Isaac down with her?

Title: Need
Author: Stephanie Lawton
Series: Want #2
Release Date: May 17, 2013
Publisher: InkSpell Publishing
ISBN13: 9781939590077
Format: Paperback, 328 pages
Genre: NA, contemporary, romance
Source: blog tour

Isaac Laroche is cursed. All he wants to do is hide out and feel sorry for himself. Never mind that he got caught sleeping with his seventeen-year-old piano student, or that he abandoned her when the truth was exposed.

Isaac’s feisty high school sweetheart has different plans. Heather Swann has returned to their hometown of Mobile, Alabama, to regroup after breaking up with her troll of a fiancé. She’s restless and looking for a diversion, but she bites off more than she can chew when she sets her sights on rehabilitating Isaac with her unorthodox sexual, mental, and physical plans.

The two quickly reconnect, but their happiness is threatened by family secrets, old vendettas and the death of a beloved father-figure.

Can Heather handle Isaac’s baggage, or will her own come back to haunt them both?

Stephanie Lawton
After collecting a couple English degrees in the Midwest, Stephanie Lawton suddenly awoke in the deepest reaches of the Deep South. Culture shock inspired her to write about Mobile, Alabama, her adopted city, and all the ways Southern culture, history and attitudes seduce the unsuspecting.

A lover of all things gothic, she can often be spotted photographing old cemeteries, historic buildings and, ironically, the beautiful beaches of the Gulf Coast. She also has a tendency to psychoanalyze people, which comes in handy when creating character profiles.

Warning: This book is not intended for younger audiences. It contains many mature elements and subjects that is not suitable for certain audiences.

Another Warning: This review contains spoilers of Want, the predecessor to Need. Read at your own risk.

I, ever since I saw the cover of Want, wanted to read Stephanie Lawton's work. I mean, it's just gorgeous. Unfortunately, that was put off until even after I saw Need drifting around the blogosphere and Goodreads. My first impression of Need? I really didn't want to read it, not because the cover was ugly or anything, but because all I felt inside was a mass of disapproval towards Issac and how he just left Julianne. But until I finished Want, I didn't realize exactly how much information was packed into the story, which would make Need very difficult to read without knowing what happened in the first book. Unexpectedly, though I didn't particularly enjoy Want, Need was far more entertaining of a story.

While Want was from the PoV of Julianne, the young student of Issac, Need tells the story from Issac's PoV. Personally, I enjoyed Issac's narration much more than I did Julianne's. Firstly, he was so much more realistic, and frankly, with a less flightier mind. In comparison, Julianne sounded extremely immature and self-indulgent. Secondly, he wasn't as pampered and protected as Julianne was. This was not just because of Issac's age, but also the many experiences he went through to carve him into an adult instead of a teenager with a crush on her music teacher. That's not to say that there weren't times when I disapproved of his actions, but Issac definitely made Need much more enjoyable compared to Want.

Read my full review here
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