This review may contain spoilers, so fair warning, upon reading the review.
About The Book
Just breathe, Kacey. Ten tiny breaths. Seize them. Feel them. Love them.
Four years ago Kacey Cleary’s life imploded when her car was hit by a drunk driver, killing her parents, boyfriend, and best friend. Still haunted by memories of being trapped inside, holding her boyfriend’s lifeless hand and listening to her mother take her last breath, Kacey wants to leave her past behind. Armed with two bus tickets, twenty-year-old Kacey and her fifteen-year-old sister, Livie, escape Grand Rapids, Michigan, to start over in Miami. Struggling to make ends meet, Kacey needs to figure out how to get by. But Kacey’s not worried. She can handle anything—anything but her mysterious neighbor in apartment 1D.
Trent Emerson has smoldering blue eyes, deep dimples, and he perfectly skates that irresistible line between nice guy and bad boy. Hardened by her tragic past, Kacey is determined to keep everyone at a distance, but their mutual attraction is undeniable and Trent is determined to find a way into Kacey’s guarded heart—even if it means that an explosive secret could shatter both their worlds.
My Review
First Impressions
Ten Tiny Breaths is the 1st book in the “Ten Tiny Breaths” series. This is a book that I have been meaning to get to and I went into this one not knowing what I was getting into. I had no clue what this one was even about, it was more a blind reading of it. I just knew the author and that so many fellow readers really enjoyed this one. This story is NOT what I expected. I don’t know if its the covers or what, but I actually thought this was romantic suspense, and yeah thats not this. But its still dang good. Its definitely just contemporary/new adult. The new adult aspects are lighter, other than the ages of the characters, thats the only new adult aspect. They aren’t in a college setting or anything and the way in which is written is much more mature.
Summary
Kacey, when she was a teenager, was in a car accident where she lost her parents and her boyfriend at the time. Now its been four years later, she has physically recovered, but emotionally and mentally she is barely keeping the anger and unresolved PTSD issues at bay. When her sister ends up being at risk by a family member, Kacey takes her sister and heads to Florida for a fresh start. Kacey meets her neightbors, and starts a new job but what she doesn’t expect is to find herself wanting to open herself up to a neighbor in her building, who has such a presence about him that allows her to want to free herself of the burdens she has. But they both have dark pasts and secrets and when everything comes to light….will they be strong enough to get through it and find their way to their HEA…
My Primary Thoughts
Ten Tiny Breaths was such a superb read and honestly its been a long time since I had such an emotional intense reaction to. This book literally had me crying buckets of tears. Now that isn’t a negative aspect at all. I really do love a story that will make me ‘ugly cry’ because especially when I least expect it, its so cathartic at times too. I really want to be careful in what I share in this review because I also don’t want to spoil some aspects of the story that was so intense. But what really worked for me is the romance between the characters. There is such a strong presence of a deep connection between them. The hero is such a mix and I think I would best categorize him as a alphamellow or alpha cinnamon roll. He isn’t a straight out alpha male, because he has such a soft center for the heroine and I just adore the way he is with her. He is so patient and he just gets her in a way that most people don’t. This heroine is PRICKLY! She does have good reason to be so prickly though, you really see the realities of PTSD and my heart just ached for these characters and what they both go through. I am not sure if I want to read the novella (if you have read the series, let me know what the novella is like).
Overall View
Ten Tiny Breaths is an incredibly crafted romance that just delivers on the deep emotion and riveting writing that strikes to the heart of the reader!
Title: Ten Tiny Breaths
Author: K.A. Tucker
Genre: New Adult Romance
Format: eBook
Source: Library
Length: 289 Pages
Book Links
Amazon| Goodreads| LibraryThing| StoryGraph| Literal Club
Book Evaluation
Storytelling Quality: 4.5
Story Itself: 4.75
Character Development: 4.5
Writing Style: 4.25
World Building 5
Feels + The Romantic Heart 5
Pacing 5
Plot 4.5
Cover Art 5
Ending 5
Book Ratings
Overall Rating of the Book
Steam Level
Simmering—soft warm touches and light intimacy
Warm- a medium level of sexual tension, a balance of sexual and emotional intimacy, lighter on the details in the sexual moments.
Steamin’ up the room -the sexual content is more explicit in the language and tone, heavier amount of sexual scenes.
Blazing fire to the building-The prime focus is the sex scenes, scorching hot, and could burn one. Less focus on the emotional intimacy to the relationship.
Trigger Warning
PTSD
About The Author
K.A. Tucker writes captivating stories with an edge.
She is the internationally bestselling author of the Ten Tiny Breaths and Burying Water series, He Will Be My Ruin, Until It Fades, Keep Her Safe, The Simple Wild, Be the Girl, and Say You Still Love Me. Her books have been featured in national publications including USA Today, Globe & Mail, Suspense Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Oprah Mag, and First for Women. She has been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance 2013 for TEN TINY BREATHS and Best Romance 2018 for THE SIMPLE WILD. KEEP HER SAFE made Suspense Magazine’s Best of 2018 list for Romantic Suspense.
K.A. Tucker currently resides in a quaint town outside of Toronto.
I really like the cover. Nice review.
I loved this one too! I read most if not all of this series and all were wins for me. Nice to see you enjoyed it!
Oh I feel sorry for her having suffered like that in the car accident.
I’m so glad you liked this one because I was worried you weren’t going to at first when you said it wasn’t what you were expecting. I really loved this book and the emotions that came with it. Each book in this series is really good. The second book about her sister was set in college and that one might be my favorite of them all. Have you read her other NA series? I can’t remember the series name other than one of the books is Chasing Rain or something. That whole series is romantic suspense and also good.
Great review!
I am no surprised Tucker made it emotional. Glad you enjoyed it!
Quite an emotional one here. Lovely review.
I see your review and it reminds me that I read the whole series including the novella from that tells the opposite perspective of this story, but I never actually read this first one. I think I wussed out having had plenty of heartbreak reading the parallel story from Trent’s perspective. Glad you loved it. She really writes some amazing emotional stuff.
This was my first KA Tucker and I recall loving it!
This was the first K.A. Tucker book I read (back in 2014) and I truly loved it. The whole companion series is good, but Ten Tiny Breaths will always be my favorite. I’m so glad you loved it!!