“Intensely passionate and deeply heart felt, Present Perfect blew me away with the incredible depth of emotion it conveyed. This is a must-read!!” –Aestas Book Blog
“From its opening pages, Past Imperfect is undeniably gripping, assaulting you with one extreme emotion after another…” –Yvette, Nose Stuck In A Book
“This type of book, the retelling of another book from a different POV, doesn’t always work…but in this case it couldn’t have been done better. Presently Perfect was the Perfect ending to this amazing journey.” – Nina, The Literary Gossip
Present Perfect Amanda Kelly spent her entire life trying to control every aspect of it, while striving for perfection. Her obsession with being perfect, along with her feelings of worthlessness, consumed her. The one thing she thought was perfect in her life was the bond she shared with her best friend, Noah. Everything was going according to her life plan until she woke up one day and realized she had fallen in love with him. The one thing she couldn’t control was the affect he had on her. Noah had the power to give her one hundred lifetimes of happiness, which also gave him the power to completely devastate her. He was the one thing in her life that was perfect, but she couldn't allow herself to have him. Her life begins to unravel. Events take over and force her to let go of her dreams and desires. She needs to realize that a person cannot control the events in their life, only their reaction to them...but will it be too late for her to save her relationship with her best friend? Present Perfect is a story of how past events have present consequences and how perfect your present could be if you stopped fighting and just allowed it to happen. **2014 Book of the Year at the Indie Romance Convention**
Past Imperfect In Present Perfect, Brad Johnson was sexy, cocky, rich and a complete Smurff**ker. He could afford anything he wanted and could charm any girl he set his eyes on. Everything was laid out in front of him, all for the taking except the one thing he craved and needed. A tragic event forces him to reevaluate his life. When he tries to change, will the people in his life let him move on from his past or will they constantly hold him to the life altering mistakes he’s made? Mabry Darnell is intelligent, ambitious, beautiful, and sassy. Secrets from her past haunt the present causing her to question her actions in order to shield her heart and protect her life. From the moment Brad and Mabry met, their connection was strong, intense, and electrifying. Both knew they had found the one person who could satisfy what the other ached for. When their pasts collide with their present, will it prevent them from having a future together or will love be strong enough to conquer their demons?
Presently Perfect Tweet was my heart, my soul, and my purpose. She was my…everything. Neither of us were perfect. We both made mistakes. Looking back, that was okay, because every choice brought us to where we needed to be at the time we needed to be there. The one constant… our love and friendship. There are two sides to every story and I wouldn’t trade our sides for anything in the world.
Alison G. Bailey is an award winning, Amazon and International bestselling author living in Charleston, South Carolina. At an early age she fell in love with writing, reworking scenes from her favorite TV shows and movies with new dialogue. Alison wrote and produced several stage plays before turning her sights on the book world.
Under the influence of a copious amount of Diet Pepsi and nonstop listening to her Spotify playlists, Alison writes unique emotional stories full of love, laughter, and romance.
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Three epic love stories in one epic box set! “Intensely passionate and deeply heart felt, Present Perfect blew me away with the incredible depth of emotion it conveyed. This is a must-read!!” –Aestas Book Blog
“From its opening pages, Past Imperfect is undeniably gripping, assaulting you with one extreme emotion after another…” –Yvette, Nose Stuck In A Book
“This type of book, the retelling of another book from a different POV, doesn’t always work…but in this case it couldn’t have been done better. Presently Perfect was the Perfect ending to this amazing journey.” – Nina, The Literary Gossip
Book ONE: Present Perfect: A Best Friends-to-Lovers Romance Book TWO: Past Imperfect: An Office Romance Book THREE: Present Perfect: A Friends-to-Lovers Romance from the hero's POV
I love a box set! To get all of these amazing books together.Noah and Tweet and there journey hard but beautiful. Brad and Mabry my heart breaks for them such a story and confusing with Noah's POV that epilogue was perfect."I enjoyed this series I cried I laughed.
“Present perfect” it’s a book from which you can learn a lot about friendship, about life choices and their consequences. From my point of view, it’s a stressful and heartbroken book. Stressful because the choices that Tweet does and usually to harsh, and I hope until the last minute she will not fulfill them. You may learn from this book that your actions have consequences which affect the people we love. It’s so sad how we waste so much time making wrong decisions, and only we are lucky enough we get the chance to redeem ourselves, and to the people we care about. You also learn to live more in the present, and to not overthink about the future, what it reserves. “Presently perfect” perfectly completes the first book, although it’s considered the third part. It’s amazing thanks to the fact that Noah does not give up to their love and it’s willing to wait as long as it takes. He makes mistakes, yet there are incomparably with Tweet wrong decisions. What I did not enjoy on these books was the copy/pasted fragments of the author from the first book and rarely brought something more into the view. It’s written from Noah’s angle and it’s should’ve filled the “Present perfect”, not tell the same story with, however from his side.
“Past imperfect” is the second book from the series, though I’ve decided to read it separately, as the last book and it was a great decision. Although Alison G. Bailey tried to make a connection with the other books, my opinion it’s she forced this. It’s like she had an obsession do combine them, but instead of making a liaison between them, the book seems too much, because it can be well-considered a standalone. From what I understood, the writer fell in love with the characters, and wanted to give them a chance to flourish. She did not give so many details about Brad in the first book, to make you really want to get to know him better, nor did she create a mystery regarding him. The story itself it’s a blue one, but lovely. Considering that in the other books Tweet had a problem with the way she saw herself, she battled to overthrow the difficulties, it’s disturbing to have the main feminine character in Marby, also coping with her demons. The writer approach it’s now my favorite, she has the tendency to repeat some things in all the books, which leads to exasperation. The good thing, she has a delightful and passionate writing, it takes your breath away, makes you cry and laugh with the characters. So, for me it’s hard to see the 3 books as a whole, and rather I see the first and third as a unit, and the second as a standalone or an intruder. My favorite it’s Presently Perfect, since it’s perfectly inter wind with the first. March 2015
Book 1:Friends from the start and watching each other accomplish milestones while growing up together as best friends that is what Noah and Amanda are to each other. Sounds like a great premise, but it turned destructive quickly. I had a hard time relating and understanding the premise for Amanda's character. Here is why. Amanda's character is stapled with insecurities, doubts, and fear. The story focuses on the high school years. It was a push and pull friendship of promises to stand by each other forever. However, Amanda kept ruining that friendship time and time again. These type of stories are hard to read because when friends deny themselves a friend to lover relationship it always leads to poor choices that lead to situations that are unfortunate. Noah has professed his love to Amanda but Amanda continues to deny her feelings. Meanwhile, Noah is living his life full of mistakes and regrets that are going to further bridge the gap of the love they had. I really don't enjoy reading about these characters self destruct. I don't understand how Amanda can hate herself enough to be with people who use her and hurt her when Noah wants to protect her. Amanda is a contradiction. She does not want Noah for fear of not being worthy yet she is willing to make herself more unworthy. The story continues on in this fashion for far too long. The story needs a change of direction. Amanda's self pity is destroying the story. The entire premise of the story was Amanda battling with herself with what she wanted to do with Noah but always afraid to ruin the friendship. Even though she constantly ruined the friendship with jealousy and poor choices. This girl really needed some motherly advice. If you enjoy reading about characters who are in denial or enjoy avoiding the tough decisions in life than you will enjoy this more than I did. "I wanted to tell him how much I loved him. I wanted him to know he is my first and only love. I wanted to say all of that, but I didn’t. I wish I hadn’t wasted all this time trying not to love him, but I did, and now it’s too late." This quote from the story will continue on in the fashion for far too long. “Stop making excuses because you’re scared. Why don’t you let him decide the type of life he wants and who he wants in it?” Best advice I've heard but will she listen? Book 2:Mabry and Brad met in law school. If you read book one you will remember Brad was the one who made a bet with his friends about having sex with Amanda. Brad also had sex with Brittani. Basically, Brad is a player who enjoys sex. Mabry and Brad have an arrangement of only sex and no over nighters. "The main reason I finally agreed to go out with him was because I knew he had a reputation for being a player and he wouldn’t be looking for anything serious or permanent." Quote from Mabry. "I perform three rapid slams to the back of my head." Quote by Mabry. Mabry causes self-harm in the form of slamming her head to numb her brain from dwelling on her feelings. The story jumps from past to present told from both Brad and Mabry's POV. The one redeeming issue in the story is Brad apologizing and accepting his behavior towards girls. Brad has finally reached a point in his life where he realizes he wants to be a better person. Mabry has a closet full of skeletons that get dragged out. Mabry can no longer hide her self-harm injuries. Brad's past finally catches up to his present even after trying to right the wrong by apologizing to Amanda and changing his womanizing ways. I still have issues not being able to connect to anyone of the characters due to the wordiness of the story. The story is too long. Alison's writing style does not connect me to the characters. Unfortunately, I had to skim through the chapters in order to complete. The premise of the material regarding self-harming, suicide, and using girls for sex was appreciated just not delivered in a fashion that maintained my attention. Presently Imperfect. This is told from Noah's POV. The story is the same as the first except we get a few extra scenes filling in the gaps when Noah was not involved in Amanda's life. This perspective paints Noah as the most understanding and patient character I have ever read. His love and devotion to Amanda was admirable. Just as in the first book Noah was honest with his feelings for Amanda. Noah continued to inform Amanda where she stood with him. He continued to remain friends with her despite wanting more. Amanda plays the role of indifference well. Her push and pull with Noah confused him and frustrated him. Everything Noah did was always in careful consideration for Amanda's feelings. Noah tried moving on with others girls but when they fell in love with him it always surprised him. Noah could not allow anyone but Amanda to love him. “I want you to be more than my best friend. I want you to be my girlfriend. What do you want, Tweet?” Quote from Noah. Breaks my heart to have to re-read this line for a second time knowing the outcome. Amanda's friendship was more important to her so she continued to sabotage her relationship with Noah ruining the friendship time and time again. Upon learning Noah's side I realized how little he gave to his relationships with Brooke and Brittani. Opened my eyes to the torment that plagued Amanda with her self destructive ways.
Even reading both point of views it still is nothing but Amanda throwing out every excuse to not ruin the friendship by allowing them to go separate ways. As a consequence Noah felt guilty about being with other girls. Amanda ends up demeaning herself because she has self-doubt issues. It's so difficult to comprehend this form of love where Amanda is willing to allow Noah to be with other people while she struggles with her fears. The first story was hard to read and not any easier the second time. Not a whole lot of worthwhile information was provided from Noah's perspective. "I was desperately trying to be patient and understand Amanda's thought process but it was almost too much to handle when I was that close to her." Quote from Noah. This was the best sentence because it expressed how I felt the entire time. This was my goal the second time around to look at this from a different perspective. Change my way of thinking. Amanda encountered many hardships along her journey of self discovery. It look some very tragic situations to open her eyes to how short life is.
This was a great story about never ending love and learning how to love. Unfortunately I really was not impressed with Noah. He seems to understand that Amelia does not feel good enough for him. Instead of showing her how important she is he just blows her off with the oh well we’ll be together in the end and throws his girlfriends in her face, every time. She really deserved so much better than the man who’re like him. I wish she and dalton had a happily forever he had so much more care and insight
I liked the emotional integrity that Bailey is able to create in her writing. There were difficulties with believability factor that dragged this story down. The biggest difficulty is the heroine saying no to a relationship over and over for a reason that didn't have a whole lot of bottom to it. She then is watching him pursue other relationships, even though she is crazy over him. With hormones and everything experimental sex in the teens, I found that ridiculous. Then she goes with a guy who she knows is a pig? As for Noah, he just goes around fornicating with whomever his heart desires while he "waits for Tweet" to commit and that is somehow "Okay?" Life often doesn't make sense but this was too great a stretch for me.
Finally Cancer and romance are not a good match for me.
The Perfect Present.
There is a connective point to the first book in The Perfect Present. Once more I liked the emotional integrity of the book, but found the actual story not as much. We have a self mutilator, who miraculously stops when she meets the guy of her dreams, or slows down significantly. As a therapist I can only say wow. Perhaps, further research might be done on a disorder before introducing it into the story. Once more there is so much negativity circulating within the story, it seemed off balance for the love connection.
I don't think I will enjoy the third so am likely going to pass on it. There is some very good writing skills being employed, but I didn't enjoy the topics heavier aspects of this series.
This box set was pretty good. They were very angsty, you know, the kind that want to make you smack the main characters in the head and say "c'mon, get your stuff together". The first book is the story from Amanda's POV and the third book is the story from Noah's POV. I always like when an author does this because I wonder what the other main character is thinking and why did he/she react that way when a main event happens. Usually I prefer they do it in the same book but separate books is ok.
The second book is about a secondary character, Brad, and it explains why he is the way he is in the other books. It really helped me understand why he treated Amanda and Noah the way he did. I was so glad to see him grow up and redeem himself.
This series was amazing. It was full of angst and written beautifully. I feel in love with Noah and how much he cared and loved Tweet. Glad to see that Brad got his own story and loved reading about him. He redeemed himself and glad he got his perfect ending.