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Given Away
She's been my best friend forever and I'm so excited to share this time in my life with her!
Me and Catie have done everything together since we were young. She's my absolute best friend. We went to the same college together, were roommates, moved to the same city after college. Now that we're both engaged and planning our weddings, we spend even more time together than before.
But sometimes I wonder if that's a good thing. I find myself gravitating toward Catie for everything. She is my confidant, the one person in this world I know I can trust. But now that we're both getting married, shouldn't my future husband, Brad, be the one I turn to?
Should I cut back on spending time with Catie?
I don't know what I'd do without her.
Anya is really excited for this next phase of our lives. But to me, getting married only sounds like growing apart. And the last thing I want is to distant myself from Anya. The more distant I am from her, the more noticeable my lack of feelings for my fiance become.
I'm more excited for our combined Bachelorette weekend in Vegas than I am about my actual wedding. I know, that's wrong. Something in my relationship isn't working and I'll eventually have to face it. But, for now, I just want to enjoy my time with my best friend.
Without Anya, I'm not sure what my life would become.
This is a standalone lesbian romance novel with HEA ending!
180 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 23, 2018
61 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 18, 2017
Anya & Catie have been best friends for as long as they can remember. The story starts with both women engaged & celebrating their bachelorette party together. During this time, feelings that have been pushed down for years begin to surface & emotions that have been hidden start to reveal. Catie has a fallout with her fiancé & their wedding is called off. Meanwhile, Anya decides to go through with hers because that's what she's supposed to. Isn't it?
I really enjoyed the premise of this but unfortunately feel that it fell short of my expectations. Too much time was spent on Anya going back & forth trying to figure out if she should call off the wedding or not. She spends a great deal of time wondering if she should act on her feelings for Catie (because it's obvious both women feel attraction) or if she should continue being a people pleaser. Meanwhile, Catie is trying to come to terms with managing a life without Anya. I liked the interaction between them but am disappointed with the ending. It's predictable (naturally) but so short & rushed that I didn't have time to enjoy it- I was too busy asking myself "That's it?". If more time was spent on the buildup between the girls instead of wedding fears, I believe this would have worked better for me. That said, I will be reading her other book because the writing is nice. I hope Lane creates more of a struggle & reward situation & more flushed out personalities for her MCs in future works.
I really enjoyed the premise of this but unfortunately feel that it fell short of my expectations. Too much time was spent on Anya going back & forth trying to figure out if she should call off the wedding or not. She spends a great deal of time wondering if she should act on her feelings for Catie (because it's obvious both women feel attraction) or if she should continue being a people pleaser. Meanwhile, Catie is trying to come to terms with managing a life without Anya. I liked the interaction between them but am disappointed with the ending. It's predictable (naturally) but so short & rushed that I didn't have time to enjoy it- I was too busy asking myself "That's it?". If more time was spent on the buildup between the girls instead of wedding fears, I believe this would have worked better for me. That said, I will be reading her other book because the writing is nice. I hope Lane creates more of a struggle & reward situation & more flushed out personalities for her MCs in future works.
April 24, 2017
Good story
I can't imagine not figuring things out sooner but I guess not everyone evaluates their relationships as often. I liked the ending
I can't imagine not figuring things out sooner but I guess not everyone evaluates their relationships as often. I liked the ending
February 11, 2024
Anya and Catie have been friends since they were kids and have hit every major milestone of their lives together, from rooming together in college to moving to the same city after graduation. Now they plan on sharing one of the biggest milestones of their lives, their bridal shower in Las Vegas. But as they get closer to marrying their respective fiancés worries begin to surface for both. Anya wonders if she should be relying so heavily on Catie for emotional support, isn’t that what her loving fiancé is for? Catie feels years of friendship slipping into a terrifying distance between then, worried that they won’t see each other as much anymore after their vows are said and done. Can their friendship survive the bridal shower weekend? Can love bloom where friendship has grown for so long?
Briar Lane’s Given Away is a book that I found disappointing pretty well from the word go, and my problems with it just sort of piled up like a forty car wreck of poor writing choices and bad editing. Spoilers ahead for a handful of things, I feel like I need to talk about them to get across some of the issues I had with the book.
Given Away alternates its narrator, so some chapters are from Anya’s perspective and some are from Catie’s perspective. Unfortunately, if it was not for Anya talking nigh constantly about what great friends she and Catie are but she should totally be spending more time with her fiancé, since after they get married he will be her rock and all, and Catie worrying that she’ll never get to see Anya again after they get married and wondering if she really even wants to marry her fiancé, I would have had a serious issue telling the two apart. I actually did have issues telling the two apart for some chapters, something that was not helped by the author seeming to forget the names of her protagonists’ fiancés a few times. The lack of character voice extended to both of the fiancés and the Greek chorus of bridesmaids, who at least had the excuse of being largely kept out of dialogue despite one of the big scenes being a big catching up dinner for them all.
Alongside the issues with character voice are Lane’s habit of telling the reader about characters and situations rather than showing them. Both of the protagonists’ fiancés are treated like stand up guys for the first half or so of the book, the reader is told repeatedly about how great they both are. This lasts right up until the story needs them not to be as good as they were set up to be so that Catie can walk in on hers about to cheat on her and there can be a dramatic breakup leading to her tearful confession of love to Anya. Even Anya, one of the protagonists, is hit by this when she feels that her fiancé isn’t listening to her or respecting her feelings about Derek cheating on Catie, so suddenly her fiancé is also terrible and she’s off to find her best friend the love of her life. None of these characterization changes feel earned by the narrative, which leaves both protagonists feeling at best so in their own heads that they shut out everything else or simply so oblivious to their partners’ feelings and behaviors that they really shouldn’t be in a relationship. It is frustrating to say the least.
All that lead to my not enjoying the book. I did not like the cheating plot on either side, or the telling characterization, or the weirdly sudden sex scene after Anya leaves her fiancé and goes to find Catie. The sex scene seriously felt much more detailed than the rest of the book and went from zero to sixty-nine in seemingly no time and was just jarring and out of place. All of that would have left the book with a two out of five and a note that I would likely not read more of Briar Lane’s writing in the future. That would have just left me feeling like I had been waiting for the book to get better.
But there were two things that bothered me enough to drop the book to a one out of five, two things that were absolutely avoidable and that have little to do with the story itself. The first issue was the sample of Lane’s next work at the end of this one. This is not something that generally bothers me, it can be a great way to find other books that you might like. But in this case the out of place sex scene hit and then a flash forward to a year later at what was, according to my app, around the seventy percent mark for the book’s page count. The author dedicated nearly a third of her page space to advertising her next book in one that desperately needed an editor or a beta reader and at least one more going over. But then she also promised one last chapter of Given Away, an exclusive chapter that the reader could download if they just followed the included link. The link lead to a website that wanted me to sign up to it to get the opportunity to download the chapter that the author just couldn’t include in the book proper, so I guess I will not be reading that chapter.
Those two issues left me feeling more than a little cheated. Which of course leads to this, it is not hard to give Given Away a one out of five. It is worryingly easy to keep finding things that I did not like in Given Away. I can only hope that it is some other reader’s cup of tea and that Briar Lane keeps working on her writing and has the opportunity to improve. After her hiding a chapter of her book away on a website that requires sign up to access, I will not be there for the rest of her career.
Review originally posted at https://tympestbooks.wordpress.com/20...
Briar Lane’s Given Away is a book that I found disappointing pretty well from the word go, and my problems with it just sort of piled up like a forty car wreck of poor writing choices and bad editing. Spoilers ahead for a handful of things, I feel like I need to talk about them to get across some of the issues I had with the book.
Given Away alternates its narrator, so some chapters are from Anya’s perspective and some are from Catie’s perspective. Unfortunately, if it was not for Anya talking nigh constantly about what great friends she and Catie are but she should totally be spending more time with her fiancé, since after they get married he will be her rock and all, and Catie worrying that she’ll never get to see Anya again after they get married and wondering if she really even wants to marry her fiancé, I would have had a serious issue telling the two apart. I actually did have issues telling the two apart for some chapters, something that was not helped by the author seeming to forget the names of her protagonists’ fiancés a few times. The lack of character voice extended to both of the fiancés and the Greek chorus of bridesmaids, who at least had the excuse of being largely kept out of dialogue despite one of the big scenes being a big catching up dinner for them all.
Alongside the issues with character voice are Lane’s habit of telling the reader about characters and situations rather than showing them. Both of the protagonists’ fiancés are treated like stand up guys for the first half or so of the book, the reader is told repeatedly about how great they both are. This lasts right up until the story needs them not to be as good as they were set up to be so that Catie can walk in on hers about to cheat on her and there can be a dramatic breakup leading to her tearful confession of love to Anya. Even Anya, one of the protagonists, is hit by this when she feels that her fiancé isn’t listening to her or respecting her feelings about Derek cheating on Catie, so suddenly her fiancé is also terrible and she’s off to find her best friend the love of her life. None of these characterization changes feel earned by the narrative, which leaves both protagonists feeling at best so in their own heads that they shut out everything else or simply so oblivious to their partners’ feelings and behaviors that they really shouldn’t be in a relationship. It is frustrating to say the least.
All that lead to my not enjoying the book. I did not like the cheating plot on either side, or the telling characterization, or the weirdly sudden sex scene after Anya leaves her fiancé and goes to find Catie. The sex scene seriously felt much more detailed than the rest of the book and went from zero to sixty-nine in seemingly no time and was just jarring and out of place. All of that would have left the book with a two out of five and a note that I would likely not read more of Briar Lane’s writing in the future. That would have just left me feeling like I had been waiting for the book to get better.
But there were two things that bothered me enough to drop the book to a one out of five, two things that were absolutely avoidable and that have little to do with the story itself. The first issue was the sample of Lane’s next work at the end of this one. This is not something that generally bothers me, it can be a great way to find other books that you might like. But in this case the out of place sex scene hit and then a flash forward to a year later at what was, according to my app, around the seventy percent mark for the book’s page count. The author dedicated nearly a third of her page space to advertising her next book in one that desperately needed an editor or a beta reader and at least one more going over. But then she also promised one last chapter of Given Away, an exclusive chapter that the reader could download if they just followed the included link. The link lead to a website that wanted me to sign up to it to get the opportunity to download the chapter that the author just couldn’t include in the book proper, so I guess I will not be reading that chapter.
Those two issues left me feeling more than a little cheated. Which of course leads to this, it is not hard to give Given Away a one out of five. It is worryingly easy to keep finding things that I did not like in Given Away. I can only hope that it is some other reader’s cup of tea and that Briar Lane keeps working on her writing and has the opportunity to improve. After her hiding a chapter of her book away on a website that requires sign up to access, I will not be there for the rest of her career.
Review originally posted at https://tympestbooks.wordpress.com/20...
May 26, 2017
Given Away — Briar Lane (12 chapters + Epilogue) May 25-26, 2017
Best thing about this book: It was a quick read. Bad thing about this book: With a little more editing and tightening of the story, it could have been an even quicker read.
This felt like a first time writer. I didn’t have a problem with the story, per se…but the author has a lot of editing issues in the story. One character’s name switched randomly (usually the character was Derek, then for one instance it was Brad, also a character in the story, then Derek became Tyler for a while.) Also there was wrong word choice: plain instead of plane, for example. Also punctuation errors. i instead of I. <— I saw that at least twice.
Sometimes it’s fun to read these “coming out” stories centered around twnety-something adults. Usually, for that age group, those stories end up being more erotic than plot, but this one had both.
Kind of disappointing, but not a totally bad story; it just needs more tightening and more editing.
Two stars.
Best thing about this book: It was a quick read. Bad thing about this book: With a little more editing and tightening of the story, it could have been an even quicker read.
This felt like a first time writer. I didn’t have a problem with the story, per se…but the author has a lot of editing issues in the story. One character’s name switched randomly (usually the character was Derek, then for one instance it was Brad, also a character in the story, then Derek became Tyler for a while.) Also there was wrong word choice: plain instead of plane, for example. Also punctuation errors. i instead of I. <— I saw that at least twice.
Sometimes it’s fun to read these “coming out” stories centered around twnety-something adults. Usually, for that age group, those stories end up being more erotic than plot, but this one had both.
Kind of disappointing, but not a totally bad story; it just needs more tightening and more editing.
Two stars.
August 5, 2017
Excellent
Excellent story, sweet, spicy and romantic. Catie and Anya have been best friends since childhood, they had sleepovers, hangovers and they even planned their single bachelorette party together until Catie started doubting if marrying Derek was what she really wanted..... because lately her best friend Anya was in her mind, her heart.....she was confused and overwhelmed with feelings....is she her best friend or her soulmate??
Very good story.....I'm waiting for the next one!!!!
Excellent story, sweet, spicy and romantic. Catie and Anya have been best friends since childhood, they had sleepovers, hangovers and they even planned their single bachelorette party together until Catie started doubting if marrying Derek was what she really wanted..... because lately her best friend Anya was in her mind, her heart.....she was confused and overwhelmed with feelings....is she her best friend or her soulmate??
Very good story.....I'm waiting for the next one!!!!
May 26, 2017
Overall this story was a good read. I liked the characters. I enjoyed Catie and Anya's relationship and the ending. I would have given this book more stars, but I couldn't get over the typos. It was a few in the beginning, but towards the end there were too many. It distracted me from really enjoying the story because it had me rereading and thinking the ending was rushed just to finish the book.
November 21, 2017
I liked the story and book but the mistakes throughout the book really distracted from it. at one point, even the character was given a different name or refer to brad when you meant Dereck.. I would start getting lost in the feelings and the story and the error would bring me out. I still liked it and liked that it had a happy ending but for a published book these errors should not have been left behind.
October 7, 2017
The book was poorly written, erasing of bisexual identities, and difficult to follow. Had the author chosen one narrator rather than having two different characters narrate things would have been much better.
January 16, 2019
Sweet tale of two long time friends who are more than a little dense about the true depth of their friendship. Text could use a little additional editing; for example, fiances' names appear to have been swapped in a few places.
January 31, 2019
Interesting
It is a good story but there are many, many typos. Also, the author had a hard time keeping track of her characters, for example, who was with whom; a totally different name even was used in one location.
It is a good story but there are many, many typos. Also, the author had a hard time keeping track of her characters, for example, who was with whom; a totally different name even was used in one location.
April 30, 2019
An interesting story about what it takes to get married.
Two bff's from school decide to get married together with their boyfriends. But that is not how things turn out when they start to really talk to each other! Enjoy!
Two bff's from school decide to get married together with their boyfriends. But that is not how things turn out when they start to really talk to each other! Enjoy!
May 27, 2017
A very sweet, kind of light-hearted love story with more than a little angst thrown in, exactly what I expected and more.
January 10, 2019
A very sweet story of BFF evolves into a beautiful love.
Read
February 14, 2019The storyline was good but due to all the errors it was hard to enjoy.
April 12, 2019
This is a fairly mild lesbian Friends-to-Lovers story. Anya and Catie have been Besties since they were girls, and they're both about to get married to Brad and Derek - only Anya's and Catie's feelings for one another might be more than just friendship....
The reason this only gets three stars from me is that the story falls between two stools: There's only one explicit love scene at the book's climax which will disappoint fans seeking steamy eroticism; and...there's an explicit love scene at the book's climax which will annoy romance fans who dislike that sort of thing.
The reason this only gets three stars from me is that the story falls between two stools: There's only one explicit love scene at the book's climax which will disappoint fans seeking steamy eroticism; and...there's an explicit love scene at the book's climax which will annoy romance fans who dislike that sort of thing.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews