“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” -Ernest Hemingway ~ A Farewell To Arms
They share an epic love but one moment changes everything. A life together that seemed certain is shattered. One learns you never love the same way twice; the other learns what it means to come home. You only think you know how this love story goes, but do you really know how an epic love can end?
“There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald She is living color, and I’ve been in a black-and-white world for far too long without her. Powerful stuff. It surrounds me. I’ve felt it since I first arrived. The forcefield of her. The magnetism of her. The power she wields over me. I’m alive again because of her, like a dying plant that finally gets some water. I’ve got it bad for this girl. Reality dawns. The light comes through the darkness and shines on me. She’s my water.
-Lincoln Presley
The truth is I breathe with him. He is my air. Raison d’etre.
-Tally Landon
As Lincoln Presley would say, "do as you must, Princess."
Chapter 2 - Tally
“She’s got the story,” I say to Linc hours later as we lie next to each other taking up only half of the king-sized bed because our bodies remain intertwined at an all but intimate level. The money shot photograph session took twice as long as the interview. After another three hours, we finally told Candy we had to go. I had to pick up Cara from preschool and Linc had a late practice.
We left Candy and her photographer while they were still packing up their gear. By this time, the reporter had given up on asking us any more questions. She had the money shot. She had the story. We weren’t going to like it. The unsettled feeling nagged at me, but Linc didn’t seem to care. “She’s got the story.” Apparently, my fears need repeating.
“So?” He asks with a laugh. “Come here.” He pulls me closer and trails his hands down between my legs knowing full well this is my ultimate weakness for him. I cannot not respond. His touch right there gets me to do just about anything for him. I moan. He laughs again as he starts to make his move.
We put Cara to bed fifteen minutes ago and left the bedroom door slightly ajar so we can hear her but closed enough so she doesn’t hear us. Usually, we wait the agreed-upon half-hour before commencing with doing the deed as I still like to call it, but she was extra tired because I let her stay up late to watch Entangled. I’m not sure she understands the story line completely. I’m not sure I do either but she loves Rapunzel’s long hair. We watched it together while we waited for Linc’s return from practice. Cara played with my hair for most of the movie and kept running her little fingers through it over and over, while I filled out endless wedding invitations, imploring the ninety-five percent of strangers I do not know to come witness our nuptials in the middle of October.
“The article won’t run for weeks. Don’t worry about it. By the time it does, the season will probably be over. We’ll be married. Settled. Nobody is going to care about how we met or what happened in Moscow. They’ll be staring at your photograph, the Dirty Dancing one, and be thinking how did that guy get so lucky and get a girl like her? All those Sports Illustrated fans wishing they were me and holding you up in the air just like Baby.”
“Even the girls?”
He laughs. “Even the girls. When are you going to start believing we’re the two luckiest people in the world?” I turn into him then and stroke his face and search his eyes for solace and truth but I don’t answer. “When are you going to let go and let this happen and believe in it? In me? In us?” Linc asks again.
I trace his lips and kiss him. Lightly. Just a trace.
In the next, he smothers my face with kisses of his own and eventually pulls me up beneath him. “Come on, Tally. Let it go. Let it all go. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Don’t put a time clock on this. Don’t walk down the aisle toward me, less than a month from now, still not believing that this isn’t real or this won’t last because it will. I’m here. You’re here. So. Believe it. In me. In us. Now.” He pulls away from me and studies my face. Guilt arrives right on time. I wince along with it.“What is it? What aren’t you telling me? Because with that face? It is definitely something.”
“Dr. Eldon scheduled an ultrasound. I just…she’s optimistic and I just hope that we can find a way to have another child. I want to give you a son because you’ve given so much to me. And I want you to be happy. With me.”
“I am happy with you. I love you because you’re my life. You’re my water. Don’t forget that. I couldn’t survive without you.” He plays with a strand of my hair and lets it slip through his fingers. “And I’m your air.” He sighs a little. “I love you just as you are whether we have more kids or not. That’s why we’re going to make it. But you have to stop believing that something bad is going to happen. You have to believe in us as much as I do. We’re going to have this great life together. We already do. I love you. You love me. And believe me; love is enough. Our love is enough.”
I hold my breath and gaze at him for a long while. The commitment and compassion I see in the depths of his eyes begins to steady me. All the doubt, and even the guilt, begin to fade away. Like a protective shield, his love encircles me from all around.
Then when he pulls me into his arm and looks at me as if I’m the only one that counts, just before he kisses me, it is reassuring in the only way that matters.
Lincoln Presley, baseball star, is one of a kind.
And, he’s mine.
It’s a miracle really.
What an unbelievable stroke of luck at having him in my life and loving me back. I kiss him and let go of all my deep-rooted fears: falling, failing, even losing. I actually feel them disappear as if a strange wind has come by and blown them away.
I take in air—his air—that allows me to live and breathe.
“Okay,” I eventually say.
Then, I grab his hand and lightly kiss the inside of his wrist, and then trail my lips along his broad chest. He leans back against the pillows with a knowing look pulling me along with him, but cedes all control to me. I start to smile, but then another errant thought crashes in on me and threatens to undo all of these joyous declarations.
Everything breaks.
Beautiful things are like that, extraordinary one minute, gone the next.
She's going to write about us however she sees fit. She's got the story. The whole story. And she wants the fame. On some weird-ass level, I admire her for it. I know that feeling of wanting the fame so badly that you forsake all others to get it. I don't tell her it's fleeting and ultimately destructive. No. I'll let her figure that one out for herself. I'll let her experience her own line drive. Because she will. We all do.
Conflicted is the only way to describe it. Being a sex goddess as well as a perfect mommy are those complete opposite roles. It makes her all the more charming that she doesn't even see it.
Lincoln Presley & Tally Landon are about to grab your heart. Wait for it, because it is bound to happen within the first few chapters.
Its been weeks since I finished The Truth About Air & Water and just writing this tonight makes me reflect on the characters and the emotion that went into this book. I start to get chills immediately. How am I going to explain to you, the blog reader how much this book will change your life? How am I going to express my feelings when my thoughts are so intense? Well, I am going to give it a go because you will surely be missing out on something great if you don't pick this series up and pick it up pronto!.
So if you haven't read This Much Is True, the first installment of Tally Landon and Lincoln Presley, I have to ask, what are you doing with your life? Go read the first book now! Its perfect, just as wonderful as this second book is but still a totally mind absorbing, emotional gripping phenomenon.
Tally Landon is a prima ballerina, she has finally made that dream come true. Lincoln Presley is the star of his major league baseball team. Their jobs keep them busy and open to public ridicule constantly.
Lincoln (Elvis as Tally calls him) and Tally are engaged, they are finally getting their happily ever after. But truly, can Tally really believe that nothing is going to mess this up. After all, everything always gets screwed up for Tally, right when she starts to hope and believe in her happiness, everything inevitably gets blown to smithereens. Lincoln does what he can, to make sure Tally knows that everything will be fine. He even goes to see the church Tally wants to get married at, even though he knows there is no possible way they can get married at a church that holds less than hundred people.
First they are one happy family. Lincoln and Tally are engaged with daughter Cara. Then tragedy strikes this couple so fully that it BREAKS YOUR HEART.
First they are together.
Then they aren't.
First you are crying with happiness.
Then you are yelling at the characters.
And no you don't think that is weird at ALL!
It's heartbreaking, exciting, gripping, emotional, tension filled and maddening all at the same time.
How can these characters keep going through so much? Will they ever find their way back to who they were before?
Let's discuss Tally for a second. She is one of the most complex characters I've ever read . I love and hate her at the same time. There were parts in the story when I thought she was being so strong, she did everything she could to hide her pain. She was strong, even when it was almost impossible for her to be. But then there were many parts of me, that was really annoyed with him. She gives up too easily. She claims to love but to protect herself, she acts cold. She says she can't go on, but then she seems to be going on just fine in some parts of the story. Tally was quick to blame Lincoln for a lot but never once thought to look at herself.
Katherine Owen has written a few books. I've read every single one of them and reviewed them. I have fell in love with her way of emotional writing. I have fell in love with everyone of her characters. However, I never knew how far her writing could go, till I opened this book. She has surpassed even her own books this time. There are some writers that I constantly wonder why they don't have millions of people reading their books, she is now on the TOP of that list. She is as good or even better than some of the NY Times Best Selling Authors.
I leave you with this as my last words.
“So that’s the truth about air and water.” She sighs deep.“Which is?”“It’s hard to maintain the balance to keep the fire going. You have to fan the flames without putting it out with too much water. But too little water will burn the fire right up. Too much fire. Too much destruction. We’re out of control.”“You’re talking in circles,” I say.“No. That’s us,” she says with certainty.”
International bestselling author of the New Adult Novel, This Much Is True and the most recently released second novel in the Truth In Lies series of The Truth About Air & Water.
Katherine Owen writes contemporary edgy fiction, which translates to: she writes love stories that are contemporary in setting and both edgy and dark. Some readers term her books emotional roller coasters. She is not sorry. Owen writes about trust, love, and fate and how relationships are often tested by all of these things in one way or another. Love, loss, and starting over.
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Both on the verge of fame. A ballerina who lies. A baseball player who believes her. Well, the truth changes everything. Tally Landon is just trying to survive the death of her twin sister, graduate from high school, and escape her tragic story by pursuing her ballet career in New York. She doesn't count on Lincoln Presley, Stanford's baseball wonder, to affect her at all. Adding him to a long list of one-night stands is the plan. Lying to him about her age and name is her standard method of operandi. She doesn't count on being found out, on seeing him again, or falling in love.
Lincoln Presley's life is all mapped out for him. There is only baseball. With Major League Baseball circling their favorite prospect with a lucrative offer, he cannot afford to mess up. And, he doesn't; until he meets up with the girl he saved in that burning wreckage on the 101 on Valentine's Day months before. By the time he learns her real name and of all the lies she's told, he's in far too deep to ever really let her go.
Fate has a different set of plans, but when fame and lies tear them apart, one truth remains.
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