BLOG TOUR REVIEW & GIVEAWAY- BUILT by Jay Crownover

Hello Everyone, and welcome to my first blog tour and review of the year. What a way to kick it off with my favourite NA author with a brand new series, Saints of Denver. Today I am here with my review and an excerpt from the novel. As you can see I have got two covers for the book, the blue being the US and the pink the UK. So without further ado here is a little more about the book.

Built (Saints of Denver #1)
by Jay Crownover
Publisher – HarperColllins
Release Date – January 5th 2016
Buy – Amazon | Book Depository

The first in the new SAINTS OF DENVER series from NYT bestselling author of the MARKED MEN series, Jay Crownover

Sometimes you have to tear everything down to build something new…

Sayer Cole is frozen inside. At least, that’s what it’s felt like for as long as she can remember. She’s yet to let anyone past her icy exterior – and the one guy she thinks might melt her heart couldn’t possibly be interested in someone so uptight.

Rough, hard and hot-as-hell, Zeb Fuller has rebuilt his life and his construction business since protecting his family sent him to jail all those years ago. His elegant client, Sayer, makes him feel like a Neanderthal in denim, but despite the many hints that he’s been dropping to get to know her better, she seems oblivious to his charms.

Just as things finally start to heat up, Zeb’s past comes back to haunt him and he needs Sayer’s professional help to right a wrong and to save more than himself. As these opposites dig in for the fight of their lives, fire and ice collide in an unstoppable explosion of steam…

Jay Crownover is back with a new series, a companion series to her highly acclaimed and my favourite NA series ever, Marked Men. When the last book of MM, Asa, I felt like it was an end of tattooed guys, hard abs and buff ripped muscles, but when she said she had another series out I couldn’t wait.

I loved Zebulan Fuller, such a awesome name don’t you think?! He was truly one of my favourite men that Jay has written about. Half the time I wanted to cry, he has a soul like no one else. Although he had a rough start to his life, he was honest about that. He tends to put everything out there and that what’s he done from the beginning with Sayer. Zeb is a saint, I guess I never really thought about it until now but that is what he is. Not a bad bone in his body. On the night of being released from prison he made a mistake, he fathered a child without realising. When a woman named Echo stops by his work and tells him, he’s completely dumbfounded and when he sees the picture, he couldn’t just how much they look a like. Without a doubt he wanted to give this boy, Hyde a home, and the best thing of all he wants for his child is to fight for him tooth and nail. (Don’t you just want to hug him and more ;)) At times throughout the whole book my heart just swelled a notion between them too. It was adorable and the relationship between budding father and son was truly beautiful.

Sayer Cole was someone else entirely, I found that she was completely new to me in the type of character that Jay has usually written about in her Marked Men series. It was like she was trying to find a way into the crowd that has been built around. As Sayer says:


“The young women were all colourful, funny, smart, and maybe most admirably, they were all deeply in love and of protective of their men that made up my little brother’s chosen family.” 


That is the definition of Jay’s series and I think, Sayer is envious and jealous of that all but she doesn’t realise or isn’t willing to is that she has that protective man who restored her dream home, she does have Zeb. However, Sayer has built walls around her for as long as she remembers and now she wants them come down, but she doesn’t know how. She hides behind her bright colours and her true personality of fear of thinking it isn’t right. I think that is the main thing that Jay tackles, that your past will always be your present unless you try and overcome them, not for someone but for yourself, which is the true persona of Sayer’s character too.

I loved Zeb and Sayer together and as individuals through each of their POVs. Together one knew what they wanted but it took a while to finally realise that building foundations isn’t such a bad thing either. I enjoyed once again getting back into the world of Jay’s tattooed men and seeing all the characters from the Marked Men series so we weren’t totally isolated even through another spin-off series. You wouldn’t really think it’s another series when you read Built, your just sucked right back in the arms of Denver. What a way to start 2016!

Rating – 5

Jay Crownover is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Marked Men and The Point series. Like her characters, she is a big fan of tattoos. She loves music and wishes she could be a rock star, but since she has no aptitude for singing or instrument playing, she’ll settle for writing stories with interesting characters that make the reader feel something. She lives in Colorado with her three dogs.