Surviving Raine Paperback – June 20, 2013

The way the characters were described for the first quarter of the book, I thought the male lead was a forty or fifty year old hardened alcoholic and the female lead was a teenager but it turned out they were both in their twenties. None of the characters were remotely believable. The female lead constantly asked ridiculous questions like whether it was going to rain, when they were in the middle of the ocean and there's no cloud in the sky. But it turns out she's college educated. The male lead is a street fighter, who ends up doing melee matches to the death, who can hardly put a coherent sentence together, but he has a Master's in literature. Yeah right.And when did he have time to get his degrees, considering he was sleeping with numerous women every night, fighting, or later when he became a falling down drunk alcoholic?The story kept going over the same tired material about his self disgust, his feelings of being unlovable, and about how she's a bashful beauty that he didn't deserve. It just got very repetitive and boring. For a survivalist adventure romance to be so drawn out with so little action, it made me a bit bitter.

I was skeptical at first - I'm not generally a fan of alphole heroes, and you don't get much more alphole than Bastian Stark. Drunk, disorderly, misogynistic, antisocial. Yeah, didn't like him at all at first.But that's the idea. You can't make a good redemption story unless your character seems utterly unredeemable. Plus, if Shay Savage can make me fall in love with a non-verbal caveman like she did in "Transcendence," she gets the benefit of the doubt.Oh, it takes some pretty drastic action to peel back the layers of Bastion to reveal the decent man inside (deep, deep inside), something along the lines of a shipwreck, an unexpected bit of humanity/heroism in the form of his rescue of Raine, near death from dehydration/starvation, but the set up is perfect for revealing Bastion's tragic backstory and humanizing him. Raine has the patience of a saint, but as her life depends upon Bastion's hard-won survival skills, she sort of has to. Then again, she doesn't take his crap and calls him out when he uses his alphole tendencies to prevent her from seeing his soft underbelly.This read totally satisfied my craving for angst/wounded heroes, and I'll definitely grab the next book in the series!

I couldn't get over this book - Bastian comes from a life of never being wanted to survival, before he ever meets Raine - he is in the midst of a self-made witness protection program when an earthquake/wave destroys the small cruise ship he is operating. Shay, you are no ordinary fiction writer - I am never bored by "his gorgeous chest" or 1,000 other repetitive details - your people seem like they could be real. Thank you for this wonderful, mesmerizing story - what a damaged couple separately so alone - to be brought together by these harsh circumstances and to survive by Bastian's past training - ends up saving Bastian's life - and perhaps in turn Raine's. Again, dialogue is realistic and plot as well. Shay - Transcendence is pretty hard to beat - but you have done a fabulous job with your other stories - I could not put this down. I am on to Bastian's Storm - to enjoy what happens and hopefully get a satisfying ending and epilogue! PLEASE! Sean Crisden is Perfect as the narrator - have always liked him - and his translation of your characters is wonderful.

This is the first book I’ve read from this author and it came highly recommended.With that being said I had no expectations going into this so I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it so much. I think the storyline was very unique and the way she wrote it was quite realistic but still enjoyable.However what turned me off was the ending. I felt like the main characters had been through so much at this point and they needed their HEA. I get that authors love to continue storylines but at some point you have to realize that you have a complete story on your hand so why cheapen the ending to drag out another book? I’ve started reading the second book and it takes away from the emotions I felt reading the first so I DNF. Instead I made up my own ending lol.This is such a shame because I felt like if the author stuck to just this one book and gave us an amazing ending it would of been 5/5.

I really loved this book. This is my second time reading it. It was everything I was looking for. An action packed romance. Bastian is a strong resourceful man who is so broken he has become an alcoholic and given up on life. And one day the boat he owns capsizes and he has to save himself and another woman in the process. The spend the next few weeks in a raft in the ocean and so on. He has to open up to Raine and admit a lot of truths to her. She essentially saves his soul and he saves her over and over again. Bastian is very strong in body but he is very weak of mind. He has lived a life being left to feel so unwanted he can’t even believe in good for himself so if a whiny man will bother u this isn’t for you. I loved them

This was complicated, intense, intriguing, full of angst, anger, and longing. All the feelings of a great read. I enjoyed it immensely and can't wait for the sequel. Loved Savage's style, attention to detail, and how even though it was a "shipwrecked" novel, it wasn't. It was so so different from the other shipwrecked novels I have read. I loved the elements of danger of the "tournament" wrapped around and interwoven through the addiction, anger, and most of all love in this intense read. Will be opening second book straight away!

Having read my first book by this author just this week and enjoyed it, I was keen to read something else of hers. This was recommended to me by a Goodreads friend.It is told entirely from the heroes POV. I did find at times, I was itching to read the heroines POV but I will say this, the author writes very well from the male perspective.Sebastian Stark is 29 and an alcoholic. He likes the company of whores and he doesn't like to interact much with people. He has seen and done things in his short life that will leave the reader feeling at times that he's a cruel person but for the majority of the time the author makes you feel nothing but sympathy for Bastian and how his early life led him to the things he later did. Deep down, Bastian wants to be loved but he has never known love. That is until his boat capsizes and he sees a passenger in trouble. The passenger is 20 year old Raine. Bastian gets them aboard the life raft which is equipped with enough food and water and resources to last them long enough to hopefully be rescued.Straightaway Bastian is cruel to Raine but he is an alcoholic so when he starts going through the DT's, Raine gets the full force of his anger and his pain. When he is over the worst, they form a truce and then slowly Bastian starts to open up to Raine and tells her of his life. But he is shocked when he discovers Raine's full name and realises that he watched her father die. We then learn more of Bastian's dark past.Bastian seems to know everything about survival (which is why I deducted a star as at times I felt some of it was a bit far fetched!). He becomes Raine's hero, saving her life initially and then saving her two more times. Raine asks Bastian to 'let her in' and slowly but surely he does. The story covers just over two months when they are stranded. First on the boat and later on an Island.Bastian is not a perfect hero but I still thought he was lovely! He loves Raine and becomes very alpha male about her. She is his and he wants to protect her. Raine loves Bastian and feels loved and protected by him but Bastian can't help his insecurities and his fear of her leaving him.The book doesn't exactly end on a cliffhanger, but from the epilogue we know the story is not complete and there is more to come for Bastian and more danger. I can't wait to read it but can't see a release date for it as yet, but it is this year sometime.If you like a flawed hero then this book is for you.

Sebastian & Raine are stranded on a deserted island when their ship sinks.Bastian, what a tortured soul. I adored him. He had survived the most horrific childhood & believed he wasn't worthy of being loved. He was a foul-mouthed, chain smoking, alcoholic who had fought & killed people for a living. He avoided people and built walls around himself to avoid being hurt. He saves Raine's life when his ship sinks and bares his soul to her when they're adrift on the life raft. I love how protective he was of her.Raine was amazing. She had coped with her father being murdered. She saw right through Bastian's act & knew just how to deal with him. She broke through his walls with her love & understanding.I loved the dialogue in this story. There were no dull moments for me, I didn't want to put it down.I was very satisfied with the ending. It was left open for a sequel but there was no cliffhanger.

Holy macaroni!, what a ride, really good book where technically not much happens a ship wreck and the fight for survival after. firstly I've never read a book from the guys POV, made a refreshing change, I loved, loved Bastian, if you met him would hate him instantly, moody, crass alcoholic, but stranded he's who you would pick in a heartbeat.Raine who was so caring and patient with him she chipped away at the hard exterior and made Bastian see the good. The time they spent together and what they go through is written with such detail and believability that you can imagine them together trying to survive with what little that had and Bastian with all his brilliant and wonderful inventions that he comes up with it was like watching an episode of lost!, there's another book after this one as the story ends on a cliffy which I hate but the 2nd book is ready to read, I hope it's not a trilogy or I will be mad...

Where to start? There are so many things about this book that I loved, it has made it to the top of my favourites list for sure.The storyline is one that I found unique which was my reason for reading it, and it didn't disappoint, I can safely say that I have not read another book like this one. The characters are first class and develop throughout the book, making the reader emotionally invested in them. I loved both of the characters in this book, Sebastian was an alpha male alcoholic who has a tortured past and keeps everyone at a distance. Raine is an innocent and caring character who still maintains an amount of strength and bravery, she is not afraid to stand up to Sebastian and is a strong female character, with her few moments of vulnerability that make her more real.This book brought so many emotions, it made me laugh, cry, gasp, and scream at times. There is never a dull moment in this book, it flows smoothly with events I didn't see coming. The main thing for me was that I felt every emotion that the characters felt, their desperation, their fear and their need to survive.The writing in this book is clear, descriptive and grabs the reader from the first page, it's rare to find writing as good as this and I'm so glad that I did. I read this book in one sitting and enjoyed every minute of it, it's a book that you will remember and that will stay with you emotionally. I can only tell you how much I enjoyed this book and how much it deserves to be read, so get on and buy it, you won't regret it :)

I found this book quite ugly. I appreciate that Bastian was a victim of his past, but I couldn't get past the lifestyle he chose for himself or the extreme violence he exhibited. This story should come with some trigger warnings. I've no desire to read the sequel.