KylandPaperback

Kyland Mia Sheridan 10 beautiful Mountain Dew Stars!!

So I was super excited when I heard that Mia was doing another book, I mean we just had Calder and Eden. So she posts that a book is coming, oh look so cool. Then she posts the cover, and well lets just say that this cover makes you stop and stare. You literally stop what you are doing just to sit down and stare. I actually stared straight in his eyes and I could have sworn he would have started to talk to me. Delusional, maybe just a little bit. But I couldn’t wait for what was to come. This story is a story of dreams, sacrifice, poverty, hope, trust, fear, longing, heartbreak, loss, survival and most importantly undeniable love

Dirt poor. Hillbilly. Backwoods hick. Mountain folk.

That is the first thing you read you see the blurb and you are thinking, really. It isn’t that bad is it. It really was and so much more.

In the middle of rolling green hills, breathtaking mountain views, waterfalls, and quaint covered bridges, lies Dennville, Kentucky, a part of the Appalachian Mountains that would put any urban slum to shame, where hoplessness is as commonplace as the white oak trees, and unemployment is the rule more so than the exception.

Tenleigh Falyn is one of those who struggle each day just to survive. She lives in a small trailer nestled in a grove of pine trees with her sister and mother. She wants out. I mean who doesn’t want out of this kind of life. She dreams of bigger and better. She dreams of making something of her life and the only way out are to win a college scholarship. She has her heart set on winning and nothing and no one will get in her way. Well till, Kyland.

Of course, I’d seen him before that. I’d bet everyone who was female had let their eyes linger on him, with his strikingly handsome face, and his tall, sold build. But that was the first time I really saw him, the first time I felt a throb of understanding in my chest for the boy who always seemed to wear an expression of nonchalance, as if he didn’t care much for anyone of anything.

Kyland Barrett lives in the poor part of Dennville. Not to far from Tenleigh. He knows heartache, after losing his father and brother in a mining accident. He has one thing on his mind and one thing only to get the hell out of Dennville and never ever look back. He, too is going for that scholarship, just one little problem. Only one person can win it!

“How are you going to win the scholarship when I’m going to win the scholarship?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Kyland looked over at me quickly, amusement on his face ads he shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said smirking. “But it does make things more interesting, doesn’t it?” I snorted softly. I didn’t’ need interesting. I needed that scholarship.

So now the battle lines have been drawn. Kyland Vs Tenleigh. This is going to be so much fun. What starts as an adversary, escalates into a nice friendship. A friendship where they tease each other, try to better the other and always always wants to be that one that ups the other. If for nothing else than to have bragging rights! What happens next shocks both of these two beautiful souls. Love. A love that is young, a love that is all so consuming, a love that you know will never go away no matter what you do, a love that you know deep down inside has to end sooner rather than later.

My breath came out of my mouth in sharp pants as I attempted to get hold of my racing heart. I didn’t need him to stay here. I didn’t need him to feel indebted to me for any reason. But I did need him to kiss me. Right that very second. I moved my eyes to his lips and let out another harsh whoosh of air. Kyland made a strangled, groaning sound in his throat and moved his lips right up against mine. “I’m leaving this place behind when I go. Everything about this place. Even you.” With those words their future sealed. What happens when the one you love is trying to get the one thing you know you need to survive? What happens when you scarfice your happiness for the one you love? What happens when the one who holds your heart leaves you? You get Kyland. You get a love story that will make you sigh, will make your heart flutter and also rip it out, it will make you cry, it will make you laugh, it will make you almost sell your Louis, it will make you look up Mountain Dew teeth and be scared for life, it will simply make you put down the book, look outside and just think.

“Well, I do! And you don’t gt to take that from me. I love you, and you don’t get to say anything about it. Tehe love I feel for you is mine. And I’ll feel it if I want to.” “Tenleigh,” he repeated, his voice cracking. “Don’t love me. Please don’t love me. I can’t stay here. Don’t love me.”

And that my friends is what Mia Sheridan is the best at what she does. She is the queen of words and I will bow down to her each and every time she writes a book. I also want to take this time to thank you, I thank you for your beautiful words, I thank you for having this amazing imagination and putting it into a story. I thank you for always making books about beautiful people who just want their voices to be heard. Your Awesome Lady!!

Mia has done it again. She has managed to pull my heart right out of my chest, play with it for a while and then gently lay it back in it's rightful place. I don't know how she comes up with her stories or where she learned to craft such beautiful characters, but once again I have fallen head over heels for the perfectly imperfect world she has created in Kyland. Set in the impoverished town of Dennville, Kentucky, Kyland and Tenleigh are high school seniors who are destined to carry on the vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness unless a miracle occurs. That miracle is presented in the form of the Tyton Coal Scholarship. The one and only chance they have to escape their small town and get a college education.

Mia paints a very vivid picture of the town and the people who live there. What is amazing and heartbreaking is that this type of town actually exists in parts of the US. The biggest source of income in this town is working at the Tyton Coal Mine, which isn't much anymore ever since the terrible mine explosion happened, killing 62 miners and devastating the town. Now, families with no fathers or brothers are trying to survive, the monthly food stamps and welfare barely making it to the end of the month.

Both Kyland and Tenleigh are determined to win this scholarship and get out of this town and away from the cycle of poverty they have been stuck in their whole lives. Kyland vows to get out, he lost his father and brother in the mining accident and there is nothing left to keep him there. Tenleigh wants to win the scholarship so she can get her degree and a good job, make enough money to get her mama and sister out of there and into a place where they will all have their own rooms. Both are focused on the end goal and no one and nothing will get in their way. Neither one wants to form any attachments to anyone that would prevent them from achieving their goals. But one day all that changes when a twist of fate throws Kyland and Tenleigh together. They form a friendship...that is all...but naturally the more time they spend together the more attached they become to each other.

The emotion expressed in this book between Tenleigh and Kyland just hit me straight in the heart. They are falling for each other but both are determined to still make it out of this town. But how are they going to do this and leave the other behind? Can they do this? Will they survive if one of them leaves? The love these two have for each other and the sacrifices they are willing to make just gutted me, because as usual, sacrifice doesn't come without intense heartache. And this is the part of the book where Mia removed my heart from my chest, scrunched it all up and batted it around for a while before carefully and gently putting it back where it belongs. Now it feels bigger and fuller than it did before I was introduced to these two beautiful, strong, selfless people.

The scenery, the emotions, the lives, the people, all are alive and vivid in my mind because of the flawless writing of Mia Sheridan. Thank you, Mia for another beautiful story! There's a million different lines in this book that I loved but this passage is my favorite, because it is what every person in the world should remember every single day: "We had everything we needed. None of it was big. Most of it was simple. But what I knew in that moment was that the size of your home, your car, your wallet, doesn't have one single thing to do with the size of your LIFE. And my life...my life felt BIG, filled with love and with meaning."

Kyland by Mia Sheridan was a beautiful poignant story about two young adults and their lives. This book captivated me like no other book I have read in a while, and it was a very emotional read for me as well.

This book is about poverty and being so hungry because there was nothing to eat, and children going to bed hungry, it was about being dirt poor, and having to wear cardboard shoes, and the same clothes day in and out, it was about being hopeful in a hopeless world, and walking six miles to school with the hope of bettering oneself, one day and getting out of there, to go somewhere better to live somewhere better and to be someone better.

This book is also about having pride, despite one's circumstances, and it was about how a community that had nothing would share their last can of beans if it was needed. In the case of Kyland, a young man, still in his senior year of school where the book starts out, and Tenleigh, the girl who lived down the road from him, also a senior in high school, it was the hope to win a scholarship that would enable one of them to go to college anywhere all expenses paid so they could get a degree and make something of their lives. For Kyland it was everything.

This is the story of Kyland and Tenleigh, told in both viewpoints, and how they fall in love. It is the story of each of them making the ultimate sacrifice, for each other. They both want the scholarship to find a way out of the horror and cruelty of their lives, the hopelessness, and the darkness they live in every day, and although they have seen each other in school before, they both kept to themselves, until one day they start talking, and start spending time learning about each other, and tell each other the difficult things they are living with: Tenleigh and her older sister have always had to take care of their Mom, who is mentally ill, and they love her so much, but sometimes it is hard for them to control her, especially when she gets off her medication, and for Kyland, his father and brother died two weeks after their mother left them, and now for 4 years Kyland has been alone in his house and everyone thinks his mom is in the home too ill to come outside.

Through their friendship a strong bond forms and Kyland is torn, he does not want to have anything stand in his way for when he leaves town and never comes back, For Tenleigh, she wants the scholarship so bad to get out and make something of herself. But they fall in love and now one of them is going to be left behind. Who will get out and who will stay?

Tears are shed, lies are told in the name of love and it is so sad, but there is no other way. Four years pass, and then the person who left comes home. What will happen, is there still love, or is there nothing there anymore? Read this book and find out, but have tissues nearby because it is so good it will make you cry and it will make you feel, and for me it made me realize how lucky I am to have the necessities in life that so many do not even have.

The book had a good plot and it twists in a way you do not see coming, and there is a great cast of characters all so well described you feel like you know them. The dialog is good and the author does a brilliant job of describing the circumstances that the people in this coal mining town live with day after day, year after year, lifetimes. I really like how the story is told from Kyland and Tenleigh's point of view. Most of all I loved how she shows that with love all things can be possible.

I gave this book 5***** stars, and I just have to say that Mia Sheridan is a brilliant author, and I will be reading everything she writes. She captured my interest, and with this book she captured my feelings and my heart.

I could repost the synopsis to make sure you know what the book is about, but that barely touches the surface of this story.

I could show you quotes of some of the most pivotal and heart breaking moments to lure you in, but that will fail to truly paint the beauty of this story.

I can talk about how amazing this author is, but that will never come close to the reality of that statement.

Instead I sit here completely floored and emotionally raw, while this beautiful, heartbreaking, gut wrenching, hopeful and selfless story continues to brand my heart over and over again…searing itself permanently into the very fabric of my soul.

So, you see my dilemma. What is it one can say about a story like that that will truly show it justice? What words can I, a mere reader, convey that will tell the world, shouting from the very Appalachian Mountaintops in this book, that this is a story that will change your perception, enhance your life, alter your behavior, inspire your path and, ultimately, make you feel ashamed for never once realizing or remembering that everyone has a story and everyone deserves to have a voice?

In a literary world riddled with books about affluence, fast cars, large bank accounts, fancy dinners, high paying jobs, getting the man, getting the girl, dominant and controlling alphas, and achieving success (many of which I have enjoyed), there is this author who writes about REAL people. The REAL people in REAL places, living REAL lives and living in the REALITY of often being forgotten, overlooked, underappreciated, devalued and unheard. This is her gift to the people it may represent, as she lifts up the downtrodden, gives them pride and shows them hope. And this is her gift to us, as she reminds us to acknowledge our blessings, remember those less fortunate and know that one person can, in fact, make a difference.

This is Kyland and Tenleigh’s story….this is THEIR life….THEIR truth…THEIR VOICE!

I read a review that said this book was full of “cheesy fluff.” Said that the book was focused solely on “the romance between the characters,” yet couldn’t feel “any connection to the characters or feel a spark between them.” At first, yeah, I sat there a bit shocked, wondering what book this reader read, then I was angry because she did not take the time to truly read the layers that only Mia Sheridan can give you. She weaves a story within a story within another story, and it seems that this reader only read the surface. My anger soon turned to sadness, as I immediately felt sorry for her because she not only read and absorbed a small portion of a beautiful story, but she got nothing out of it. She felt nothing, she absorbed nothing, which means at the end of the story, she was still nothing more than who she was when she started. What a sad thing for her and for those around her.

I, on the other hand, read every morsel of this book and was changed in a way that I will not soon forget and will stay with me forever.

This story submerges you into the very depths of poverty, desperation, sadness, determination, heartache, heartbreak, loss, friendship, understanding, devastation, sacrifice , selflessness and reward.

It is a journey through the belly of hopelessness where even the smallest flicker of hope is what you cling to and use as your inspiration as you dare to dream. Dream of life much different than what you know. Dream of a life full of possibilities. Dream of a life full of warm beds and stocked refrigerators. Dream of a life where you can drive where you have to go. Dream of a life where you can take care of those you love, enhancing their lives and giving back to others.

That is what this story is really about. About people who have nothing and come from nothing, but are more giving and nurturing of others than those who have it all. Where pride costs too much and giving up costs even more. Where sacrifices and giving back reap the biggest rewards. And where love and respect truly are the driving force behind enhancing people’s lives.

I felt the cold, I heard the wind, I walked the miles, I smelled the lavender and admired sunsets. My heart hurt for Kyland and I grieved with Tenleigh. I celebrated triumphs and mourned losses. This author took me and literally dropped me in the hills of the Appalachians where I was able to bear witness to a life I am unfamiliar with; where life was hard and people were unkind. Working hard was necessary, but giving up was common. Dreaming was laughable, and hoping was rare. Where many are overlooked, and no one is heard.

By the end of this book, I sat shocked, saddened and shamed. Shocked that people in MY AMERICA have to live in such a manner, saddened that many seem unaffected or don’t care and shamed that I may not do enough to help anyone less fortunate than me.

This book is the epitome of all things good in a place where many may feel God has forgotten their address….it is sacrifice in a world where giving up something good may leave you in a state of deprivation for the rest of your life…it is the epitome of hope when hope seems to be out of reach….and it is the epitome of love, even when it seems too costly, it becomes the easiest price to pay.

I will forever be altered by this book and will carry Kyland with me for the rest of my life, never once forgetting the importance of remembering that no matter where anyone comes from or who they are, they all have a story and everyone deserves to have a voice.

This was Kyland and Tenleigh’s story….and it was epic….it was beautiful….it was love.

Kyland by Mia Sheridan

I always struggle reviewing books by Mia Sheridan. Not because of the book itself but because I can never really seem to find the words to express how I really feel about her beautiful stories. And here I am struggling again. Like all of Mia's books before, Kyland is deeply profound and meaningful. I don't know where she finds her golden thread, but Mia somehow uses it to spin a tale nothing short of breathtaking every time!

Kyland Barrett and Tenleigh Falyn come from poverty the likes of which I have never seen or imagined. Yet, as I read about the living conditions, the town, the Appalachian Mountains, and its mountain folk I honestly could picture every bit of it in my head. That too, being Mia's gift. Being able to step into a place I have never visited and see it clearly and feel it in my bones.

The first time I saw Kyland barrett, he was swiping someone's discarded breakfast off a cafeteria table - Tenleigh

Despite the desperation and devastation these two have experienced, this book to me is about hope, well that and love of course. Being dirt poor, hungry and with no easy way out of Dennville Kentucky, Kyland and Ten are in competition for a way out, a future; The Tyton Coal Scholarship. Kylad has focused solely on winning this scholarship and getting as far away from Kentucky as he could. Tenleigh, too has worked tirelessly for the past 4 years to win and find a way to get her mother the help she needs along with a better life for her sister. But only one of them can win it and at what cost to the other?

"I'm going to leave here Tenleigh. Nothing is going to stop me. Not you, not anything. Not anyone. Do you hear me?" - Kyland

I find myself thinking about the fact that these two are just young kids, yet they are as mature as any adult I know. Being forced to fend for themselves made them grow up fast. Instead of worrying about cell phones, dates and social media, they focus on putting food in their bellies and staying warm. It amazed me through the entire book, how Kyland and Tenleigh found pleasure and joy in life's most simple basic things like sleigh riding, lavender fields, and books.

Sometimes my life felt so small. And I had to wonder why those of us who were given small lives, still had to feel pain so big. It hardly seemed fair - Tenleigh

The sacrifices they are each willing to make for others, including each other, are astounding. Never being selfish, but always being selfless. Each willing to give up on their own dreams for the sake of helping others. Falling in love when the outcome was going to be heartbreak, Kyland and Tenleigh were so brave.

"I realized I would happily suffer for you, because that's what loving someone is. Willing to do anything for them, willing to make any sacrifice, suffer so they don't have to. I loved you then, and I still love you now" - Kyland

Kyland is another must read from Mia Sheridan. It will leave you feeling hopeful, happy and full of faith. Kyland and Tenleigh were the perfect example of how good in this world does exist. I can't imagine what she will come up with next, but I will tell you this much, I'm reading it!!! Thank you Mia Sheridan! 5 big giant lip smacks for Kyland.