Welcome to The Bookish Babe's stop on the Lost and Found Blog Tour! The tour is being hosted by AToMR Tours; find the schedule here. My stop includes a review and giveaway.
Category/Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: 5/7/13
Format: eARC
Source: Received from author for review
There’s complicated. And there’s Rowen Sterling.
After numbing pain for the past five years with boys, alcohol, and all-around apathy, she finds herself on a Greyhound bus to nowhere Montana the summer after she graduates high school. Her mom agreed to front the bill to Rowen’s dream art school only if Rowen proves she can work hard and stay out of trouble at Willow Springs Ranch. Cooking breakfast at the crack of dawn for a couple dozen ranch hands and mucking out horse stalls are the last things in the world Rowen wants to spend her summer doing.
Until Jesse Walker saunters into her life wearing a pair of painted-on jeans, a cowboy hat, and a grin that makes something in her chest she’d thought was frozen go boom-boom. Jesse’s like no one else, and certainly nothing like her. He’s the bright and shiny to her dark and jaded.
Rowen knows there’s no happily-ever-after for the golden boy and the rebel girl—happily-right-now is a stretch—so she tries to forget and ignore the boy who makes her feel things she’s not sure she’s ready to feel. But the more she pushes him away, the closer he seems to get. The more she convinces herself she doesn’t care, the harder she falls.
When her dark secrets refuse to stay locked behind the walls she’s kept up for years, Rowen realizes it’s not just everyone else she needs to be honest with. It’s herself.
Lost and Found was FABULOUS. I've heard really great things about Nicole Williams' writing from a lot of my friends. I even own several of her books, just hadn't made time to read them. Now, I am kicking myself because if this book is any indication of how good her other books are, I am sold.
Okay, so back to Lost and Found. I love a good love story, obviously, but this one truly went above and beyond. And I know I'm kind of spazzing out here and it probably seems like I have Review-Writing-ADD, but I am just so excited about this book!
What we have here, in Lost and Found, is a story that I haven't found a lot of in New Adult Contemporary: a bad girl and the good guy who falls in love with her. Personally, as a former (but still fun) semi-bad girl myself, I am thrilled to have a different sort of heroine. Rowen was a girl who never had the kind of love every child deserves, a mom who chooses to only see the bad, and no belief that she deserves a good life. It really hurt me to see a girl who was so full of pain and doubt, who believes all the bad and will not let anyone close to her. So enter...
JESSE-FREAKING-WALKER. Guys, I am not into cowboys at all (having married a reformed one myself), but I am willing to make an exception for this lovely young man. Not only is Jesse every girl's dream in the looks department, but he is an exceptional person as well. Accepting. Kind. Gentle. Sexy-As-Hell. There is a special place in my heart for authors who create men like Jesse. I loved that he saw Rowen for who she truly was, not for the tough exterior she presented. And not only did he accept her, he embraced her, loving her not despite her past, but because of where it led her... to him. I love a love story that shows what a healthy, beautiful relationship can help accomplish. Jesse doesn't "fix" Rowen. He helps her see the wonderful, amazing person inside, something she may have never realized without him there to show her.
Lost and Found was not only a love story, but also one girl's path towards self-acceptance and letting go. I cannot stress how important I find books like this, not only as a terrific reading experience, but also as a means to helping some girl who may be going through a similar situation. I want to hug Nicole Williams for writing such a powerful story.
Lost and Found is a book that should not be missed.
Favorite Quotes:
His mouth was so close to mine, I felt his warm breath on my lips when he said, "This." His lips covered mine for such a brief moment it was more of a tease than a kiss. "And this." His mouth moved over mine long enough to be in the kissing category. "And this, too." He separated from me just long enough to get those words out before his lips settled back over mine. That kiss wasn't a tease; it wasn't anything close to a tease. It was the kind of kiss a girl would forever measure against. It set the bar for all future kisses. That kiss made me want to do nothing but keep my mouth firmly planted on Jesse's until the day I died. ~eARC, 48%
"I don't deserve you, Jesse," I whispered, never knowing anything more true. "There's nothing I ever could do to deserve you."
He bent his face into the curve of my neck. "We don't deserve anything, Rowen. We don't deserve punishment, we don't deserve happiness, life owes us nothing. Realize that." His voice wasn't gentle anymore; it was strong as I'd ever heard it. "So we have to take what we want because life sure as shit isn't going to freely hand it over." He kissed the skin just above my collar bone. "And I want you." ~eARC, 71%
His mouth was so close to mine, I felt his warm breath on my lips when he said, "This." His lips covered mine for such a brief moment it was more of a tease than a kiss. "And this." His mouth moved over mine long enough to be in the kissing category. "And this, too." He separated from me just long enough to get those words out before his lips settled back over mine. That kiss wasn't a tease; it wasn't anything close to a tease. It was the kind of kiss a girl would forever measure against. It set the bar for all future kisses. That kiss made me want to do nothing but keep my mouth firmly planted on Jesse's until the day I died. ~eARC, 48%
"I don't deserve you, Jesse," I whispered, never knowing anything more true. "There's nothing I ever could do to deserve you."
He bent his face into the curve of my neck. "We don't deserve anything, Rowen. We don't deserve punishment, we don't deserve happiness, life owes us nothing. Realize that." His voice wasn't gentle anymore; it was strong as I'd ever heard it. "So we have to take what we want because life sure as shit isn't going to freely hand it over." He kissed the skin just above my collar bone. "And I want you." ~eARC, 71%
Purchase Lost and Found at:
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