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Blurb

Fitz Baker was the world’s biggest sex symbol. Until he disappeared.

Fed up with the trappings of fame, he traded his world of Hollywood for a quiet life on Newman Lake. He was perfectly happy living as an island. Until he met her.

Returning home with nothing but a failed music career, all Maggie Sharp wants is to rebuild her life. A life that doesn’t involve the surly, arrogant stranger now living across the lake.

Still, there’s something about Will…Something familiar. Something Maggie can’t quite put her finger on…

She only wanted the spotlight.

He gave up his life to escape it.

The real question is if they can remain discreet.

 

 

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Review

4.5 stars

I loved this book! An emotional, dramatic love story between a girl who has survived tragedy and is searching for her way, and a broken man who is hiding from the world. It’s my first read by Nicole French, and I loved her writing as she sucked me straight into Maggie and Will’s story, and I couldn’t put this book down!

Maggie moved from her small home town to New York City with dreams of a career in music, but it all went horribly wrong and she was left emotionally scarred and understandably terrified. She is now back home in the town that never really accepted her, with the aim of rebuilding her life and caring for her alcoholic mother. She is slowly and quietly trying to find her way back to herself, but while doing that she repeatedly runs into a bearded, shaggy-haired, yeti-looking man who is gruff, broody and immensely rude. Sure, he comes to her rescue a couple of times, but he’s a complete ass about it. But Maggie can’t help but be intrigued and she pushes to engage him – a move that pays off when he responds to her – and something begins to develop.

“You make me feel…” Will started. “Out of control.”
I couldn’t move. “Oh.”
“Like I actually have to care about what someone else thinks. Like I’m not alone anymore … And for the first time in a very long time, I feel like I don’t want to be.”

What Maggie doesn’t know is that Will is actually Fitzwilliam ‘Fitz’ Baker – former child star turned huge Hollywood star, believed by the world to be dead. For four years Will has lived in isolation by the lake, interacting with nobody and literally hiding from the world, and that’s just the way he wants it. Until Maggie comes along.

Sometimes you don’t know you wanted something until you have it. Sometimes you don’t know you need something until it’s there.

This is not a neat and tidy romance. Will has demons, and they are fierce. It’s not easy, but everything between them is natural, their feelings growing and shifting without any effort. It’s just that neither of them are expecting it, and Will in particular has no idea how to handle it. He makes mistakes – big ones – and they have a rough time with it, but there’s no denying their chemistry.

“I should have always stayed away from you, Maggie. But we’re here now, aren’t we? I’m in way, way too deep, too tangled up … I couldn’t’ stay away from you if I tried.”

Even with its heartache and angsty moments, this romance completely captured my heart. It has a sense of innocence about it as they both feel things to a depth they haven’t experienced before, and the intensity of everything between them and the passion that they have for each other is steamy, swoony and just gorgeous!

“I’m not here to save you, Will.” I stilled my movements, tipping his chin forward so he had to look at me. “Do you understand me?”
His eyes opened, deeper than the waters around us. One hand slipped up my body to cup my face, and then he kissed me with impossible tenderness as the other hand pressed my hips down, forcing me to take him fully. I arched my back as he filled me, all my lonely spaces, in ways that only he could.
“I know,” he said against my lips, my throat, my cheeks, my eyes. His low voice touched some frequency that spoke to me and only me. “But you make me want to save myself.”

I loved Maggie. She’s been through so much, and she hasn’t escaped unscathed, but she is bravely pulling her life together, facing up to her past and trying her best to move forward, and I really admire that about her. The book is written entirely from her POV, and while I love a dual POV book, I love the sense of mystery that we get while trying to figure out just what is going on in Will’s head while he and Maggie are first battling it out, and then falling for each other. It adds to the intensity of the story, and I’m looking forward to learning more about Will in the next book.

Throughout the whole book while we are falling in love with these characters there is this sense of anticipation tingling in the background of the story as we wait for the fallout of Will’s and Maggie’s pasts to catch up to them in the present. They both have major things going on personally, and the story builds wonderfully to its inevitable ending that has me desperate to know where it’s all going to go from here.

We were the definition of misery loving company. But then I wondered if the combination of our two miseries could make something beautiful. Maybe it could create joy.

I loved this book. The writing is engaging and emotive, and the story completely sucked me in. It’s raw and it’s messy, but there’s so much emotion between these broken characters, I felt everything! I loved their story and can’t wait for more.

4.5 stars.

 

Discrete Duet

 

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Excerpt

“I don’t like feeling like this,” Will said.

I sucked a breath through my teeth.

“Feeling like what?”

“Like this.” He took a step toward me, and I fought not to step backward. Will had a quiet authority about him, and in the shadows of the moon, his shoulders seemed to broaden, his legs seemed to lengthen. He seemed larger than life.

When he had me backed up against the porch railing, he raised a hand, floating his fingers around my jaw, over my cheeks, but never actually touching me. I arched toward his hand. I couldn’t help it. But he hovered, never making contact.

“You make me feel…” Will started.  “Out of control.”

I couldn’t move.  “Oh?”

“Like I actually have to care about what someone else thinks. Like I’m not alone anymore.” He paused. His eyes opened wide, following the path of his fingers as they took hold of a strand of hair in my ponytail and twirled. “And for the first time in a very long time, I feel like I don’t want to be.”

He tugged lightly on the strand, and I felt the slight pinch like an arrow through my body, shooting down my arms and legs, and coming to throb in that place no man had been for so, so long. I bit my lip. Will’s eyes dilated.

“Tell the truth, Lil. What do you want?”

You. The word echoed distantly, like a bell tolling from miles away. I didn’t understand it. I was broken. A mess. What should I want with this man? We had a connection, sure, but overall, he was nothing but trouble. He was grouchy. A loner. Clearly had serious social and emotional control issues.

And yet. There was no denying that something was here. Since we met, it certainly felt at times as if the universe itself was tilting on its axis, trying to knock me into him. Breakdown after breakdown. Meeting after meeting. And now…

I tipped my chin up so I could look directly at him, drawn like one of the moths circling the porch light. Winging through the dark, ready to dive into his golden inferno.

“I don’t want Lucas,” I said quietly, drifting my gaze up and down his naked torso. A sheen of sweat glimmered in the moonlight, which also made the shadows of his muscles—the square pectorals, the solid rack of abs, the lickable V that dipped beneath his shorts—that much more evident.

Will followed my gaze, and his hand dropped. He stepped between my legs, and his unique scents engulfed me. Working all afternoon only made them that much stronger—the scent of pine trees, lake water, and man swallowed me with a heady rush that made me shake slightly. And it was then, only then, that he finally touched me. My waist was encircled by his wide palms, so broad that his fingers nearly touched on either side. It was relatively innocent, but the intent was clear. Just like last night, he held me still; I couldn’t move unless he wanted me to. For that moment, I was his.

When I looked back up, his eyes were fixed on my lips.  Unconsciously, I licked the lower one. His pupils dilated even more.

“Lil,” he whispered as he leaned a little closer.

“What are you waiting for?” I murmured. Now I was the one staring at his mouth—so soft and full under his newly trimmed beard.

I panted. Will swore.

“Fuck it,” he growled. “I don’t fucking know.”

Sometimes you don’t know you wanted something until you have it. Sometimes you don’t know you need something until it’s there.

His mouth found mine in a fury, one that surprised me for about a half second before. The hands at my waist gripped so tightly, I almost couldn’t breathe, and I felt like I was strangled—not for lack of oxygen, but for lack of him. Will’s lips made me feel like I was breathing for the first time; like I’d been under water my entire life, and he was the air I’d never known I needed.

 

 

 

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Author Bio

Nicole French is an East Coast/West Coast hybrid creature, Springsteen fanatic, hopeless romantic, and total bookworm. When not writing fiction or teaching writing classes, she is hanging out with her family, playing soccer with the rest of the thirty-plus crowd in Seattle, or going on dates with her husband. In her
spare time, she likes to go running with her dog, Greta, or practice the piano, but never seems to do either one of these things as much as she should.

 

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