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To believe one person can change your destiny sounds absurd. But it happened to me… twice.
Ten years ago I had no idea what I wanted out of life, until I met Hannah Michaels. She was a computer-engineering student ready to conquer the social media world, and I was smitten. Even though I knew she was taken, I had to have her.
Being the big shot that I was, I didn’t let her status stand in my way. It wasn’t long before my hands were on her thighs and my name a whisper on her lips. This smart, sexy girl inspired me to greatness, helped me grow into the kind of man I never knew I wanted to be. The man I am today.
Too bad I hadn’t grown fast enough to keep her.
Moving on wasn’t easy, but I knew I had to let her go. Eventually, I found someone to share my days and nights with, and together we had a daughter. My life was nearly perfect until my world turned upside down.
A single father has challenges, and one of those is learning how to calmly deal with your child coming home in tears. I had no idea the day I pounded on my daughter’s classmate’s door, Hannah would be the one standing on the other side.
The wild, burning desire that rushed through my veins was unwanted, and yet impossible to ignore. Letting her in meant so much more this time around. Guilt hit me like a hammer. I hated myself. I hated her. The problem was I really didn’t hate her—I wanted her more than ever.
But this time around, I can’t have her.
This time it’s my status that stands in our way—and going up against myself just might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I am not sure what I was expecting from this book, but I am positive I got so much more than I ever thought possible. There are books that an author writes that are their best. Jace and Hannah's story is, hands down, the best thing I have read by Kim Karr. Her other books are great, and i have enjoyed them all, but this is her best.
There was just something about this story, about Jace, Hannah, Scarlett and Jonah (and I am never going to be able to put it into words) that strikes that perfect emotional balance of the push of the new love, that isn't totally new, and the pull of the past, of what is comfortable and the struggle we all have in deciding how to honor the things in the past while moving forward and taking the things that are before us in our future.
That is a big part of what Jace struggles with. To go back to your first love, after losing a wife you genuinely loved, is it a betrayal? Does it cheapen the first love, the relationship with his late wife, or does it do neither of those things, because you can't redo the past. The fact that this is his challenge, that this is what he deals with, is in the blurb...but how he deals with it, and how emotionally it is written, well, that is something you have to read the book to experience.
You feel for Jace, you know how badly he wants to move on past his wife's death and how much he struggles with the idea that he wants to move on with his first love, Hannah. There are some beautiful scenes, including one with his closest friend, that really let you in to Jace, and to how he feels, and his struggle. The depth of the friendship that is revealed is amazing, and it is the moment where you really start to believe, as a reader, that Jace is going to start to understand that just because something is in the past doesn't mean it can't be in the future.
When Jace realizes that the past is in the past, and that everything that has happened to us previously leads us to where we are now, and that none of that cheapens the other things that have happened, it's beautiful, it made me teary, and as the blurb says, it had to happen for him and Hannah to have a chance.
The writing in this book is absolutely flawless. The balance of the past and the present, the flashbacks that let you get to know Jace and Hannah, and the present that allows you get to know the people they were, and the people they are now...and to see that they really are different. Both have had experiences that have challenged them, and have changed them.
There is, literally, nothing I would change about this book.
Having read Kim Karr's Sexy Jerk I was familiar with the character of Jace. I had an inkling into him, you could say. I wasn't sure what to think of him when I met him there but oh, I fell in love with him here. I fell hard and fast and he'll stay with me for a long time.
This story was told in such a perfect way. Hannah and Jace have a past, and the way the author gives us glimpses into their past and then gives us their present day story was incredibly well done. Sometimes flashbacks get in the way of the current story. This was just seamlessly done.
I felt for these characters and how they left things in the past. I read this biting my lip at times, holding my breath at others and wanting to cry. Seeing them come back together, in a very different set of circumstances was incredibly satisfying. They both came to this relationship with new baggage, adorable baggage at times, but baggage nonetheless, and I think it was handled brilliantly.
This book took me by complete surprise and it's one I know will stay with me for a long time. This was a heartachingly beautiful, and steamy, second chance romance. It is a standalone book and one I highly recommend.
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PURCHASE Big Shot through 7/30 and get Sexy Jerk included in your download for FREE!
PURCHASE Big Shot through 7/30 and get Sexy Jerk included in your download for FREE!
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Click HERE to enter the Release Day Giveaway from Author Kim Karr!
Kim Karr is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author.
She grew up in Rochester, NY and now lives in Florida with her husband and four kids. She's always had a love for reading books and writing. Being an English major in college, she wanted to teach at the college level but that was not to be. She went on to receive an MBA and became a project manager until quitting to raise her family. Kim currently works part-time with her husband and recently decided to embrace one of her biggest passions--writing.
Kim wears a lot of hats! Writer, book-lover, wife, soccer-mom, taxi driver, and the all around go-to person of her family. However, she always finds time to read. One of her favorite family outings was taking her kids when they were little to the bookstore or the library. Today, Kim's oldest child is seventeen and no longer goes with her on these, now rare and infrequent, outings. She finds that she doesn't need to go on them anymore because she has the greatest device ever invented--a Kindle.
Kim likes to believe in soul mates, kindred spirits, true friends, and Happily-Ever-Afters. She loves to drink champagne, listen to music, and hopes to always stay young at heart.
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