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When a seventeen-year-old girl vanishes,
A community is shaken.
Parents turn desperate.
Friends hold vigils.
And the boy who loves her searches.
When a year goes by,
The community is recovering.
Parents feel hopeless.
Friends feel helpless.
And the boy who loves her continues his search.
When ten years go by,
The community has forgotten.
Parents cling to the past.
Friends move toward the future.
And the boy who loves her . . .
Brings her home.
Jade Childs spent ten years in captivity, but now that she’s back, the real battle for survival begins. The media shadows her. Flashbacks haunt her. Her old life evades her. Her so-called new life rejects her. She spent too many years in the dark to recognize the light. She spent too long repressing her feelings to remember how to express them. She spent a decade abandoning hope and cannot dare letting it back into her life. Jade’s not just defined by what happened to her—she’s collared to it.
When the twenty-seven-year-old woman is found,
A community wants to know the story,
Parents want to forget the story,
Friends want to be a part of the story,
And the man who still loves her faces the greatest challenge yet: letting her go.
REVIEWS:
Collard, girl is kidnapped, collared and forced to submit. Oh yeah, I’m all over this! Well let me say, this book was nothing like I expected it to be. Shame on me for thinking I had a clue. This book was outstanding! I want to say I hated the ending, but I have to admit, it was a refreshing change from the norm. It was more realistic and less fiction, which I seem to grunt about. Boy meets girl, angst and drama, insta-love, HEA. Don’t take that statement the wrong way, I’m not saying things don’t turn out happy, but it’s not what I expected, and I LOVED IT!! 5 stars, great job!!!!
~Bookaholic Mama
Trying to find the words to convey how utterly brilliant and unforgivably raw this story is and write a review fitting enough is proving difficult even days after I have read it! If it's the only thing you do this day, week, month or even year make sure you READ THIS BOOK!!
After initially reading the blurb I knew it was a book I had to read and thankfully being lucky enough to receive an arc copy there were no reviews posted as I feel you have to just jump straight in, forget your expectations this story is so much more than you could possibly hope for. It was beautifully written and encompassed so many emotions that at times I felt it real, it's so much more than a love story. It was throught provoking as much as it was a story of inspiration one that I know will stay with me a long time. Jade and Torrins story is of love, belief, strength and never giving up hope. It was as I've said an emotional rollercoaster of read but at the same time it was harrowing and heart breaking it was also beautiful and powerful...love knows no bounds.
The author hasn't just written a story she made me live it. Her words, her thinking and fundamentally her characters and story were ablaze in a market that I feel has become stagnant, where stories and characters are similar to the point of at times in my opinion blending into one another. The story is different, touches on some distressing situations but these are written exquisitely. To conclude this was an all consuming page turner of read and one that I cannot recommend enough.
~Vickie
REVIEWS:
Collard, girl is kidnapped, collared and forced to submit. Oh yeah, I’m all over this! Well let me say, this book was nothing like I expected it to be. Shame on me for thinking I had a clue. This book was outstanding! I want to say I hated the ending, but I have to admit, it was a refreshing change from the norm. It was more realistic and less fiction, which I seem to grunt about. Boy meets girl, angst and drama, insta-love, HEA. Don’t take that statement the wrong way, I’m not saying things don’t turn out happy, but it’s not what I expected, and I LOVED IT!! 5 stars, great job!!!!
~Bookaholic Mama
Trying to find the words to convey how utterly brilliant and unforgivably raw this story is and write a review fitting enough is proving difficult even days after I have read it! If it's the only thing you do this day, week, month or even year make sure you READ THIS BOOK!!
After initially reading the blurb I knew it was a book I had to read and thankfully being lucky enough to receive an arc copy there were no reviews posted as I feel you have to just jump straight in, forget your expectations this story is so much more than you could possibly hope for. It was beautifully written and encompassed so many emotions that at times I felt it real, it's so much more than a love story. It was throught provoking as much as it was a story of inspiration one that I know will stay with me a long time. Jade and Torrins story is of love, belief, strength and never giving up hope. It was as I've said an emotional rollercoaster of read but at the same time it was harrowing and heart breaking it was also beautiful and powerful...love knows no bounds.
The author hasn't just written a story she made me live it. Her words, her thinking and fundamentally her characters and story were ablaze in a market that I feel has become stagnant, where stories and characters are similar to the point of at times in my opinion blending into one another. The story is different, touches on some distressing situations but these are written exquisitely. To conclude this was an all consuming page turner of read and one that I cannot recommend enough.
~Vickie
He exhales like there’s some war being fought inside him. I don’t think he’ll answer. He has a right to keep his secrets—god knows I should be able to empathize with that.
His hand dangling over the steering wheel curls into a fist. “The woman I wanted to spend my life with was gone. I wasn’t in the mood to find a backup.”
My chest does that thing again—contracting like someone just hit me in the ribs with a hammer. When Torrin glances at me, it looks like someone’s swinging a dozen hammers at him too.
I can’t keep looking at him watching me like that. I know we’re feeling the same thing—the ache of what could have been. The pain of accepting it never can be again.
I find myself focusing on the dashboard. I don’t notice it right away, but when I do, I touch the bright coral smear running down the front of it. “You never cleaned it.” I trace my finger down the dried nail polish, reliving the moment like it was happening right now.
“I could never bring myself to.” Torrin’s eyes land on the stain from the bottle I accidently spilled when I was painting my toenails on a drive to the beach. “I couldn’t bring myself to just . . . erase it.”
I don’t know a tear’s slipped out until it falls onto my arm that’s still reaching out, touching the stain. It’s only one tear, no more are coming, but Torrin doesn’t miss it.
He sighs and clenches the steering wheel a little harder. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. How to act around you. I don’t think I’m doing anything right.” His knuckles are white when we exit the freeway. “This is all very surreal. What happened. You being back. I’m totally lost.”
I don’t know why he’s apologizing. The only time I’ve felt like life hasn’t siphoned every last drop of emotion out of me is when I’ve been with him.
“You’re treating me exactly like you used to.” My fingers fall away from the dash. The good memories have turned to painful ones, a spilled bottle of nail polish included. “I’d rather have you act like nothing happened and I’m the same person you remember than have you second-guess everything you say and do.”
His knuckles loosen around the steering wheel. He rolls his fingers, popping them.
“Just do what comes naturally to you.” I turn in my seat to face him. “I’ll do what comes naturally to me, and maybe things will get easier.”
We’re stopped at the light leading to the zoo, and he looks at me. His forehead is folded into creases. “What comes naturally to me?” He doesn’t pause long enough for me to reply. “I’m not sure that would be helpful to either of us.”
It’s not my chest that hurts when he says that—it’s my stomach. It’s not really pain though—it’s something else. I haven’t felt it in a long time, and I know I shouldn’t feel it right now.
I can’t let that look in his eyes keep doing this to my stomach. I can’t let the way his chest is rising and falling harder now affect mine.
The light changes, thankfully, and his eyes move from me to the road. The air inside the cab takes a while to clear though despite the cracked windows.
“That’s when I started to fall in love with you—after my dad died and you acted the exact same around me. You treated me the same as you had every day before. Still rubbing it in my face when you scored higher on a test. Still knocking on my door and seeing if I wanted to shoot hoops. When everyone was understanding of me wanting to lock myself in my bedroom, you got me to play basketball.” He smiles at the windshield like he’s watching the twelve-year-old versions of us playing a game of Around the World. “You brought me back . . . when everyone else just kind of left me behind.”
I find my eyes drifting back to the nail polish stain. “And when did you finish falling in love with me? When I finally let you win a game of one-on-one? Or was it the night we . . . you know?” Thinking about that night makes me blush. Talking about it makes me shift.
Torrin glances at me for a moment. “I’ll never finish falling in love with you.”
Nicole Williams is the New York Times and USATODAY bestselling author of contemporary and young adult romance, including the Crash and Lost & Found series. Her books have been published by HarperTeen and Simon & Schuster in both domestic and foreign markets, while she continues to self-publish additional titles. She is working on a new YA series with Crown Books (a division of Random House) as well. She loves romance, from the sweet to the steamy, and writes stories about characters in search of their happily even after. She grew up surrounded by books and plans on writing until the day she dies, even if it’s just for her own personal enjoyment. She still buys paperbacks because she’s all nostalgic like that, but her kindle never goes neglected for too long. When not writing, she spends her time with her husband and daughter, and whatever time’s left over she’s forced to fit too many hobbies into too little time.
Nicole is represented by Jane Dystel, of Dystel and Goderich Literary Agency.
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