How did my life get so broken? It’s a question Lacey St. James asks herself every day. Stuck raising her little brother in a trailer park while she works a dead end job at a grocery store, she has a stalker exboyfriend, a bad reputation, and no way out.
And then, she meets Everett, who changes her entire existence.
Everett is an outsider who’s housesitting his family’s mansion off the coast, and for reasons Lacey can’t understand, he’s completely transfixed by her. He seems determined to show her that life can offer more than she’d ever hoped for, if only she believes in herself. She desperately yearns to trust him, but what happens when she finds out that everything he’s told her is a lie?
And then, she meets Everett, who changes her entire existence.
Everett is an outsider who’s housesitting his family’s mansion off the coast, and for reasons Lacey can’t understand, he’s completely transfixed by her. He seems determined to show her that life can offer more than she’d ever hoped for, if only she believes in herself. She desperately yearns to trust him, but what happens when she finds out that everything he’s told her is a lie?
Review
****I received an ARC of this book courtesy of St. Martin's Press, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review****
Lacey has only ever been kicked down by life. Living in a run down trailer with a family who is either checked out or hates her, left being the only protector for her little brother, with a boyfriend who teeters on the dangerous line, and working a dead end job in a town that has labeled her with a false reputation, she's not sure there's ever going to be a way out. One night out with one of the few acquaintances she has, she meets the dark and handsome stranger named Everett, in town house sitting one of her favorite old mansions in the deep south. She's drawn to him, but she's not about to add another complication to her long list already. Besides, he's best friends with a boy she went to school with, so it's only a matter of time before he hears all the sordid details and treats her as a leper like the rest of the little town. However, fate has a strange sense of humor, and she soon finds herself fighting feelings for a man who may have more secrets than she does.
Lacey has only ever been kicked down by life. Living in a run down trailer with a family who is either checked out or hates her, left being the only protector for her little brother, with a boyfriend who teeters on the dangerous line, and working a dead end job in a town that has labeled her with a false reputation, she's not sure there's ever going to be a way out. One night out with one of the few acquaintances she has, she meets the dark and handsome stranger named Everett, in town house sitting one of her favorite old mansions in the deep south. She's drawn to him, but she's not about to add another complication to her long list already. Besides, he's best friends with a boy she went to school with, so it's only a matter of time before he hears all the sordid details and treats her as a leper like the rest of the little town. However, fate has a strange sense of humor, and she soon finds herself fighting feelings for a man who may have more secrets than she does.
Loved, loved, loved this book. I flew through the pages and devoured it; there's no other way to describe the instant connection I felt for the story. The characters were gorgeously flawed, and part of the journey was reveling in the unraveling of their secrets and true selves while another part was cheering for their absolution and happily ever after. I needed to know the end but never wanted to reach it. While I predicted one of Everett's twists, for the most part you were left turning the page to reveal the next twist. Lacey broke my heart, and I wanted to reach in the pages and fix it all for her, or go find her and help her as if she was a real character. The world created is one of realistic proportions that required a brief reality check after the last page, the trailer court she lived in, the grocery store she worked in, the bar they met in all one town over in your mind. This was an beautiful story that has earned Sara Fawkes a new fan.
