Juliet isn’t sure of God’s plan for her life, but the opportunity to serve as the leader of the Freedom and Faith small group, helps her to feel needed, like she belongs. The group plans to hike sections of the Appalachian Trail, using the back to nature approach to grow closer to God. Determined to succeed, Juliet leads two other women on a hike, but when she falls ill and they’re days away from the exit point of their planned journey, her friends must call911.
When a man shows up looking more like a grizzly bear than a rescuer, she’s forced to accept his help. Loner extraordinaire, Jake wants them gone. Except when Juliet and her friends are ready to leave, it’s Jake who succumbs to the illness, and this time it’s Juliet to the rescue.
In the process, she discovers a man with a heart and a past. Her failure to lead the group prompts her to renew her efforts to be needed, and she’s determined to help Jake get through more than his illness. When she learns of an opening at the medical clinic in Hollow Creek, she applies, knowing it would give her a reason to stick around town and give her time to help Jake get his life back on track.
Her methods aren’t always squeaky clean, but her heart is in the right place. When Jake finds out the truth, the walls come tumbling down. Can the two of them muddle through the past and their own issues to work out their differences?
At first, you might not think that Juliet and Jake have much in common. The grumpy mountain man that lives all alone and the sociable nurse looking to find a home and a family don’t sound too much alike. But this is truly a case where two people find that they are exactly what each other needs – even if they didn’t know it’s what they were looking for.
Juliet is a huge caretaker, and she struggles to accept the fact that she may need care when she falls sick on the trail. While she and Jake take turns caring for each other, they bump heads and build grudging respect for each other. This forms the basis for their relationship, but they both have a lot of caring to do for themselves as well.
Throughout the whole story, God’s hand can be felt gently guiding Juliet and Jake towards each other and back to his light. His hand was lightly seen, but definitely there. Juliet and Jake’s friends and community may have had a little something to do with it as well. I hope I get a chance to come back and visit as the series continues.
**I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book**
Title: Fireborn Author: Jessa Graythorne Genre: Urban Fantasy
Halley Ashwood is well on her way to achieving her dream of being a doctor. Focused and independent with a mother she never knew and a father who never loved her, the only constant Halley has ever had in her life is her brother, Flynn. Whilst Halley is logical and grounded, and Flynn a reckless conspiracy theorist, they have always been able to trust each other above anyone else.
Halley and Flynn don’t believe in making promises. So when Flynn leaves Halley a message the day before her scheduled trip to visit him in Amsterdam, asking her to promise him she won’t come, she knows something is wrong. Halley arrives in Amsterdam to find her brother is missing, leaving only those ominous words in his wake. Halley sets out to find out what happened to him and makes a terrifying discovery. Turns out Flynn’s conspiracy theories maybe weren’t so farfetched after all: demons are real, they’re stalking the streets of Amsterdam, and they may hold the answer as to what happened to Flynn.
Determined to find out the truth about her brother’s fate, Halley begins a dark journey that will force her to question everything she thinks she knows about the nature of the world, the forces within it, and even herself.
“Good girls don’t sit around here this time of night.”
I didn’t register that the voice was speaking to me. The only reason I even looked up was because it was the first American accent I had heard all night and it sent a comforting shiver through my entire body. When I saw its owner leaning against the bar beside me, that turned to a chill.
Let me admit here and now that powerful people scare me. I’m not afraid of them, per se, but I am afraid of what they are capable of. They don’t make me fear for my safety; they make me fear for my entire world. It frightens me how anyone can become so consumed by themselves that they lose sight of everything but their own ambition. Power isn’t quiet. The power I fear clings to the fabric of their clothing and oozes from the place in which they stand. It’s palpable, touchable, electrical, and I despise it.
So, when I first laid eyes on Azrael Falkov, it was like being christened in ice water.
I guessed he was around thirty, and if I was six-one in these shoes, he was at least six-four, with the build one required to pull off that height. He was dressed in black from head to toe, from his pointed dress shoes to his bowtie. He beat me hands down in the tan department, and his face had the angular elegance of an old photograph—you know the kind, those portraits of your grandparents’ youth that you look at and wonder why you didn’t inherit that perfect skin, those sharp features. His dark hair was styled back off his face and eyes a startling shade of amber were fixed steadily on me.
He was the kind of man I would not take home in a million years. Because never in a million years would he carefully drive my Viper GTS downtown to buy coffee and crawl back to me in reverence. He was the kind of man who would burn out my clutch and kill me to keep my car for himself.
Jessa Graythorne is an Australian author from the south coast of New South Wales. She lives near the beach with her partner and two cats, Henry and Ophelia—who, despite their names, are disappointingly disinterested in Shakespeare.
Jessa holds a Bachelor of Engineering and works in a steel mill. She adores the sea but not the sand, prefers sunrises to sunsets, and would decorate the world with fairy lights given half a chance. After writing, her second great love is travel, and she is eternally thankful that she has been able to spend the past year living vicariously through books.
“I…” I didn’t even know. I couldn’t explain what I didn’t know. “Ask me about Jake in a different way.”
“There is no other way.”
“You know there is! Ask it in a different way.” I shoved up to my feet. This was the fight here.
I was sick of the killing.
I could not handle one more body, especially not someone I knew.
My chest heaved. “Ask it in a different way.”
I liked Jake. I was hurt by what he said, but he wasn’t on my list anymore.
I frowned. “What happened with Cavers?”
“None of your business!” he erupted, his hands flying in the air, but he was moving farther away from me. His back hit the wall, and he let me see him, how haunted he was, how stricken. He let it all out for me to see and read, though I wasn’t sure he knew it. “I don’t run my decisions through some pussy I like plowing.”
Okay, now I was mad.
“Take that back,” I said quietly.
He swore, low and long. Then he moved, flipping a chair into the wall. It impaled there, and the wall held it. It looked like an abstract piece of art.
“Take it back!” I clipped out, folding my arms over my chest.
He looked away.
I didn’t know what was going on here, but fuck him if he didn’t take back calling me pussy he liked to plow.
I screamed, “Take it back!”
“No!” He was across the room and in my face in the next second. I braced myself, but he didn’t touch me.
He stopped just short of it, his breath in my cheek, his eyes taking me in, scanning my face.
He was panicking.
I saw it now, lurking there.
Good! That filled me with satisfaction.
My chest started pounding.
No, that was my heart.
It was thumping in my chest, getting stronger, faster—a steady and powerful beat now. I could feel it all the way to my toes—in my fingers, my neck. His eyes lingered on my lips.
He couldn’t look away.
Stark hunger flashed in his eyes, and he raised a hand, holding it in the air.
It curved gently, as if he wanted to touch my neck, or the side of my face.
But he didn’t move. He just held it there, a few inches from my skin.
His eyes lifted to mine. “You bitch.”
My heart still pounded, trying to reach him. “You’re a murdering asshole,” I whispered back, seething.
“What?”he sneered. “You want to fuck now? Forget you put a fucking gun to your head?”
“Don’t kill Jake.”
He pressed into me, his eyes wild, on the edge of control. “Why?” His breath was hot on me. He bent down, his eyes glittering now.
Then he found his control. He rested one hand against the wall, next to my head. The other found my hip and slid up, moving under my shirt, raising it.
God. I almost moaned.
Wetness flooded me, and I started to throb.
I wanted him.
So fucking bad.
He bent and his lips grazed over mine, my cheeks, my chin. Tingles raced through me.
Jesus.
I wanted him deep inside of me. I shifted, pressing against him, and both of us groaned from the contact.
I began moving, a slow grind, and he was quiet, grinding back.
This was different from the other times. The terms had flipped. Roles were changing. Everything was being upended between us.
Tijan is a New York Times Bestselling author that writes suspenseful and unpredictable novels. Her characters are strong, intense, and gut-wrenchingly real with a little bit of sass on the side. Tijan began writing later in life and once she started, she was hooked. She’s written multi-bestsellers including the Carter Reed Series, the Fallen Crest Series, and the Broken and Screwed Series among others. She is currently writing a new series from north Minnesota where she lives with an English Cocker she adores.
