Zoey James is in a funk. She has been through more in her twenty-three years than most people have experienced in their entire lives. After her ex-husband tries to take everything she’s worked so hard for, she makes one rule: Never date someone she works with. When her father’s newly hired mechanic moves into the apartment above their family-run business, Zoey’s lonely life is flipped upside down. As a teenager, New Zealand native, Andy Tate’s family is tragically killed in an accident, and he is taken in by his aunt and uncle. Andy is pulled away from the only place he’s ever known as home, and moved halfway around the world to Northern California. Ten years and one failed marriage later, Andy finds himself living in a new city, with a new job at James Racing, and living in an apartment next door to Zoey, his new boss’s beautiful and damaged daughter. After an interesting chain of events over one weekend, Andy and Zoey form an unexpected bond. Even though he’s the only one who can get through to her, she will do all that she can to keep him at a distance and not break her one rule. Will Andy be the reason for Zoey to start living her life again, or will she continue on her downward spiral, until she finally hits rock bottom?
Once we stood to leave the restaurant, the tequila hit me
and I swayed a bit before righting myself. As soon as we were at his truck, I
was full on drunk. I was a happy drunk, not a sloppy drunk, so it was all good.
I climbed into the truck, not so gracefully, I might add.
As I put on my seatbelt, I accidentally dumped the entire contents of my purse
down between the seat and the door. Fuck
me!
Andy jumped in on the driver’s side and found me giggling
hysterically. “What’s so funny, Beautiful?” he asked.
I stopped laughing when he said the word beautiful, but only because it surprised
me to hear him call me that again.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, a hint of sadness in his blue
eyes.
“I don’t mind. I like it when you call me that. I feel beautiful when I’m with you,” I
drunkenly confessed. He grinned, and then started the truck.
He drove us back home and parked in his space. After he
stepped out of the truck, he came around to open my door. As soon as he pulled
the handle, I remembered why I was giggling when he got in the truck at the
restaurant.
I tried to grab the door so he couldn’t open it, but it
was too late. It was already swinging open. The contents from my overturned
purse fell out of the truck, landing on his feet and the ground around him.
A surprised expression washed over his face as he glanced
down at the balled up receipts, tampons, loose change, and who knows what else.
It only made me laugh harder.
“I guess this is what you were laughing at earlier?” he
asked as he pointed down at his feet. I nodded and continued laughing.
Shaking his head, Andy grinned as he stepped back and
kneeled down to pick up my junk for me.
I hopped out of the truck to help him, and ended up almost
falling on him because of my heels. I pulled them off and dropped them inside
my purse too. “Fuck me,” I muttered. “I need a smaller purse.”
“I’ll never understand why women need to carry so much
shit around,” he teased as we continued picking up the shit that had fallen out, dumping it back into the black hole I
called my purse.
This
book grabs your attention from the very beginning. What I read in the
first couple of pages completely broke me and left me teary eyed.
Zoey James is your typical 23 year old on the outside, on the inside she's fighting depression.
She was taken from her mother at an early age due to neglect, she bounced from foster home to foster home until the age of 14 when she gets adopted by the James' family. Zoey works at her dad's garage and also is the owner of the auto part store next to the garage. She's trying to put herself back together after a bad marriage to a selfish jerk. She's been alienating herself from the people she loves due to her depression, but things soon start changing when she meets Andy, the new mechanic hired to work at her dad's garage.
Andy is a hunk, but he's also a caring man who becomes her protector. Originally from New Zealand, he came to the states with his aunt and uncle after a terrible car crashed killed his parents and sister. He's a sweet guy who soon takes to Zoey and becomes not only her best friend, but her rock. You can clearly see that the friendship lines start to becoming blurry, but Zoey refuses to date anyone who works for her dad due to the bad experience she had with her ex, who also worked there.
Would Zoey break her dating rule and give Andy a fair chance? Would Andy continue being there for Zoey even though he's getting the cold shoulder over and over?
This is a beautiful story and as I was reading it, not only was I thinking of Zoey, but the thousands of kids like Zoey who grow up being neglected or/and in foster homes. Jen does a great job showing Zoey's insecurities and fears, her vulnerability, but she also show us that behind all that, there is an amazing woman ready to give life a second or third chance. The secondary characters are the perfect complement to the storyline.
This is only the first book of the series and it leaves us with a big cliffhanger, I almost screamed at 4am when I read it. A totally worth it read.
Zoey James is your typical 23 year old on the outside, on the inside she's fighting depression.
She was taken from her mother at an early age due to neglect, she bounced from foster home to foster home until the age of 14 when she gets adopted by the James' family. Zoey works at her dad's garage and also is the owner of the auto part store next to the garage. She's trying to put herself back together after a bad marriage to a selfish jerk. She's been alienating herself from the people she loves due to her depression, but things soon start changing when she meets Andy, the new mechanic hired to work at her dad's garage.
Andy is a hunk, but he's also a caring man who becomes her protector. Originally from New Zealand, he came to the states with his aunt and uncle after a terrible car crashed killed his parents and sister. He's a sweet guy who soon takes to Zoey and becomes not only her best friend, but her rock. You can clearly see that the friendship lines start to becoming blurry, but Zoey refuses to date anyone who works for her dad due to the bad experience she had with her ex, who also worked there.
Would Zoey break her dating rule and give Andy a fair chance? Would Andy continue being there for Zoey even though he's getting the cold shoulder over and over?
This is a beautiful story and as I was reading it, not only was I thinking of Zoey, but the thousands of kids like Zoey who grow up being neglected or/and in foster homes. Jen does a great job showing Zoey's insecurities and fears, her vulnerability, but she also show us that behind all that, there is an amazing woman ready to give life a second or third chance. The secondary characters are the perfect complement to the storyline.
This is only the first book of the series and it leaves us with a big cliffhanger, I almost screamed at 4am when I read it. A totally worth it read.
Jen Andrews was raised in a small town in Northern California, and still lives in the same county where she was born. She is a self-proclaimed music and lyric addict. She grew up in ‘car family’ so her life has been spent around old hot rods. She and her husband, Jake, even have a few of their own. In her spare time, Jen loves to travel wherever she can. She finally lived her dream of traveling to New Zealand to see her favorite rugby team, the All Blacks, play. Jen loves to do photography as a hobby and continues to write.
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