review || FREE ME

Free Me by Laurelin Paige

Publisher: Paige Press (12/9/2014)

Series: The Found Duet, book 1

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Source: InkSlinger PR

Purchase links || amazon | bn || add to goodreads

preorder FIND ME || amazon

Rating: ★★★★1/2

Her story began long before she started working at The Sky Launch... 

Screw fairytales. The only reward Gwen Anders got from her rough childhood was a thick skin and hard heart. She’s content with her daily grind managing a top NYC nightclub—Eighty-Eighth Floor. So hers isn’t a happily ever after. She doesn’t believe in those anyway. 

Then she meets J.C. 

The rich, smooth talking playboy is the sexiest thing that Gwen has ever encountered, but she’s not interested in a night-in-shining latex. But when a family tragedy pushes her to the brink, it’s J.C. who’s there to teach her a new method of survival, one based on following primal urges and desires. His no-strings-attached lessons require her to abandon her constant need for control. Her carefully built walls are obliterated. 

Gwen discovers there’s a beautiful world outside her prison. Freedom is exhilarating—and terrifying. When she starts to feel something for J.C., she fears for her heart. Especially as she realizes that he has secrets of his own. Secrets that don't want to set him free. 

BOOK ONE OF TWO. 

This series can be read alone or with the Fixed Trilogy.

about Laurelin || Laurelin Paige is the NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Author of the Fixed Trilogy. She's a sucker for a good romance and gets giddy anytime there's kissing, much to the embarrassment of her three daughters. Her husband doesn't seem to complain, however. When she isn't reading or writing sexy stories, she's probably singing, watching Mad Men and the Walking Dead, or dreaming of Adam Levine.

 website | newsletter | pinterest | facebook | twitter

{ review } .

I've learned as of late that I like a well written serial (ONLY series, any one?), but more than that, I've really been enjoying the well written multi-part series. I love my series, but I really love a series that follows one couple. And while they typically only encompass a year or so, I like seeing the ins and outs, the ups and downs, of these relationships (examples: BROKEN, SIN, CONKLIN). Now, if I had it myyy way, I'd see a series that looks at a couple every five or so years, because I'm that person who needs more than just a "...and they lived happily ever after" but you take what you get.

This little duo of books is proving to be no different though in my love of series.

Gwen likes control.

She likes control, and order, and rules.

She became that way, though, from a rough childhood. With a father who beat on her and her siblings, she's learned that rules and control keep her sane. Without these things, her life was spiraling and she wanted off the ride.

She's not the only one to have been affected by the past, though. Her younger sibling, Ben, he has had one of the hardest times -- on the outside -- coping with it all. It was "because of him" that their father was sent to jail, and now that their father is being released early, his life is again spiraling out of control.

When Gwen receives word from her sister that Ben has relapsed and that he doesn't want either of them coming -- and Norma, who is going to his side, doesn't want Gwen to tag along either -- we see just how much Gwen needs the control and rules in her life.

We first see her need for rules when she's working at Eighty Eighth on a rare Tuesday night; she first meets JC this night and learns that he has a pardon to the rules. 

JC is everything Gwen is not. He's a rule breaker, but beyond that, he's cocky, arrogant, and quite frankly, can be a bastard. But when he witnesses Gwen crumble, he's there for her. While Gwen is annoyed by her reaction to him, part of her can't help but feel wanted when she receives messages from him or sees him.

Needing to feel pain, and unable to get to the way she wants to complete it, she turns to the next best thing -- JC is there, has told her on more than one occasion that he wants to help her let go, so she essentially jumps him. She wants the pain, and is upset when he tries (and succeeds) to pleasure her. But in the end, she takes what she can get.

These two end up making an agreement -- one that as a reader you can see failing a mile away. They will embark on a no-strings, no-commitment, once a week sex affair. They have first names, but no other information -- no Facebook profiles, no past stories... In the moment. 

As with all rules, they're made to be broken, and these two manage to break almost all of them in one night. And as such, the fragile life that is Gwen's (quickly) begins to fall for JC.

I rather enjoyed this story. I liked how very different the two of them were, and how they complimented one another well -- and as much as they didn't want to be, they were drawn to the other. JC is a bit of an opportunist; he takes what he wants when the timing is right. When things get too serious, he takes steps back and doesn't say anything. Granted, their agreement gives him the anonymity to do that, even though it hurts Gwen.

When he finally admits to her his feelings, he becomes a completely different person. While you always could see the underlying sincerity of him toward her, he becomes more protective, more caring... 

But in the end... A phone call can ruin everything. An opportunity comes up and when Gwen passes on it, their relationship will take the hit and it comes down to trust and feelings.

I like that this is written in more than one part. FREE ME is about Gwen learning to let go of control -- even at the risk of further hurting herself. I can only imaging that FIND ME deals with the two of them finding themselves as individuals and as a couple (that they so strongly tried to avoid being in the beginning, and then the fragility of it at the end)...

...well that and the obvious 'finding' reference that you will get with the end of FREE ME.

{ giveaway } .

a Rafflecopter giveaway