Blog Tour and Giveaway: Near and Far: Nicole Williams

by Reviews by Tammy and Kim - Friday, August 02, 2013

Near & Far (Lost & Found, #2)

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There’s optimistic. And there’s Jesse Walker.

If he wasn’t so charming, his sunny disposition and incessant grin would get old. Fast.

Falling in love with the girl who had at first seemed immune to it, was the best thing to happen to Jesse since the Walkers adopted him into their family when he was five. But loving the girl who has her fair share of secrets is about as easy as that same girl loving the boy who seems to have none.

As Jesse’s life continues at the ranch, and Rowen begins making her mark in the Seattle art community, they begin to wonder where the middle ground is. Or if there even is one.

As push comes to shove and choices aren’t only needing to be made, but forced to be made, Jesse and Rowen have to face what their lives might look like without the other.

Can two people with such tragic pasts and different presents, go on to expect a promising future? Whatever the answer, they’ll need a lot more than love to make it.

See Nicole Williams Pinterest page for Lost and Found for inspirational images of the characters and ranch

Lost and Found(Book #1):

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See Kim's 4.5 star review

There’s complicated. And there’s Rowen Sterling.

After numbing pain for the past five years with boys, alcohol, and all-around apathy, she finds herself on a Greyhound bus to nowhere Montana the summer after she graduates high school. Her mom agreed to front the bill to Rowen’s dream art school only if Rowen proves she can work hard and stay out of trouble at Willow Springs Ranch. Cooking breakfast at the crack of dawn for a couple dozen ranch hands and mucking out horse stalls are the last things in the world Rowen wants to spend her summer doing.

Until Jesse Walker saunters into her life wearing a pair of painted-on jeans, a cowboy hat, and a grin that makes something in her chest she’d thought was frozen go boom-boom. Jesse’s like no one else, and certainly nothing like her. He’s the bright and shiny to her dark and jaded.

Rowen knows there’s no happily-ever-after for the golden boy and the rebel girl—happily-right-now is a stretch—so she tries to forget and ignore the boy who makes her feel things she’s not sure she’s ready to feel. But the more she pushes him away, the closer he seems to get. The more she convinces herself she doesn’t care, the harder she falls.

When her dark secrets refuse to stay locked behind the walls she’s kept up for years, Rowen realizes it’s not just everyone else she needs to be honest with. It’s herself.

Near and Far

Sometimes love was about compromise, and sometimes it was about sacrifice. Most times, it was a little of both...

Near and Far begins the journey of Jesse and Rowen after the bittersweet conclusion of Lost and Found. The are doing their best to handle their long distance relationship while Rowen is in Seattle at Art School and Jesse is at home on the ranch. After their life altering romance, they are still opposites but still very much in love.

I was hers, she was mine, we were each other's. It was powerful stuff that hit me in moments like that. I knew it was the kind of profoundness that would get me labeled as whipped sap, and I didn't give a damn.

I wouldn't let the self-destructive person I'd locked up months ago out of her cage, and would do everything in my power to make sure I never ran out of luck when it came to Jesse. Whatever came, whatever obstacles we faced, one thing was certain: he was there now. he chose to give his love to me, and that had left me forever changed, not matter what happened.

Her life at school includes some new character additions...some good like her crazy, outspoken room mate Alex and some not so good. The ranch has a new resident as well names Jolene. Oh Hell no! I hated her from the first introduction. So there are a few new people in the mix adding to the dynamics.

In the first book the Jesse and Garth situation was more like the Old West white cowboy hat and black cowboy hat in a show down of good vs. evil. Jesse is obviously the white hat wearing cowboy in all of his swoony positive goodness and Garth is the black hat with his jaded, sarcastic, dastardly ways.

Bad boy Garth is back in all of his obnoxious glory. He is freaking hilarious, but it is obvious he is deeper than he initially appears and he feels more than he lets on. I love that he and Jesse have tenuously mended fences in this book. Garth has a unique way of looking at the world and his own way of protecting those he cares about. The more I read about him, the more I like him and the more intrigued I am. I still want to know more about what happened with him and Josie in the past. He obviously has unresolved feelings and issues.

Jesse and Rowen are perfect together and their feelings are all consuming and run very deep. But distance, communication, and past demons threaten to intrude on their happiness. Life living apart is complicated and not as easy as being together on the ranch. As they feel themselves pulling apart, can they keep it together?

"I realized that our past never leaves us. We might think we've left it behind, but that's when it sneaks up and beats the hell out of you. Our past is always a part of us..."

The first book was really more about Rowen's journey from a bad place to a good one. This book really digs deeper into Jesse's past and his repressed issues. My heart hurt as Jesse struggled. And I found myself hoping that Rowen was strong enough to help Jesse just as he had helped her when she tangled with her own dark past.

"Fixed. Broken....I'll love you either way. Just the way you love me"

But when everything they know is tested, can they find their way out of the darkness together or will it ultimately break them apart?

This book exceeded all of my expectations and they were set pretty high. Immediately after reading an ARC of Lost and Found, I pmed Nicole and begged for a sequel for Rowen and Jesse and a book for Garth. She told me she had initially written it as a stand alone and was unsure at the time, but it was so obvious to me that these stories needed to be told. I guess others felt the same way and I am so glad she decided to continue the series. She delivered more than I ever imagined... more depth, more pain, more emotion, and more intensity from these characters. And twists, turns, and surprises...

As much as I love Jesse and Rowen happy, it is hard times that really define them and allow us to see down into their souls and what makes them tick. This series explored the places where their deepest fears and true essences lie. Jesse has so much more to him that we saw in the first book and it is not all good And we know of Rowen's darkness, but we see her light too. And best of all, we see the positive light in Garth Black. Yes, the foul-mouthed, self centered, egotistical Garth Black. He is such an important part of this story. I loved his interactions with Jesse and Rowen and that we got to see a depth were were not privy to before. And I know he has more to reveal and I cannot wait the next book featuring him. It is now a toss up for me on who is my fave: Jesse or Garth.

This book made me anxious, happy, sad, tearful, frustrated, broken hearted, cry like a big baby, and sigh with contentment at various times. My emotions were all over the place. Rowen and Jesse feel so deeply and I felt it all along with them. I was totally invested in this couple and the other characters. Nicole has created two people who on the surface appear to be opposites in every way, but have a connection and a powerful need that transcend their differences. And despite outward appearances, they have more in common than anyone would expect. These characters (Garth included) are not perfect. They have pasts that haunt them, they have flaws, and they make mistakes. But they also have caring and giving hearts. They strive to determine what is best for the other because with all of them, they look out for those that they care about sometimes to their own detriment. And that is true love, loyalty, and friendship.

A little Garth inspiration to get us ready for his book....

"...what are you going to do when you find a girl who's able to miraculously, see past the piece-of-shit facade you keep up?"~Jesse

"I'm going to run, Walker. And I'm not going to stop. Guys like me weren't made for settling down."~Garth

Thanks to Nicole Williams and AToMR tours for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nicole Williams
Website/Facebook/Twitter

I’m the New York Times and USATODAY bestselling author of the LOST & FOUND series, the CRASH series, and a handful of others. Basically, I get to do what I love. Every single day. I write romance because I’m a sucker for a good love story, and I write happy endings because there are too few of them in real life