Total Book Geek: Book Review + Giveaway: Lost and Found by Nicole Williams

I was so glad to be chosen to participate in Nicole William's Book Tour (tour schedule), certainly when I got to read her brand new book (came out today!!!) Lost and Found. The cover drew me in immediately and well it's Nicole Williams, so you know you going to want to read this!

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.

Title: Lost and Found

Author: Nicole Williams

Release date: May 7, 2013

Publisher: Nicole Williams

Age Group: Mature Young Adult/New Adult

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Tour organized by: AToMR Tours

Buy at Amazon

Review
Lost and Found starts of very strong, I mean literally from the first sentence (very important sentence) to the very last one, I can only say one thing; amazing! Having read so many New Adult novels lately they can sometimes start to blur together, but it's books like these that confirm why I love reading so much.

"I thought rural was synonymous with hell"

Rowen is freshly graduated and put on a bus heading for Montana, where she will be working on a ranch for an entire Summer, so she can prove to her mom she's worthy to go to art school. Having been called a freak for pretty much her entire life, even by her mom, has made her defensive, which is understandable. Using sarcastic comments she avoids giving real answer and tries to push people as far away from her as she can. The relationship between Rowen and her mother is very explosive and slowly learning what situation and upbringing she comes from makes it so easy to relate and admire the girl she becomes by the end of the story.

"If I had to pick two words to describe Jesse, those would be the ones: warm and welcoming. And attractive."

What Rowen didn't expect to find in Montana was Jesse. The hottest 19-year-old cowboy in the tightest pair of Wranglers you will ever meet, even earning him the Universe title. Right away he catches her by surprise. Besides his extremely good looks (with a major focus on his butt), the guy is nearly perfect; he's funny and witty, smart, doesn't back down easily, loves with his whole heart and more, loyal, deep, good hearted...the list could go on and on. So obviously Rowen has no idea what to with him when he shows romantic interest in her.

"Rowen Sterling: Putting the wise back in wiseass. I think I've found a kindred spirit."

That statement is more true than Rowen first realizes. She has her demons and has always showed this through her style of clothes, the permanent scowl on her face and if that didn't scare of people, her attitude would do the job. Unfortunately, at least that's what Rowen thinks, Jesse sees right through her, pushing her to open up to him, trying to make her understand nobody's life is perfect, neither is his.

"Every morning we get a chance to be different. A chance to change. A chance to be better. Your past is your past. Leave it there. get on with the future part, honey."

Still Rowen has been so used to not just pushing people away, but making them run for the hills, she isn't prepared for Jesse and his family. Seriously what the hell do they put in that water over there. Rose, Jesse's mom, is so wonderful, supportive, loving and full of wisdom that if my mom wasn't so cool I would definitely want her as my mother. That woman is a freaking genius. She gets to Rowen simply by showing love for her and being there for her and sprouting advice that would be the envy of any psychologist.

So Rowen arrived as an angry, nearly bitter girl, but slowly with a lot of love, some smoldering kisses from a handsome boy and just some plain hard work, she maybe can become someone who can be proud of herself and no longer has to be afraid to let people get close to her.

"No guy said or felt those things for me, because I wasn't the kind of girl who deserved to be adored. Or cherished. Or whatever it was that Jesse was expressing."

There is one part of this book I didn't like that much and it's that Rowen is kind of convinced she's not good enough for Jesse. With him being the golden boy of the town and she's thinks they invented the word screw up just so they can describe her, it brings the story down. The growth in all this is wonderful and it's not as heavy as in other New Adult books, but it's just something I have an issue with. Mostly because I usually find it so in contrast with the character's attitude towards life.

Besides that I absolutely loved Lost and Found. The chemistry between Jesse and Rowen, the easy bantering and even their "philosophical" conversations made it nearly impossible to put down the book. Seriously if it wasn't that I had to work, I would have read in one breath. Also my family kept giving me weird looks while I was reading it, because I kept grinning the entire time with a chuckle once in a while. Lost and Found is one those books that I will recommend to anyone interested in the New Adult genre and I will probably re-read it a couple of times.

I have a feeling I could talk for hours about this book and how Jesse is my new BBF etc. so I'm just going to give you a couple of more quotes (half this book is highlighted!) and let you back to your reading.

"I do know one thing - it's a waste of time trying to figure out the male brain since most of them are lacking one."

"In addition to his other forms of divinity, the man was a kissing God."

"He was the type of guy a girl spent her whole life asking herself, What if?"

"We have to take what we want because life sure as shit isn't going to freely hand it over." He kissed the skin just above my collar bone. "And I want you."

"Ultra-relaxing aura, ah?" And here I thought my boyfriend was a cowboy, not a hippie."
"Cowboy's in my blood, but my heart's all hippie."

Who do you picture when you read about Jesse? I was thinking something along the lines of him or him or him or him...