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When a
seventeen-year-old girl vanishes,
A community is
shaken.
Parents turn
desperate.
Friends hold vigils.
And the boy who loves
her searches.
When a year goes by,
The community is
recovering.
Parents feel
hopeless.
Friends feel
helpless.
And the boy who loves
her continues his search.
When ten years go by,
The community has
forgotten.
Parents cling to the
past.
Friends move toward
the future.
And the boy who loves
her . . .
Brings her home.
Jade Childs spent ten
years in captivity, but now that she’s back, the real battle for survival
begins. The media shadows her. Flashbacks haunt her. Her old life evades her.
Her so-called new life rejects her. She spent too many years in the dark to
recognize the light. She spent too long repressing her feelings to remember how
to express them. She spent a decade abandoning hope and cannot dare letting it
back into her life. Jade’s not just defined by what happened to her—she’s
collared to it.
When the
twenty-seven-year-old woman is found,
A community wants to
know the story,
Parents want to
forget the story,
Friends want to be a
part of the story,
And the man who still
loves her faces the greatest challenge yet: letting her go.
I feel something swirl at my ankle, then it grabs
me. I’m sucked under instantly as the undercurrent slams me to the ocean bottom
and tumbles me around. It’s happened before, so I don’t panic. I know that once
it’s done with me, it will let me go. Once it’s twirled me around a few times,
it will leave me alone.
I can feel it starting to lose momentum when two
arms brace around me and break me free. When we pop through the surface, Torrin
spins me around, terror drawing up his expression.
“Are you okay?” He holds me with one hand,
inspecting me with the other like he’s going to find an elbow or organ missing.
I’m totally wet. I feel ocean water draining out
of my ears and nose. My hair feels like a cyclone just had its way with it, and
I know my skin’s red and blotchy from the sand exfoliation treatment I just
received free of charge.
I laugh. This is what alive feels like. I
remember.
It’s adrenaline pulsing so hard in my veins they
feel about to burst. It’s feelings that twist my stomach into knots. It’s feeling
so cold my body goes numb and so attracted to someone my body feels the
opposite of numb.
This is it. Living. I can almost feel the blood
warm in my veins as it starts to run again.
“Why are you laughing?” Torrin’s face flashes
with relief when he sees I’m okay, but he doesn’t let go of me.
On the beach, my parents slowly make their way
back to the beach blankets once they’ve seen I’m okay.
“That was fun.” I rub my stomach because it
hurts. From the laughter. I’d forgotten stomachs could hurt from laughing.
“Fun? Not my idea of fun.”
I wipe the water from my face and find just as
much sand pasted to it. “What’s your idea of fun then?”
Torrin’s still shaking his head when he suddenly
shouts, “This!”
He pulls me under the water with him. He lets me
go right away, but I don’t want him to. I don’t want him to ever let go.
I
splash him when he resurfaces a few feet away. “Did you just dunk me?”
He
splashes back. “I just did.”
“You’ve
heard of payback, right?” I move a little closer, ignoring the way I can feel
my parents watching us from the beach.
“I’ve
heard of it. Not really a big fan though.”
When
I lunge at him and try to knock him under, he’s clearly bracing for it because
all I do is smash into him. My wet body against his, our arms tangled together,
our faces too close to not be aware of where each other’s mouths are . . .
“What’s
this payback thing again?” He’s practically gloating, so I come at it from a
different angle.
My
eyes drop to his mouth and stay there until his lips part from his breaths
coming faster. When my hand curves against the side of his face, sweeping down
the line of his jaw, I feel his chest moving hard against mine. His arms tangle
tighter behind me because I’m slipping through them. When that doesn’t work, he
hoists me higher, and his arms form a net beneath my backside.
I
need to clear my head before I can’t remember what I’m doing.
My
eyes lift to his and hold there. When he blinks, a drop of water rolls off his
eyelashes. My hand slides lower until my thumb is touching the corner of his
mouth.
“Torrin?”
I whisper, my mouth lowering.
“Yeah?”
His voice is rough, coming from low in his throat.
I
move my mouth just outside his ear. “This . . . is . . .”—I burst free of his
hold and slide his legs out from beneath him with my foot—“payback!”
He
goes down with a surprised shout and an explosive splash. I’m laughing again,
and so is he when he pops his head above the water.
“Well played, Childs.”
“Thank you very much,” I say with a bow,
hoping he can’t see right through me the way I feel he can sometimes.
If he does, he’ll know. He’ll know I would have
rather kissed him. I would rather still be kissing him. He’ll know that while
I’m content to put most of the past behind me, there’s one part I want to pack
and bring with me to the future.
Him.
I think he might see it though, because
I think I might see it in him too.
The sun catches his eyes just right when he looks
at me. “You always had a way of taking the ground right out from beneath me.”
REVIEW
When I read I like to see how the title of the book incorporates with the story. With the synpopsis we know that the heroine gets kidnapped. Jade endured ten years of solitude. She was collared and being broken down to the point where she lost all hope. Her rescue is by chance or so she thinks.
When the story starts, Jade is with her boyfriend Torrin. The night she is kidnapped turns to years of heartache for Torrin. Nothing was working for him until something collared him to life . As news comes about Jade's rescue, Jade is trying to remember her past life. Her family comes but it's new to her so she reverts back to wanting to be alone. When Torris makes his appearance to Jade, it's a heartfelt moment. You can FEEL their connection even after ten years apart.
I'll not spoil it for you. I will say that the testament of hope, faith, love and patience can overcome any obstacles. The ending will not satisfy some but for me, it's why I loved the book more.
Nicole Williams is the New York Times and USATODAY
bestselling author of contemporary and young adult romance, including the Crash
and Lost & Found series. Her books have been published by HarperTeen and
Simon & Schuster in both domestic and foreign markets, while she continues
to self-publish additional titles. She is working on a new YA series with Crown
Books (a division of Random House) as well. She loves romance, from the sweet
to the steamy, and writes stories about characters in search of their happily
even after. She grew up surrounded by books and plans on writing until the day
she dies, even if it’s just for her own personal enjoyment. She still buys
paperbacks because she’s all nostalgic like that, but her kindle never goes
neglected for too long. When not writing, she spends her time with her husband
and daughter, and whatever time’s left over she’s forced to fit too many
hobbies into too little time.
Nicole is represented
by Jane Dystel, of Dystel and Goderich Literary Agency.
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