Book Review-Lost And Found by Nicole Williams

Lost And Found by Nicole Williams

Book Name: Lost and Found

Author: Nicole Williams

Genre/Tags: Romance, Cowboys, Rebel Girl

Publisher: Createspace



My Rating:



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.

                                                         My Review                               

There are good books.
And then there are GOOD BOOKS .

With Lost and Found, Nicole Williams has shown again, why she’s at the top of the my-all-time-favorite-author list.

Rowan is young woman who puts up a front for the world. On the outside she looks strong, uncaring, dark, or a “freak” as many call her. But, she’s a girl hiding a world of hurt behind her black hair, clothing and contact lenses. Everyone mistakes her fashion sense a show of bravery; a way of being able to be who she is. She has gotten into her fair share of trouble and her mother has never known how to deal with her. All Rowan wants is to go to art school, so to “prove herself” to her mother, she must go work on The Walker’s family ranch in Montana. 

"A long time ago, I’d learned I was good at “handling” life. I didn’t excel at it, and I certainly didn’t thrive at it, but I could handle life and everything it had thrown at me.

My secret? I’d simply accepted that life was pain."

Rowen finds herself sticking out like a sore thumb in wholesome countryside Montana. But for the first time in her young life, instead of fingers being pointed at her and being labelled a freak, people are actually taking their time to get to know her and seeing past her appearance. From barely having a parent who never showed her any love to suddenly being part of a large family where small demonstrations of love are a daily occurrence, Rowen is truly out of her element.

This isn't to say that this girl is brooding and 'gloom and doom.' She's quite the opposite. Her sarcastic wit and dry humour is one of the highest point in this book. Well apart from a certain cowboy who steals her heart and mine too!! Just as a forewarning, before we move onwards, you will absolutely LOVE Jesse's family. Like, love with a capital L, O, V and E.

Jesse Walker is the ranch owner’s son and he is nothing like the guys Rowen is normally attracted to. He is cheerful, positive and affectionate, he pays her compliments and asks nothing in return, and he seems to see the person she so desperately tries to hide. The more she pushes him away, the more he gently pursues her, with nothing more than kindness and understanding. And a heart-melting smile.

“Why don’t you want to know that I like you, Rowen? Why don’t you want me to tell you I’m so damn attracted to you, I almost don’t trust myself to be alone with you like we are right now? Why don’t you want to know that I care about you so much…?”

“…when I looked into those eyes of his that saw everything, those eyes that saw me, I knew the fight would be worth it. The struggle to let him in when I wanted to barricade the windows and lower the gates would be a battle I’d never regret fighting.”

Jesse is the first person she meets off the bus…and the first thing I fell in love with…his ass. I don’t think I’ve ever read a more well described ass in a book, and while it may not sound like a compliment, trust me it is. There is not a picture in the world that will do his butt in those jeans. He’s a ranch hand…a 19 year old blonde god sent to knock Rowen on her ass…mission accomplished.

We watch the romance between Jesse and Rowen take root, blossom, weather the storms, as this young woman finds herself and learns that every woman deserves to have a ‘Jesse’ in her life. There is something very special in the way Nicole Williams gives her characters ‘life’, it is evident that they come from her heart and she somehow makes us love even the most imperfect of them.

This story wasn't about a girl trying to change herself over the summer, it was about a girl digging deep and finding the person she truly was....the person she was hiding from herself and the person she led herself to believe didn't really exist. This is as much of a love story as it is a beautifully written and flawlessly developed tale of finding oneself and accepting that life is not just a string of negatives. 

“We all want to open up to someone, Rowen. The hard part is finding someone we trust enough to open up to. That person we’re not afraid to let into the darkest parts of our world.”

“But you’re wrong about one thing. This summer isn’t your chance to prove yourself to your mom.” Leaning back just far enough my face was in front of hers. Rose’s eyes locked on mine. “This summer is your chance to prove yourself to you.”

“You’re no more a freak than I am. You’re just as much a freak as I am, too. Don’t let some ignorant name you’ve heard directed your way define you. You define you.” She pressed her finger into my face. “Stop playing the victim and live your life.”