"Instincts are what keep us safe from fate. Ignoring them can change your life forever." USA TODAY BESTSELLING STANDALONE ROMANCE Fame and fortune arrived overnight and after months on the road with her singing tour, all Estelle craves is peace. Tired and ready for paradise, she travels to Fiji to recuperate. Stubborn and surly, Galloway is avoided by most--which is exactly the way he likes it. However, he's done spending his life in regret and hopes to find redemption in the tropical wilderness. Together, they board the flight that changes their fate forever. Crash landing on a deserted island, they not only have to figure out how to survive with no skills and daily dangers--learning how to fish, find water, and build shelter--but also inherit two children who look to them to keep them alive. However, staying alive might be the least of Galloway and Estelle's problems.As days creep to months and rescue doesn't find them, their desire for each other ignites. They started as strangers. They grew to be friends. They fought the desire to be lovers. Lust can be the most beautiful thing. Love the most rewarding. But not on an island where life hangs by a thread and giving into temptation can kill you. Can they survive being forgotten or will love be their ultimate undoing? From New York Times Bestseller Pepper Winters comes a timeless love story answering the question of what happens when everything is stripped away.
MELISSA'S REVIEW: 2.5 STARS
I can't even believe I'm rating this a 2.5 stars. I want to give it more for the beautifully detailed imagery and the emotional highs and lows but the story overall was disappointing. I've read two other catastrophe stories that are so similar that it's difficult not to compare them. I loved all parts of their survival, from the on your edge story of the disaster that left them stranded, to the varying ways they found food, water and shelter to the emotional connections they found in each other needed to dispel the varying degrees of depression and isolation. Pepper uses her expressive writing here in a way that the reader wears the character's desperation and isolation like a blanket. It's heavy and honest and heartbreaking. But...I can't help but feel disappointment in the events that took place at the cusp of their rescue and pretty much everything that follows. While I see where the detailing of their time on the island was necessary yet in the end it felt excessive and leaves the story feeling unbalanced. The last 20% or so felt overly predictable and way too convenient. The love story was also mild. Mild!? Am I even saying that? Pepper has always been able to write characters and a connection that is dynamic and powerful to me but from early on I felt their romantic interest in one another misplaced and premature. Okay, the sex scenes were hot but getting there felt rushed and I even skimmed a couple of them. Would I recommend this? Maybe? It's definitely for readers who enjoy themes of healing, family, and redemption. Pepper Winters fans will revel in her storytelling and confident writing, but seasoned readers of this trope may become bored and disinterested.