Review ~ Lost and Found by Nicole Williams

Title: Lost and Found

Author: Nicole Williams

Series: Lost and Found #1

Genre: NA Contemporary Romance

Published: May 7^th 2013

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.

I haven't read any of Nicole Williams books before and I decided to pick up this one and give it a try as it's a little different from my normal reads. So, I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it for a couple of reasons. It was a fun and exciting contemporary romance and it had a cowboy with a ranch in it!! Now, I’m not one for cowboys, but having grown up in a country town and on a small property, I could relate to the characters and the setting a little, so in the end I really enjoyed the book.

Rowen is proving a point to her mother that she can survive a summer being a good girl on a ranch in the country. If she gets through the summer she will be able to go to the art school of her dreams. Rowen is not your normal looking girl as she dresses a bit like a goth and is often labelled because of her appearance. So when she rocks up into a small town and picked up by the young “ranch hand” Jesse, who doesn’t bat an eyelash at her differences, she begins to view her world a little differently. Jesse is very cute! He is a blond, drop dead gorgeous young fella, who where’s tight-assed jeans and knows that his looks turns a few heads! He is very wise for someone so young and I found I really liked him, for a cowboy!

Moving to the ranch is a big turning point in Rowen’s life and living with the Walker family plays a massive role as to the direction of her life. She begins to see herself differently and small changes occur in her appearance and attitude. Watching Rowen rediscover herself and fit into this new world was so sweet. She is not used to being cared for and finds it hard to reciprocate those feelings. She has had her walls up for such a long time and finds it strange to be accepted so easily. I really liked watching the changes occur and how living in the country helped her to get her life back on track.

Considering that I don’t usually read about cowboys, I really enjoyed this book. Rowen and Jesse are very believable characters and have flaws in different ways. Even though they appear to be different they are very similar at heart. Watching their relationship build and seeing them open up to each other was also cute. The whole story was told from Rowen’s POV and I liked the way Nicole told it so that things came around in a full circle. It was funny, sweet and definitely swoon worthy!! And I am definitely excited to continue Rowen and Jesse’s story!