23848461

Author: Laurelin Page

Book: First Touch  (Untitled #1) – coming soon on December 29, 2015

Other book in series: 

Last Kiss (Untitled #2) – releasing on June 14, 2016

tl;dr recommendation: total mindfuck. 5 stars. #MustRead. I’ve lost words.

Book Summary:

When Emily Wayborn goes home to visit her mom while on hiatus from her hit TV show, she receives a voicemail from her former best friend, Amber. Though the two were once notorious party girls, they haven’t spoken in years. Although the message might sound benign to anyone else, Amber uses a safe word that Emily recognizes, a word they always used to get out of sticky situations during their wild days. And what’s more chilling than the voicemail: it turns out that Amber has gone missing.

Determined to track down her friend, Emily follows a chain of clues that lead her to the enigmatic billionaire Reeve Sallis, a hotelier known for his shady dealings and play boy reputation. Now, in order to find Amber, Emily must seduce Reeve to learn his secrets and discover the whereabouts of her friend. But as she finds herself more entangled with him, she finds she’s drawn to Reeve for more than just his connection to Amber, despite her growing fear that he may be the enemy. When she’s forced to choose where her loyalty lies, how will she decide between saving Amber and saving her heart?

Longer Review:

holy. FUCK. This book murdered me. Ripped my soul out, slashed it apart and buried it in the woods under the cover of night where I’m not sure it will ever be found – or if it is found if it will identified as the same again.

I was completely drawn to Emily. I wasn’t sure if I liked her in the beginning and then I was wondering how I could ever not like her. She’s strong in such a breakable way – like she’s stretched so tight that she might crack at any moment.

Her relationship with, well, pretty much everyone is complicated and fucked up. She tries to get close to Reeve so that she can find out what, if anything, happened to her former best friend. However, even though she desperately tries to remain aloof, there’s a connection between Reeve and Emily that sparks, flickers, and ignites every single time they’re near each other. It’s so much deeper than your quintessential romance book character connection.

As the investigation gets deeper, the plot line keeps twisting. This book is dark as hell, and I LOVED IT. Emily has serious and twisted issues, but yet she’s still so normal. This beautiful juxtaposition had me clinging to my kindle pages and clawing at the screen when it was over.

Reeve also infiltrated me more than I expected. He’s a fully alpha anti-hero, completely unpredictable, and undeniably dangerous. I was terrified and turned on at the same time.

This book is Laurelin Paige. This is innately her. I’ve read her other books, but THIS ONE is her. I could feel her connection with the story and practically watched her insides being turned into a word count.

I need a cigarette. or twelve. I had to keep picking this up and putting this down and walking away and taking deep breaths because this was affecting me to a point that made me feel wildly uncomfortable and completely exposed in the way that only phenomenal writing can.

Total mindfuck.

I am not above begging for Last Kiss.

[I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review]