Book Review: Lost & Found (Lost & Found #1) by Nicole Willams

To Add to Goodreads Click HERE

Lost & Found
By:  Nicole Williams
Published:  May 7, 2017
Source:  Purchased


GR's Summary:

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 Thoughts:

Lost & Found by Nicole Williams was such a sweet feel good story.  I loved how Ms. Williams showed us that the "good boy," can be just as sexy as the "bad boy!"  This story centers around telling the main character, Rowan's story exclusively through her perspective.  Rowan's mother was the epitome of a crappy mother!  All that she cared about were appearances and having the very best of everything.  This included designer labels, and never a hair out of place. She had a new boyfriend every few months, and didn't give her daughter, Rowan the time of day, unless it was to put her down, and call her names.  She treated Rowan like a burden, and called her a freak.  Rowan's dream was to go to art school in the fall.  She had just barely graduated high school, and her mother told her that if she proved herself responsible, while working at Willow Springs Ranch for the summer, she would pay for Rowan's college education.

Rowan agree's to go to Montana, and work hard, to make her dream come true.  She wasn't looking forward to being out in the middle of nowhere, working at a Ranch, and living the country lifestyle, but she was willing to do whatever it took, to continue her Art   Rowen is astonished when she receives a warm welcome from her mother's childhood best friend Rose Walker, husband Neil, and daughters Lily, Hyacinth, and Clementine.  She was instantly attracted to the Walker's only son Jesse when she first met him, a gorgeous, well-built, philosophical cowboy, who's favorite country musician is Johnny Cash.  Before Rowan realizes it, she has become a part of the Walker family, and feels loved for the very first time in her life.  She feels at peace on the Ranch, and learns what a real home feels like and falls in love for the very first time in her life.  However, Rowan has a lot of inner demons, and secrets.  She's use to shutting out the world, and her walls are so high, it will take a special person, to be able to scale them successfully.


Lost and Found is the newest addition to my New Adult Contemporary Romance Favorite's list!  It had every aspect that I look for in an excellent story.  The characters were well developed, and not only did I feel like I knew them inside out, I also got to know and love many of the secondary characters.  The storyline kept me entertained.  There was humor, and a unique and authentic feel to the story that I really enjoyed.  Ms. Williams turned the tables by having the female lead character sexually experienced, and the male lead sexually  inexperienced.  She made the "good guy," sexy, not just because of how he looked, (although he looked really good, ) but also because of who he was as a person.  Jesse was honest, compassionate, giving, hardworking, friendly, loyal, protective and an all around special, one-of-a-kind guy!  He melted my heart completely.  The sexiest thing about him was how he made Rowan feel about herself.  He treasured her, treated her like she was special, and made her believe in herself.  He taught Rowan how to love, and how to heal, along with the rest of his warm, and loving family.  Read Lost and Found!  It was a refreshing change of pace.  Whereas, a lot of stories in the Contemporary New Adult Genre tend to blend in, Lost and Found manages to stand out among the masses!  It is a truly memorable and beautiful story, that we leave you aching for the sequel.

My Rating:

Lost and Found was such an inspirational, and beautiful love story, about what is really important in life.  We are offered pearls of wisdom from both Rose and Jesse, as they make a meaningful and substantial impact on Rowan's life.  This story is about leaving the past behind, living in the present, and creating your own future.  The Walker's teach Rowan by living a life where they treat everyone with kindness, trust, respect, and as one of their own.   They make family, friendship, handwork, and healing their top priority!  I fell in love with the simplicity, and beauty of the country lifestyle.  This series holds a special place in my heart, and made me experience the perfect bookish escape, an escape that I was sad to see come to an end.  As you can imagine, I am ecstatic that there will be a sequel, and am impatiently awaiting the release of Near & Far (Lost & Found #2) this month!

My Favorite Quotes:

"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."  (Kindle, pg. 17)

~Jesse

"Every morning we get a chance to be different.  A chance to change.  A chance to be better.  Your past is your past.  Leave it there.  Get on with the future part, honey." 

(Kindle, pg. 64)

~Rose

"In fact, just kissing Jesse was more intimate than any sex I'd had with someone else.  If I added all of those encounters up, their total wouldn't have even come close to the intimacy I felt with Jesse's mouth on mine.  I'd never known a guy happy to just kiss and hold me close to him.  Not since I was in the sixth grade.  Then again, I'd never known Jesse Walker until that summer."  (Kindle, pg. 148)

~Rowan

"We don't deserve anything, Rowen.  We don't deserve punishment, we don't deserve happiness, life owes us nothing.  Realize that.  His voice wasn't gentle anymore; it was as strong as I'd ever heard it.  So we have to take what we want because life sure as shit isn't going to freely hand it over. "  (Kindle, pg. 243)

~Jesse

"We shouldn't spend our time trying to avoid falling.  We should spend it finding someone who will help us up."  (Kindle, pg. 312)

~Jesse

"Sometimes we just have to cut off the dead branches in our life.  Sometimes that's the only way we can keep the tree alive.  It's hard and it hurts, but it's what's best.  She paused to take a breath.  Don't let a dying branch take you down with it. "  (Kindle, pg. 322)

~Rose

"I could be whatever I wanted.  The only person holding me back from doing that was me."  (Kindle pg. 351)

~Rowan

Purchase At:

Amazon | Amazon UK | Barnes and Noble |Kobo

About the Author:

I'm a wife, a mom, a writer. I started writing because I loved it and I'm still writing because I love it. I write young adult because I still believe in true love, kindred spirits, and happy endings. Here's to staying young at heart *raises champagne glass* . . . care to join me?


Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter