Today we welcome Emma Grayson to our blog as she celebrates her new book Unbeautifully Loved which released on April 25th!

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3 STARS!!!
Synopsis
In three words I can sum up everything I learned about life. Regardless of the shit going on in your life, this fact still remains.

It. Goes. On

Lexie Todd knew these 3 simple words. They were her mantra. So, after dealing with years of abuse at the hands of her boyfriend and the father of her son, she knows what needs to be done. With help from her best friend Mollie, they go on the run.

After months of being on the run they finally find the perfect town to settle in. Unable to trust and always having her guard up, the last thing Lexie wants is to get involved with Lukas Gunn.

Persistent, annoying, bossy, over protective and extremely hot, Detective Lukas Gunn.

After an incident leaves her vulnerable, Lukas knows there’s something haunting her. He’s determined to find out, wanting to protect her and make her his. But Lexie is determined also. Not wanting to give up her past, she pushes him away. Repeatedly.

But when history repeats itself, will Lexie finally be able to trust those around her to keep her safe? Will Lukas be able to save her? Or will Lexie succumb to only knowing what it’s like to be Unbeautifully Loved?

Prologue

Meeting him changed my life. I never thought I’d meet someone who’d finally complete me like he did. Someone who finally made me feel whole and loved as much as he did. There’s always been a void in my heart, a void I thought I’d never have. I was in love, deeply in love, the kind of love that only comes around once in a life time, the kind you don’t want to live without and he didn’t even know how I felt. I’d waited too long and I didn’t know if I’d ever get to tell him.
The thought of him fizzled from my mind as my body shook from the cold under the thin sheet of a blanket that was wrapped around me. I was in shock, I could tell. I knew the signs. I winced as I moved; shooting pain licked my body in every direction. I knew a couple of my ribs along with my wrist were broken, and possibly something on my face, as pain swept over it and into my head. I raised my free arm up slowly, painfully, feeling my damp face as my hand found its way to the laceration on the side of my head, the source of only some of the pain. Unable to hold my arm up for much longer, it fell to the side throbbing and dangling off the edge of the bed. My body, it was beaten and bruised possibly more than ever before and I could feel myself slipping away, wanting nothing but to close my eyes and sleep, but it was the last thing I’d allow myself to do.
My mind was disoriented; I had no idea what day it was or how long I had been locked in this cold, dark place. Time was frozen, becoming nonexistent, and I was sure the days were just bleeding together. I thought about Finn and Mollie, hoping and praying they were safe because I didn’t know if I was going to see them again. The thought of that was unbearable. My eyes watered, nose burned and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Pull it together.
Think.
I didn’t know where I was, why I was even here or what caused him to do what he did to me. I felt like my life, my being, was being sucked right out of me. The abuse had taken its toll on my body and I had no fight left in me. All hope that I had earlier was beginning to fade away.
The door creaking open brought me back from my thoughts, my eyes snapped closed at the light that followed him in. I wanted to pull my blanket up to hide myself and hope it would make me disappear but I couldn’t and there was no point in trying.
Looking at him you wouldn’t think any kind of malicious evil would consume him, but it did. It was written all over his face, in the grin he wore and the burning in his cold, dead blue eyes. A shiver ran through me as I thought of his eyes looking back at me, blank, filled with nothing but coldness and the brightness of those eyes forever gone. I’d never seen a pair of eyes so cold, or so hollow and dark, not even the pair I looked into years before compared to what I was seeing now.
He walked over to the side of the bed, no words said. His rough cold hands roamed over my hair down the side of my face and my body stilled as I wished him away. My eyes snapped shut not knowing what was about to come.
His hand slipped under the covers, gliding over my naked arm, stopping above my elbow, lingering there a moment before moving away and then my cuffed hand was free. His hand went back, gripping my arm tightly as he pulled me to a sitting position. Pain radiated through me as I let out a whimper. He pulled me to my frozen feet, my knees shook, feeling like they were going to give out, unable to support me. I felt myself sway to the side but his grip held me upright, tightly; his fingers dug into my arm, pinching my skin.
What’s one more bruise?
He started to pull me towards the open door, my eyes squinting, trying to adjust to the light. I didn’t know where we were going and I was sure it wasn’t going to be good and for the first time I was wishing to stay in the hole. I didn’t have any strength to fight him so I let him pull me, taking me wherever he was going.
Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe it was meant to end here and meeting him, falling in love, having this emptiness I carried around finally filled, maybe it was only supposed to be… temporary.
Life had a way of playing cruel tricks on you.
This I knew.
Boy did I know.
I no longer saw the future with him as bright, happy and full of love; it was suddenly now empty, numb and full of complete and utter darkness.

Christine’s Review

Wow!  The prologue totally caught my attention and I felt shivers running down my spine!  This was a debut novel by Emma Grayson and I look forward to reading more from her.

Lexie is broken emotionally, mentally and physically from a terrible relationship she had with her abusive ex-boyfriend Dex.  In order to move forward, she, her best friend Mollie and her son Finn run away to escape, moving from place to place so that they cannot be found by him.

Seeing the perfect house in the perfect town in Camden, the threesome decides to settle down because for once it feels like home, the place where they are meant to stay.

Needing to support her little family, Lexie finds a job at a local bar where she meets some interesting characters.  On her first night on the job, she is attacked outside on her way to the car and I can’t help but feel that this poor girl has no luck!  The ONE good thing to come out of that night is her first encounter with Lukas Gunn, her good looking neighbor and the town police officer.

There is an immediate attraction between the two characters and so much energy radiating from them anytime they were in a scene together.  Lukas is instantly very protective of Lexie, demanding that he drive her to and from work.  Lukas makes his way into Lexie’s heart and after fighting it and denying herself happiness, Lexie finally gives in to the allure.

So who is attacking the women of Camden?  Will Dex find them and take them back home?  And with Lexie’s painful past, will she be able to let Lukas into her heart?

You will have to read this book to find out!

I will be honest and say that I struggled with parts of this book.  The story and the author definitely have potential and I would read more books written by Emma.  With this particular book, some of the inner dialogue from Lexie drove me crazy!  I also found some parts of this to be unrealistic because how many bad things can happen to one person?  There was too much description of the “energy radiating from each other” and how gorgeous Lukas was.  And also being a mom of three, I found Lexie to be so disconnected from her son – there was hardly a relationship between them.

I did enjoy the book midway through to the end because I felt sad for Lexie because love was staring at her in the face and she didn’t recognize it because of her previous relationship and how scarred she was.  I loved how Lukas wanted to save her from this painful past and to move forward.

I want to reiterate that I would definitely read more from this author and look forward to see how she grows with her writing.

About the Author

Emma Grayson is a Canadian author who resides outside of Edmonton, Alberta with her family and five year old son.

She is currently working on Take it All, book one in her new series, Blinded by Love, as well as Unbearable Guilt, book two in her Breathe Again series.

When she’s not writing she enjoys time with her son, going to movies, reading, or enjoying Starbucks latte’s with her girlfriends. She’s the lover of music, television, all things purple, Oilers hockey and doesn’t leave the house without her iPhone, Kobo, flip flops or a pack of gum.

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