New Release Review and Giveaway! FOUND IN US by Layla Hagen (Lost #2)

Found in Us is Jessica and Parker’s story, where two people whom life has told are unlovable find love together.Jess is starting over. Finished with school, she’s landed what she hopes is her dream job in London, working for a small art museum. Having been told all her life by her father that she’s a disappointment and a failure, she’s determined to start over on the other side of the Atlantic. She’s left her party girl clothes and persona behind, choosing instead to make herself over into a more serious, responsible version. To do so, staying away from the kind of relationships that have peppered her life so far is necessary, and for her piece of mind, staying away from her roommate’s infuriatingly sexy cousin Parker is a must.

Parker, a successful businessman, is trying to save the company that was his father’s legacy and which his older half-brother has done his best to run into the ground. He’s been burned one too many times in life, and no longer “does” relationships. He’s drawn to Jessica, though, and has been since he met her in California the year before. If anyone could tempt him to give it a try again, it would be her. Can he risk it?

Watching these two fall in love and learn to trust each other makes for a satisfying read. Even though Jess is trying for the straight and narrow, there’s an awful lot of sex in not-so-private places involved, paired up with some truly surprisingly sweet romantic moments. It makes for a nice balance. We do get far more of the story from Jessica’s point of view—I would have liked to see more from Parker’s; what we do have is almost like a teaser version—but it doesn’t make the story feel unfinished at all. The black moment, when it comes, is a believable one for the two. It does get resolved fairly easily, but not too quickly, leaving us with an HEA that definitely looks promising.

Found in Us is second in the series after Lost in Us , but it worked well as a standalone. From things that both Jessica and Parker said and thought, though, it looks like if you have read the first book, quite a few questions about the two of them are answered here. Serena and James, the hero and heroine of book one, do make an appearance here but it’s fairly peripheral, since there is an ocean between the couples for most of the book. Still, fans of the first book will definitely be happy to learn of one pretty major event that happens for the two 🙂

Throughout the novel, Dani (Jessica’s roommate and Parker’s cousin) definitely has her own story going on in the background that we know next to nothing about—dare we hope her story is coming next? Fingers crossed, because it looks like her hero might be a tattooed bad boy fighter… 😉

Rating: 4 stars / B+

I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.