NEED YOU NOW
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: M. O’Keefe
Release Date: September 12, 2019
MARCO
I have loved Rosa since I met her in high school English, even though the odds have always been stacked against us. She is the child of criminals, resigned to a bleak future. I’m the heir to a successful construction company and am not afraid to go after what I want.
And I want Rosa. Always and forever.
ROSA
I broke the law to make sure Marco got custody of our daughter, and I paid the price. But now that I’m out of jail, I’m terrified my ugly past might bleed into our daughter’s future.
The only way to ensure that doesn’t happen is staying far away from both of them.
But Marco isn’t letting me run from him. Not again.
A stand-alone, contemporary romance.
He looked at me across the room and slowly shook his head. “I don’t want to love you,” he said.“I know.”
“Half the time I hate you.”
“I know.”
He looked away from me, his hands in fists, and I could feel the tension across the room, the fragile control he had on himself. How he was barely holding on. And I knew that he would never hurt me. The thing he was trying to stop himself from doing was touch me.
“I’m leaving,” he said and crossed the room in three angry steps. Everything in me told me to get out of the way. To let him go. But I didn’t. I stood right in front of the door in my gold vest and hot pants.
His face was flushed. “Get out of my way,” he said, and my mouth was full, my throat closed, and I shook my head. “Don’t make me,” he said. “Don’t make me touch you.”
It was exactly what I was doing, because I would take his touch any way I could get it.
“Fuck, Rosa,” he groaned. “Fuck you.”
And he put his hands around my arms and pulled me up and into his body so my breasts touched his chest, and between my legs I felt the hard pressure of him. I gasped and he turned. I expected him to let me go. I expected him to shove me away but he didn’t. Oh god, he didn’t. He lifted me off my feet and took two steps forward, pushing me against the wall. Not gently. But not rough. And then he leaned against me, his entire body against mine. And I was electrified. Every inch of my skin burned where it touched his.
I burned so hot I burned right through all the years. All the pain fell away and it was just us. Marco and me and the desire so pure it kept changing the course of both our lives.
He held himself so still, so carefully, and he was going to walk away. I knew he was. He would walk away and this moment would never happen again.
“Please,” I begged, because it was all I had left. No more pride. No more distance. I was only need.
What do you want?” she asked, like she honestly didn’t know.
“What I’ve always wanted. What I’ll want for the rest of my life,” I told her with the same intensity I’d used to say my vows four years ago. “You.”
Man, but Molly O’Keefe know how to serve up some feels. This was another heartfelt standalone in the same world as The Debt series If you’ve read and remember the pregnant teenager that the group met in their foster home, than you’re already familiar with the heroine. And if you haven’t read that series yet (I highly recommend it), no worries, because this is definitely written as a standalone. But if you’re like me and binge read that series and salivating for more Bates, this will definitely deliver. Because OMG Bates!!! But I digress. Let’s focus on the story here.
Marco and Rosa’s story is certainly a tearjerker. My heart broke for Rosa and everything that she goes through. This woman is a survivor and I loved her endearing combination of strength and vulnerability. Rosa made the necessary sacrifice to protect the love of her life and future baby by risking everything and going to jail. This is a woman that has always had all the odds stacked against her. A violent neo-nazi father and brother that threaten everything she loves and forcing her into a life of petty crime that she can’t escape. Pregnant at 16 and living in foster care with a terrible man and his wife. Rosa makes the choice to sacrifice her freedom in order for Marco to get custody of their baby and after serving a four year sentence the only thing cemented in her mind is that she doesn’t deserve anything good in life, especially not Marco and their beautiful daughter. Not when her family still threaten everything.
Marco is so angry with Rosa at first. He doesn’t understand why she stayed away all this time since getting out. But soon the resentment turns into determination and he wants nothing more than his wife back.
I loved the angsty and highly emotional thread between these two. I liked the the story is clearly broken up in past and present and doesn’t have the usual flashback song and dance. It was more impactful this way. I also loved Marco’s quiet intensity and the way he fights for Rosa and her self-sacrificing.
This was such a satisfying romance with plenty of feels and a dash of sizzle. Of course I was salving for more Bates and I’m damn near ravenous after the additional peek we get of him here. If I don’t get his book next, I’m pretty sure I’ll be shaking in a dark corner somewhere.
Molly O’Keefe is the USA Today Bestselling author of over 50 contemporary romances. She lives in Toronto Ontario with her husband, two kids and rescue dog.
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RUIN YOU
I love all things Molly O’Keefe. It’s hard for me to even imagine that she used to write pure contemporary romance when the woman writes gritty, emotional stories like she was born for it. I devour her words.
Ruin You, much like the previous book, is quite morose. It’s not a walk in the park and rainbows and butterflies. And while I highly recommend reading the previous two books first to form a better connection to the characters, you don’t need to in order to enjoy this one. The author gives plenty of background to ensure that the reader is never lost.
Molly O’Keefe has always known she wanted to be a writer (except when she wanted to be a florist or a chef and the brief period of time when she considered being a cowgirl). And once she got her hands on some romances, she knew exactly what she wanted to write.
WHERE I BELONG
Where I Belong is the emotional conclusion to Beth and Tommy’s story and if possible, I enjoyed this installment even more than the first book. While we got a gritty and unapologetic look into Tommy’s childhood in
LOST WITHOUT YOU
Molly O’Keefe is the queen of broken characters. She weaves incredibly poignant stories that never fail to hit you right in the feels and stay with you. She creates these beautifully broken characters that somehow burrow their way into your heart and you’ll find yourself thinking about them long after finishing the book. Lost Without You was just another reason why I’ve been obsessed with everything this author writes. It was emotional with just an edge of dark, full of feeling, and a book that you’ll read with a resounding feeling of dread as you wait for the other shoe to drop.
In the present, Tommy is no longer the skinny starved boy he used to be. He’s reserved, closed off, and just as broken as he once was, if not more. But he’s grown into his body and can now stand his own. When the debt he owes finally comes calling, he finds himself facing a memory he’s spent the last seven years trying to forget; Beth, his Beth, but no longer the Beth that he knew.
But fate is not on their side, and circumstances are dire. Giving into feelings of the past can cost them both everything and for Tommy, it just might.
WAIT FOR IT
Ever since Blake first hit my radar in 
There’s so much depth to both of these characters and their story is one of many layers that at first shouldn’t make sense, but yet, they do. It’s a story that may not click with every reader, but it definitely did with this one.
BURN DOWN THE NIGHT
You want to fuck, let’s do it. Let’s burn down the fucking place. We got that in us…between us. But when it’s over…all I’ll leave you are bruises.”
If I had a dollar for every time I read about an anti-hero that falls head over balls for the heroine and all of a sudden his switch is flipped form bad to good faster than you can say “golden vag”, I could happily retire in my land of many books. So when I first met Max as the baddie MC prez brother of Dylan in 
The writing was pure poetry. It some of the best I’ve seen from this author, and quite honestly some of the best I’ve read in a long damn while. It was lyrical, gritty, violent and erotic. And it all flowed together so well, and blended into a something that was purely addicting to read.
It’s not a traditional romance, and if you’re looking for that, you should look elsewhere. If you recall Joan’s bisexual nature, you should also know that there are a few f/f scenes in this book. This was just another layer into the depth that is her character, however, and it only served to add to the story. Nothing was gratuitous about this story or these characters. Every scene, every word, every development served a purpose. There wasn’t one wasted word.
What started in the erotically charged 
If you haven’t yet read EILU, my review will be absolutely spoiler free for both books.
How do you review a book where even the slightest detail can be a major spoiler? I’ve been struggling with writing this for days now because of this. I write something, then change my mind and delete it. Quite the conundrum I have myself here. If I can give you one piece of advice with this book? Go in absolutely blind. Don’t read reviews. Any reviews. Even mine (though I will keep it absolutely spoiler free). But this is just one of those books where what makes it good is the not knowing. You guess a detail here and there but you just never know exactly where it will go.
