Title - Three Rivers
Author - Chloe Barlow
Genre - Contemporary Romance/Romantic Suspense
Release Date - March 25th 2014
Synopsis
"A heartbreaking tale of letting go and learning to love again. A jaw-dropping debut novel you have to read.” - Helena Newbury, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author.
How do you start over when you gave everything to one life, one plan, and lost it all?
Althea refuses to allow herself to love again. Imprisoned in grief at twenty-four after her husband’s sudden death, she’s convinced her heart died along with him. She spends her days honoring his memory by clinging to the legal career he helped her to build and to the remaining pieces linking
them together.
Griffen’s been running from his past. Despite success as an author and investigative journalist, he’s been traveling through life on autopilot. For a decade, he’s chosen perilous adventures and meaningless sex over the danger of any attachments. When he finally returns home to Pittsburgh, he’s slammed by the awakened memories and regret he’s spent years trying to escape.
A chance encounter brings them together. Their instant desire for each other – and the bond they discover between them – shocks them both. Despite her best efforts, Althea can’t resist Griffen’s charm or his intriguing proposition – if she agrees to a no-strings affair with him for the two weeks he’s in town, he swears he’ll walk away when their time is up. Assured she can test the waters of a new life while keeping her vow never to betray her husband’s memory by opening her heart to another, Althea throws herself into the escape Griffen provides her.
Their perfect plans go awry when the intensity of their connection overwhelms them. Will they risk it all on the chance of something great together…or will the power of their secrets and guilt tear them apart?
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Reviewed by Carmie
Althea Taylor, Tea to her friends, finds herself alone again. Her husband working late again and their Christmas tree not decorated. She decides she’s had enough! She decorates the tree and calls her husband and tells him that tonight he needs to come clean about what’s bothering him. He agrees and says he’ll see here in a bit. Only he never makes it home.
Devastated by Jack’s death, Althea can’t make herself get out of bed most days. Her friends Jenna and Aubrey come over every day, hoping every day that today will be different. Today is different – they make Althea take a pregnancy test wondering if her tiredness and vomiting are just more than the effects of grief.
Flash forward to the night before Johnny’s fifth birthday party. Althea’s made it through five years of grief with the help from a few good friends. She finished law school and has raised an incredible little boy that loves punk rock. BUT she’s never gotten over Jack’s lose, she hasn’t moved on.
“She’d belonged to no one but a ghost for years – simply living out her life sentence of grief without parole – subject to solitary confinement with nothing but memories to keep her warm in her cell.”
Jenna and Aubrey convince Althea to have a girl’s night out with the sole goal of hooking Althea up with a one night stand. The ladies find one that is just right and he is definitely willing. Althea and Griffin have a wild night of passion after which she sneaks out. Griffin wakes up alone and sadly disappointed. He sets out to find her.
Imagine their surprise when he shows up to Johnny’s birthday party with a close friend of Althea’s mother-in-law. Turns out Griffin, aka Nicky Tate, was Jack’s best friend through high school. Jack talked about Nicky often but they had never met; he never came to Jack’s funeral. Griffin is an award-winning best-seller author; he was knee deep in book edits when Jack emailed the week before he died – Jack wanted some help looking into something. Griffin feels guilty about not being there for Jack – for not being there for his widow and son – so guilty that he hasn’t been able to write a word since.
You might be asking yourself why Griffin decided to show up now. Griffin is helping out his college mentor by stepping in to teach classes for two weeks while he recovers from surgery. Griffin doesn’t want to miss this chance to make amends. Among other things, he spends time with Johnny, helps him with football and tells him stories about his dad. He also volunteers to help Althea work off pent up tension as she prepares to entire the dating world.
For Griffin, being in his hometown is bittersweet without Jack. In his trips down memory lane, he revisits their secret hiding place and finds a flash drive that Jack left him. He knows enough to know that something isn’t right. The more he digs the more it looks like Jack was into something over his head; he wonders if Jack’s death is what it appears. He wonders how he can tell Althea all this without jeopardizing their fledging romance.
Can Althea and Griffin together finish unraveling the mystery around Jack’s death and put the demons of their past to bed?
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About The Author
Chloe is a contemporary romance novelist and practicing attorney living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband and their sweet puppy. She is a native Washingtonian thatgraduated Duke University with a degree in English and Chinese language. She met her husband at Duke and he brought her to Pittsburgh over a decade ago, which she has loved ever sinceand made her adopted hometown. She also attended the University of Pittsburgh Law Schoolwhere she continued to be a book-loving nerd.
Chloe has always loved writing and although she does do it professionally as a lawyer, shecherishes the opportunity to craft her fictional novels and share them with the world.When Chloe isn’t writing, she spends her time exploring Pittsburgh with her husband and friends. She also enjoys yoga, jogging, and all Pittsburgh sports, as well as her Duke Blue Devils. She is an avid reader and wrote her debut novel Three Rivers in her spare time. She continues her tireless legal style of research in her fiction work as well. For example, in an effort to bring authenticity to Three River’s treatment of grief and loss, she consulted with a psychologist and grief counselor during its preparation.
Connect With Chloe
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