Title:  Toxic
Author: Kim Karr
Publisher/Year: Penguin Group Publishing 7/7/15
Length: 367 pages

Overview

Meet Jeremy McQueen, a sexy, intense, brooding entrepreneur who goes after what he wants, and Phoebe St. Claire, a socialite-turned-CEO who’s been drifting through life searching for something she thought she’d never find again—the right man to share her future.

Phoebe St. Claire has devoted herself to saving her family’s hotel empire—but her best efforts have not been good enough. With her whole world in turmoil, the tenacious go-getter turns to the once love of her life. Far from innocent, Jeremy McQueen was a guy from the wrong side of the tracks and her parents would never have approved. Their years apart have only made the sexy bad boy more irresistible than ever—and their reunion is explosive.

When she asks Jeremy to help her salvage her family business, he agrees immediately, with only one condition—he wants her in his bed.

But soon surprising circumstances leave Phoebe reeling. Was this fairy tale romance just too good to be true? Will Jeremy’s secrets pull them apart all over again?

My Thoughts

I’m a sucker for eye catching cover art which is what we got here.  In any event, it’s a nice story by an author that i’m not familiar with which is always nice – and it’s a standalone – which means that i don’t have to wait for ever for another one – although i think that there are so many characters that were introduced to us that there could Definitely be extensions.

What we have here is a story of the upper east side rich girl who falls in love over the summer with a boy from a different class (or so we’re led to believe).  Because of a variety of circumstances, she can’t tell him who she is and when he finds out, well, their romance ends.  not on the best of terms either.

they go their separate ways and then we are sped up about 5 years to where paths are intersecting once again.  Phoebe our leading lady comes to us on the day that she was supposed to get married to Dawson, yet she decided that for any number of reasons, he’s not the one for her – and instead, she goes out ‘celebrating’ with her group of close friends at an exclusive club.  Ironically of course, Dawson and his friends are there as well, and through some unfortunate circumstances, well, Phoebe ends up in a compromising situation with one of Dawson’s friends and needs to be rescued.  As expected, part of the reason for breaking off her engagement with Dawson is that she’s missing the spark that she had with Jeremy the guy from her past, and it’s on that same night when she needs saving that she feels that same spark come alive, just when it’s needed most.

Jeremy is there of course, comes to her rescue, but Phoebe is too drunk to remember much of what happens from there.  The course that the story takes from there on is a bit of a roller coaster.  These 2 connect again, but it’s far from perfect and easy.  The chemistry that they have together is still insane but what they choose to do with it is another question.  They fight each other at every turn, with trust issues and questions about what is true and real and what’s been contrived for revenge.

The question that you have at every turn of the page is who or what will break them apart next, and will there be something left strong enough to save them or are they destined to part ways again.  I think that it’s interesting the few twists that we see happen throughout their story – and how it brings them closer since their heat and passion is combustive – yes we know that it’s never going to last since there are too many issues from both the past and the present to keep them apart.

I for one kept wanting them to find their happy place and the way that our author writes this story – you wonder if that’s possible.  Ms. Karr gives us a journey with these 2 that has so many tests through out – a person who’s out to manipulate the situation entirely and a bunch of mystery.  All peppered in with some GREAT romance and heat that you know you have to keep reading.  I just hope that we get to see another installment featuring one of the other folks in Phoebe’s group since there are so many and i’m sure that their stories would be just as amazing.  On that note – Happy Friday all and enjoy!