Title: Balance
Author: MJ Woods
Publisher/Year: Dog Ear Publishing 11/21/16
Length:   258 Pages
Series:  The Amped Series #1

Overview

Aidan Pierce has nothing to prove, and everything to lose.

He’s a success in everything he does.

A prodigy disguised in a stunning male form.

Intense. Passionate. Wealthy, almost beyond measure. He’s back in his birthplace to right long ago wrongs, to bring a plan years in the making to fruition…

Until he meets Alexis Greene. Tipping her world off its axis, he unexpectedly upends his own.

Alexis Greene has everything to prove, and nothing left to lose. She graduated at the top of her law school class. She’s beautiful. Ethical. Conservative, but not shy with four letter words. She’s set to make her mark in a prominent firm in Lake County when her husband unexpectedly dies. She’s left conflicted and wanting more from life, without knowing what more there could ever be…

Until she meets Aidan Pierce. His past would never allow him to be something more – not for anyone. That doesn’t stop him from wanting her. If she fell into his world it would take everything she had to maintain her Balance.

My Thoughts

First – again i have to thank the folks over at Netgalley for getting me a copy of this first installment to yet another series.  What we have here is a story of two people who of course have a haunted past and a less than easy present, and when their paths cross, things get interesting.

We meet Aiden first when he’s having a flash back to when he was 8 years old and was reliving an experience with his drunk father.  Then that turns into a nightmare of the day his brother died in a car crash.  We know that his upbringing was tough, and of course that means that he’s going to turn into quite the successful billionaire and business man – partially with the help of his mother’s husband.

Then there’s Alexis, our leading lady who we meet in a flashback of the day that her husband ben dies – which we learn was due to an aneurysm.  Our author makes sure to note that she doesn’t react as expected but that’s all going to come out later in the story.

So where we go in this first installment to the series is that we’re in a small town in New York state where Alexis is a lawyer trying to make a name for herself as she’s just taken over her father’s firm now that she’s passed the Bar and he’s passed away.  Aiden is also in town as he’s trying to build a Center for the locals to go to learn skills to keep them from becoming what his father was.

These two trouble folks mean one thing – once they come together, there will be so much pent up pain and frustration to make any semblance of sexual tension explode – and it happens of course.

Alexis allows Aiden into her mind and heart – allows him to know her innermost secrets, especially those that surround her marriage, and in turn, he gives her a glimpse into what he was like before becoming what he is now.  Neither story is nice but i think that it gives us all a better understanding of what we’re up against.

If that wasn’t all, there’s also this underlying plot line if an energy company that wants to get their hands on some land in their town to do some drilling, under the guise of another company name and motive.  When Aiden thwarts that, Alexis of course is pissed since it’s her money that he’s hurting, until she learns why.  Then another deal comes along, but Aiden seems to think that there’s still quite a bit of danger around them all and wants Alexis to be careful.  We don’t get to the bottom of this story line in this first book but it’s lingering and definitely interesting.

Then there’s the other story line of Stella – Aiden’s ex and while we know the capacity of their relationship, there’s a lot of secrets around that which Aiden is keeping from Alexis and when it all comes to a head, we see her shut him out and the question becomes will he be able to grovel and get her to come back.  So on that note, i now have to wait until the next book comes out to see what happens.  Enjoy!