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Desperate #1
Desperate Strangers
His secrets might break her heart
but hers could get them killed!
Nick Simon is using his "fiancee," Julie Peterson, as an alibi--and her amnesia means she doesn't even know they only met at the scene of her accident. But when someone starts calling with threats of murder, Julie is drawn even closer to the only man who can protect her. Will she remember the deadly secret she carries before a murderer can strike again?
but hers could get them killed!
Nick Simon is using his "fiancee," Julie Peterson, as an alibi--and her amnesia means she doesn't even know they only met at the scene of her accident. But when someone starts calling with threats of murder, Julie is drawn even closer to the only man who can protect her. Will she remember the deadly secret she carries before a murderer can strike again?
- GenresRomance
272 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 19, 2018
32 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 4, 2019
Let me ask a question. What do you call a heroine who is so utterly stupid that she runs, jumps, hops and skips past the standard Too Stupid To Live description and hurtles off into some other stratosphere of dumbness? Seriously, I spent nearly every single page staring in dumbfounded, open-mouthed shock at how boneheadedly sheltered, clueless and stupid our heroine Julie Peterson was. She takes the cake, folks! Nobody can top this!
Julie is in a car accident, which our hero Nick Simon witnesses. He's on the run from the scene of a murder. He didn't commit the murder, although he had actually been on the way there to commit it. But somebody beat him to it. You see, Nick is part of some Strangers On A Train style vigilante club, where they each agree to kill people for each other. Nick was meant to kill this guy in exchange for somebody else killing the man who raped and murdered Nick's wife Debbie three years earlier.
Anyway, Nick's designated target is already dead, and Nick is in the location with a gun. He sees Julie's car hit a tree, and stays to assist. He then tells the attending officer that he's Julie's fiance and was in the car with her in order to give himself an alibi. It all snowballs to the point where he's trapped in the ruse because Julie has woken up and has amnesia, in which she can't remember the last 10 months of her life, but is absolutely, positively sure that Nick is indeed her fiance and that she loves, loves, loves, loves, looooooooooooooooooves him.
When Nick takes her back to her house, he sees evidence of a fight. He promises to stay with her. His need to protect her intensifies when she starts receiving threats. Could it be that poor, innocent, ridiculously gullible and naive Julie could be the one who penetrates his grief-stricken, angry heart and help him love again?
Normally, I would be quite outraged at a hero who lied about who he was to a woman suffering possible traumatic brain injury, and keeping the ruse up, even when he's sleeping with her. It's a very, very yucky thing to do. I've seen episodes of Law & Order: SVU where men who pull this sort of thing can be charged with rape, even if the sex is consensual! (Basically, if you're lying extensively about who you are when you boink someone, actual consent can be a grey area. Because the woman isn't consenting to what she thinks she's consenting to.) So the whole romance was predicated on some pretty shaky moral ground!
Buuuuuuuuuuut, then we have Julie. I have absolutely zero idea how this woman managed to make it to 31 without dying in some Darwin award-worthy way. Should the villain succeed in their threats, they'd be doing the gene pool a favour, that's for sure! I could only gape and gasp in horror as each new ignorant and willfully naive facet of her personality got revealed.
Julie accepts Nick as her fiance, despite zero memories about him, at face value. Does she check her phone for any pictures of them together to perhaps jog her memory? No. Does she do this even after SUGGESTING THE VERY SAME THING to her younger sister Casey who has a mysterious boyfriend of her own? No. Does she check her social media for pictures of the two of them together? No. Not a chance. In fact, when it's clear she's being threatened, it's Nick who is checking social media for her. She gives him her passwords! And what exactly can Nick expect to find that Julie couldn't discover for herself? That's how stupid she is!
Beyond that, Julie is 31 and still works in her family pawn shop. She's done this for most of her life. And she's never once considered that she should be doing anything else. Indeed, she's just blindly accepted this as her life and dedicates herself to it to the point that she doesn't have any friends, and that her mother and younger sister are the only female friends in her life. This doesn't sound healthy! And subsequently it doesn't follow that she would have social media contacts.
(And I'm not suggesting it's bad Julie works in her family's pawn shop. It's just that she makes it clear it's not her passion. She actually wants to be a nurse. But she's never, ever, ever done anything about it in all these years - she's 31 now - until she rescued by Nick's luuuuuurve. It's only when Nick enters the picture she's even able to stand up to her father. I mean, just how helpless can one person be?)
It sounds to me like Julie hasn't made a decision for herself her entire adult life. It's Nick who insists they call police after a couple of threats. She's actually surprised when he suggests installing a security system. Duh, Julie, because a stranger hung a mutilated doll outside your window! Good grief!
And her blind devotion to her fake fiance and utter faith in him and their luuuurve borders on creepy and dependent. She even thinks to herself, about her family, "If they made her choose between them and Nick, she wanted her man." She wants to be around him all the time, not go anywhere without him, and just bask in the glory of their wonderful, powerful love. She was clingy and strange. And dumb.
So it was hard to work up as much anger as I should have at Nick's deplorable actions. He was grifting a woman who was bound to get grifted at some point in her life because she was a poor, dumb wilting flower of a woman who basically couldn't tie her own shoelaces. It may as well have been Nick! As for Nick, we did have the dead wife trope, and it was handled badly (he thinks to himself nothing will be better than Debbie, and uses the date of her death as the bloody code to Julie's security system!)
The identity of Julie's stalker is pretty arbitrary, as is their motive. It literally could have been anybody for any random reason. As for the vigilante club and the member who killed Nick's target before Nick could - well, that's a mystery for another day, it would seem! Yes, despite there being zero indication on the book jacket that this is part of a mini-series, that's exactly what it is. A quick internet search reveals there are further books with "Desperate" in the title from Cassidy in the future, in which that plot strand is apparently to be resolved. That sort of shit particularly grinds my gears!
If you want a good romance or a good suspense story, you'd have to be desperate to give this one a go! The former is undone by Nick's icky actions, and the latter is undone by Julie's stupidity and a thin plot that leaves a major strand unresolved. Those 2 stars are for Julie alone. The neverending WTF moments in regards to how dumb she is (if I tried to list them all, this review would be as long as the book) give this a bit of a train-wrecky appeal.
Julie is in a car accident, which our hero Nick Simon witnesses. He's on the run from the scene of a murder. He didn't commit the murder, although he had actually been on the way there to commit it. But somebody beat him to it. You see, Nick is part of some Strangers On A Train style vigilante club, where they each agree to kill people for each other. Nick was meant to kill this guy in exchange for somebody else killing the man who raped and murdered Nick's wife Debbie three years earlier.
Anyway, Nick's designated target is already dead, and Nick is in the location with a gun. He sees Julie's car hit a tree, and stays to assist. He then tells the attending officer that he's Julie's fiance and was in the car with her in order to give himself an alibi. It all snowballs to the point where he's trapped in the ruse because Julie has woken up and has amnesia, in which she can't remember the last 10 months of her life, but is absolutely, positively sure that Nick is indeed her fiance and that she loves, loves, loves, loves, looooooooooooooooooves him.
When Nick takes her back to her house, he sees evidence of a fight. He promises to stay with her. His need to protect her intensifies when she starts receiving threats. Could it be that poor, innocent, ridiculously gullible and naive Julie could be the one who penetrates his grief-stricken, angry heart and help him love again?
Normally, I would be quite outraged at a hero who lied about who he was to a woman suffering possible traumatic brain injury, and keeping the ruse up, even when he's sleeping with her. It's a very, very yucky thing to do. I've seen episodes of Law & Order: SVU where men who pull this sort of thing can be charged with rape, even if the sex is consensual! (Basically, if you're lying extensively about who you are when you boink someone, actual consent can be a grey area. Because the woman isn't consenting to what she thinks she's consenting to.) So the whole romance was predicated on some pretty shaky moral ground!
Buuuuuuuuuuut, then we have Julie. I have absolutely zero idea how this woman managed to make it to 31 without dying in some Darwin award-worthy way. Should the villain succeed in their threats, they'd be doing the gene pool a favour, that's for sure! I could only gape and gasp in horror as each new ignorant and willfully naive facet of her personality got revealed.
Julie accepts Nick as her fiance, despite zero memories about him, at face value. Does she check her phone for any pictures of them together to perhaps jog her memory? No. Does she do this even after SUGGESTING THE VERY SAME THING to her younger sister Casey who has a mysterious boyfriend of her own? No. Does she check her social media for pictures of the two of them together? No. Not a chance. In fact, when it's clear she's being threatened, it's Nick who is checking social media for her. She gives him her passwords! And what exactly can Nick expect to find that Julie couldn't discover for herself? That's how stupid she is!
Beyond that, Julie is 31 and still works in her family pawn shop. She's done this for most of her life. And she's never once considered that she should be doing anything else. Indeed, she's just blindly accepted this as her life and dedicates herself to it to the point that she doesn't have any friends, and that her mother and younger sister are the only female friends in her life. This doesn't sound healthy! And subsequently it doesn't follow that she would have social media contacts.
(And I'm not suggesting it's bad Julie works in her family's pawn shop. It's just that she makes it clear it's not her passion. She actually wants to be a nurse. But she's never, ever, ever done anything about it in all these years - she's 31 now - until she rescued by Nick's luuuuuurve. It's only when Nick enters the picture she's even able to stand up to her father. I mean, just how helpless can one person be?)
It sounds to me like Julie hasn't made a decision for herself her entire adult life. It's Nick who insists they call police after a couple of threats. She's actually surprised when he suggests installing a security system. Duh, Julie, because a stranger hung a mutilated doll outside your window! Good grief!
And her blind devotion to her fake fiance and utter faith in him and their luuuurve borders on creepy and dependent. She even thinks to herself, about her family, "If they made her choose between them and Nick, she wanted her man." She wants to be around him all the time, not go anywhere without him, and just bask in the glory of their wonderful, powerful love. She was clingy and strange. And dumb.
So it was hard to work up as much anger as I should have at Nick's deplorable actions. He was grifting a woman who was bound to get grifted at some point in her life because she was a poor, dumb wilting flower of a woman who basically couldn't tie her own shoelaces. It may as well have been Nick! As for Nick, we did have the dead wife trope, and it was handled badly (he thinks to himself nothing will be better than Debbie, and uses the date of her death as the bloody code to Julie's security system!)
The identity of Julie's stalker is pretty arbitrary, as is their motive. It literally could have been anybody for any random reason. As for the vigilante club and the member who killed Nick's target before Nick could - well, that's a mystery for another day, it would seem! Yes, despite there being zero indication on the book jacket that this is part of a mini-series, that's exactly what it is. A quick internet search reveals there are further books with "Desperate" in the title from Cassidy in the future, in which that plot strand is apparently to be resolved. That sort of shit particularly grinds my gears!
If you want a good romance or a good suspense story, you'd have to be desperate to give this one a go! The former is undone by Nick's icky actions, and the latter is undone by Julie's stupidity and a thin plot that leaves a major strand unresolved. Those 2 stars are for Julie alone. The neverending WTF moments in regards to how dumb she is (if I tried to list them all, this review would be as long as the book) give this a bit of a train-wrecky appeal.
February 12, 2018
This is a very different book. When I received my books in the mail the cover of this book caught my eye. It is the 1st time I've read this author but I will be looking for her again. What makes this story unique is how the story starts. Nick has lost his wife 3 years ago thru murder. Vengeance is in heart but what happens you need to buy the book. He meets Julie at the scene of an accident and because of something Nick was involved in Julie gains a fiancee. This book has some very unique twists in the plot that will have you turning the page to see what is happening next. I love the uniqueness of this story. Its a plot I've never seen which makes the story fascinating. I really enjoyed this story for I can see this happening to someone. The cover is awesome and different.
September 5, 2019
Oh Boy What a lovely warm dish of crazy sauce.
So Mom and I just have to give you a summary of what this books is. A man goes to murder and bad guy, and finds him dead. He runs from the scene of the crime into a crashed car with a woman in it. He can’t be a bad person a leave the woman, so he calls for help and stays with her. When help arrives the hero ends up cover his butt by lying and saying the he is the woman’s fiancé. When the woman wakes up she has not memory of the last 10 months and a guy who says he is her fiancé. The hero and the heroine go back to her house and find what looks like to be a fight from there the story is about the hero keeping his story a secret and the heroine, and hero, trying to find out who is after her.
Over all the story was handled really well. (Yes for all the crazy sauce it is still handled very well.) The only complaint mom and me had was that the hero ended was a little sputtering, it didn’t feel like there was as much of a conclusion. But it ended amazing well for what the story was batting.
Definitely worth the read.
So Mom and I just have to give you a summary of what this books is. A man goes to murder and bad guy, and finds him dead. He runs from the scene of the crime into a crashed car with a woman in it. He can’t be a bad person a leave the woman, so he calls for help and stays with her. When help arrives the hero ends up cover his butt by lying and saying the he is the woman’s fiancé. When the woman wakes up she has not memory of the last 10 months and a guy who says he is her fiancé. The hero and the heroine go back to her house and find what looks like to be a fight from there the story is about the hero keeping his story a secret and the heroine, and hero, trying to find out who is after her.
Over all the story was handled really well. (Yes for all the crazy sauce it is still handled very well.) The only complaint mom and me had was that the hero ended was a little sputtering, it didn’t feel like there was as much of a conclusion. But it ended amazing well for what the story was batting.
Definitely worth the read.
January 29, 2019
I usually adore Carla Cassidy which is why I bought this book. It was a unique plot but I found the fact that the H slept with the h under extremely false pretences to be rather off-putting.
May 2, 2018
4.75
Mrs. Cassidy did a phenomenal job with writing a unique story that started out intense, and with many lies!
Nick Simon lost his wife to a brutal rape and murder done by the person she met to show a house to him. He was angry and through grief counseling met several men in similar positions. Kind-of like the old movie, "Strangers on a Train", this story spoke of 5-6 men who were going to kill a person that had wronged them but they do it for another person so they wouldn't be tied to it.
Starting out with the fact, he was ready, he had parked his car down the street. Had the things the one guy gave him (clue), consisting of a mask, gun, hoodie and gloves. He was on his way, but when he got there, the man was already dead. And had a strange "V" on his forehead. As he ran away, he sees this erratic car driving and see it plow into a tree. He calls the police, and she ends up becoming his alibi as he becomes here finance. She has anemias and he know shes in trouble when he sees her house torn apart and knows someone is coming for her.
As the pages turn, and the story goes on, I find it sweet how he starts to realize how much hes starting to care for Julie. How he hates lying to her and her family, and the fact that she lights up his life and takes away the pain from his deceased wife. He also realizes that murder wasn't the answer. And while he's glad he didn't do anything to harm anyone, when the man he was suppose to kills, girlfriend shows up in their grief class. He realizes, it doesn't matter how big of scum a guy is, there are people in his life that care for him, and Nick realizes he doesn't want to be the one to take that way. Allow the law to handle it.
Of course, we know where this leads, she is chased by the people after her, and starts to get her memories back. Which she realizes, she doesn't know Nick. . . and that of course hurts worse of all.
While I'd like to say that it's your typical Happily Ever After, it isn't. So you'll have to read and find out what happens. Will all the questions surrounding the story come to light? Will they find out who actually killed that man? What about the rest of the men? Will Julie get stuck in the family business forever? Will her sister continue to be spoiled rotten while her and her brothers pick up the slack?
And will she find her forever love with Nick? Or will Nick end up in jail for attempting to plan a murder he didn't commit?
Mrs. Cassidy did a phenomenal job with writing a unique story that started out intense, and with many lies!
Nick Simon lost his wife to a brutal rape and murder done by the person she met to show a house to him. He was angry and through grief counseling met several men in similar positions. Kind-of like the old movie, "Strangers on a Train", this story spoke of 5-6 men who were going to kill a person that had wronged them but they do it for another person so they wouldn't be tied to it.
Starting out with the fact, he was ready, he had parked his car down the street. Had the things the one guy gave him (clue), consisting of a mask, gun, hoodie and gloves. He was on his way, but when he got there, the man was already dead. And had a strange "V" on his forehead. As he ran away, he sees this erratic car driving and see it plow into a tree. He calls the police, and she ends up becoming his alibi as he becomes here finance. She has anemias and he know shes in trouble when he sees her house torn apart and knows someone is coming for her.
As the pages turn, and the story goes on, I find it sweet how he starts to realize how much hes starting to care for Julie. How he hates lying to her and her family, and the fact that she lights up his life and takes away the pain from his deceased wife. He also realizes that murder wasn't the answer. And while he's glad he didn't do anything to harm anyone, when the man he was suppose to kills, girlfriend shows up in their grief class. He realizes, it doesn't matter how big of scum a guy is, there are people in his life that care for him, and Nick realizes he doesn't want to be the one to take that way. Allow the law to handle it.
Of course, we know where this leads, she is chased by the people after her, and starts to get her memories back. Which she realizes, she doesn't know Nick. . . and that of course hurts worse of all.
While I'd like to say that it's your typical Happily Ever After, it isn't. So you'll have to read and find out what happens. Will all the questions surrounding the story come to light? Will they find out who actually killed that man? What about the rest of the men? Will Julie get stuck in the family business forever? Will her sister continue to be spoiled rotten while her and her brothers pick up the slack?
And will she find her forever love with Nick? Or will Nick end up in jail for attempting to plan a murder he didn't commit?
August 25, 2018
This Harlequin Intrigue Romance was a quick read and fulfilled my Bingo card slot for a Romance Novel published in 2018. I have read 12 books so far for this challenge - a full Bingo card is 25 books so I am almost halfway there! The Summer Romance Bingo Challenge ends August 31st and that is OK - its impossible for me to read 25 books in 3 months so I don't mind if it takes longer. Desperate Strangers by Carla Cassidy is about Julie Peterson, who works at her family's pawn shop and Nick Simon, a high school football coach. They meet unexpectedly when Julie's car crashes near him and he rescues her. As a result of the accident, Julie has amnesia and doesn't realize she and Nick have just met. Nick poses as Julie's fiancé as an alibi for a crime he did not commit; however, someone is threatening Julie's life and only Nick can protect her.
October 26, 2025
I thought this book had a lot of holes as far as believability. How can you claim to be a fiance when your phone number wouldn't be in their phone? Why would you ask questions that a fiance would already know? I didn't understand the last page of the epilogue. Don't want to spoil for anyone. But the first chapter compared to the last page was confusing.
April 16, 2018
Started a little slow but then it grabs you. Awesome read
May 3, 2018
She did it again
Good read. Read in about 4 hours. Love all of Carla Cassidy's books. Looking for the next book in the series!
Good read. Read in about 4 hours. Love all of Carla Cassidy's books. Looking for the next book in the series!
May 24, 2021
This story didn’t work for me.
There was too much cliche twists and a bunch of poor plot lines. I didn’t like how the final dramatic twist worked.
The characters felt hard to like, and I didn’t feel their chemistry or their romance at all.
There was too much cliche twists and a bunch of poor plot lines. I didn’t like how the final dramatic twist worked.
The characters felt hard to like, and I didn’t feel their chemistry or their romance at all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews