Life can feel like a cruel joke. I grew up poor and motherless, with a father who never got over his wife’s abandonment. But now he’s gone too, and I’m dead set on finding the woman who so carelessly tossed me aside when I was a baby.
I want revenge. And I’m going to get back at my mother any way that I can.
I change my name. Start my new life in college, and just happen to cross paths with the … cross paths with the gorgeous, ultra-rich Rhett Montgomery. He’s immediately interested in me, not that I’m surprised.
You see, I planned it that way. I meant for him to find me. He’s the one connection to my mother, and I’m using him, so I can destroy her. But I didn’t plan on Rhett being so charming. Sweet. Sexy.
And I definitely didn’t plan on falling for him either…
more
HER DEFIANT HEART is the first instalment in Monica Murphy’s contemporary, new adult DAMAGED HEARTS romance trilogy focusing on college students Rhett Montgomery, and Jennifer ‘Jensen’ Fanelli.
Told from first person point of view (Jensen) using preesent day and memories from the past, HER DEFIANT HEART follows our heroine as she sets a plan into motion to destroy the mother she knew nothing about. At almost two years of age Jennifer Fanelli lost her mother when the woman she no longer remembers walked away without looking back. Years of hardship and her father’s inability to let go of the past found our heroine planning to confront the woman her destroyed her life, beginning with befriending a young man she knows to be her mother’s step-son. Enter Rhett Montgomery, fellow college student and all-around popular guy, and the man with whom Jen would fall in love. What ensues is Rhett’s pursuit of the woman he knows as Jensen, and the potential fall-out as Jennifer’s secrets are about to be revealed.
Jensen, as she calls herself, struggles on a daily basis but having battled an alcoholic father for most of her life, wants revenge against the woman who broke her father’s heart. Getting close to Rhett Montgomery meant one step closer to her ultimate goal but Jensen never thought she would lose her heart along the way.
The relationship between Jensen and Rhett is one of immediate attraction although Jensen never expected to lose her heart to the man in question. Rhett is the perfect boyfriend, not what Jensen thought him to be, which makes her ambition to destroy her mother’s life, that much more questionable and confusing. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate, without the use of over the top, sexually graphic, language and text.
The world building focuses on the growing lies Jensen tells to keep secret about the path upon which she has embarked. We learn how Jensen’s earlier years were filled with a mother’s rejection, a father’s loss of control, and a childhood marred by emotional abuse, and thoughts of being unwanted and unloved. Jaded and tired our heroine battles between head and heart wondering if vengeance is the most important direction in her life.
HER DEFIANT HEART is a story of struggle and rejection; hatred and vengeance; secrets, lies and moving on from the past. The premise is heart breaking; the characters are broken, colorful and charismatic; the romance struggles with Jensen’s inability to let go of the past.