”Instincts are what keep us safe from fate. Ignoring them can change your life forever.”Fame and fortune arrived overnight and after months on the road with her singing tour, all Estelle craves is peace. Tired and ready for paradise, she travels to Fiji to recuperate.Stubborn and surly, Galloway is avoided by most–which is exactly the way he likes it. However, he’s done spending his life in … he’s done spending his life in regret and hopes to find redemption in the tropical wilderness.
Together, they board the flight that changes their fate forever. Crash landing on a deserted island, they not only have to figure out how to survive with no skills and daily dangers–learning how to fish, find water, and build shelter–but also inherit two children who look to them to keep them alive.
However, staying alive might be the least of Galloway and Estelle’s problems. As days creep to months and rescue doesn’t find them, their desire for each other ignites.
They started as strangers.
They grew to be friends.
They fought the desire to be lovers.
Lust can be the most beautiful thing. Love the most rewarding. But not on an island where life hangs by a thread and giving into temptation can kill you.
Can they survive being forgotten or will love be their ultimate undoing?
From New York Times Bestseller Pepper Winters comes a timeless love story answering the question of what happens when everything is stripped away.
Standalone.
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“I hadn’t listened to the messages…but then again, maybe I had?”
Unseen Messages is the absolute perfect title for this book. Many will become exasperated at Estelle’s seeing so many messages, unheeding them and then seemingly going completely off script and jumping off into a randomless act. But therein, lies the chance that is life and the mystery of it all and the thing that defines us as human. Not because of the messages we do see but messages we don’t – the one’s that cause us the biggest losses but also the biggest wins – to the places and people we truly belong to. Life is a roll of the dice, no matter how much we try to believe we’re in control and fate can be a cruel bitch or a fairy godmother and sometimes she can be both. In this case, she is most definitely both.
Unseen Messages explores all that territory through the choices of six travellers united by one tumultuous plane trip and one disastrous helicopter ride. Galloway Oak, a surly but gorgeous man who can’t seem but be ready to get away from having to mix with others and travel to an island where he will be building with natives, Estelle Evermore, an Aussie songwriter/singer who has found success with her work but is a woman full of uncertainty, missing out on life trapped in her shell as an introvert. And a family of four bearing the same last name as hers – a husband and wife traveling with their children, Connor and Pippa.
When their ill-fated, spur of the moment helicopter ride goes crashing down on a deserted island only four are alive and all are banged up, injured and left with no creature comfort or anything but the instinct to survive. And slowly and painstakingly, they fight to do just that. When I say slowly, I mean that this book is 590 pages long. It is never dull, but there is a feeling of repetitiveness, sometimes an echo of thoughts already expressed and a daily grind that goes on and on. But I’m not going to put that down as a negative because even though I had to leave the book for a little while, when I found my way back, I fell into the pattern of not knowing whether it would be yet another day of recounting the seemingly similar events of said day or one of peril or one of laughter and then I soon realised the author had swept me in to being stuck on that island with the survivors. That I was experiencing the tedium, the desperateness, the grief, the small triumphs, the endless ebb and flow of the tide line that mocked the characters while they looked out upon the horizon with only one thought: for a way off and the safety of the ‘civilized’ world. Once she had me there, I couldn’t let go. Once she had me there, I fell in love with each one – Connor, then Pippa, Galloway and finally Estelle. I loved them fiercely and fragilely and I worried over them as much as Estelle did and wanted to protect them all as much as Galloway did. There is a true love story here between Galloway and Estelle, but the biggest love story for me was between these four souls and the family they became. And when tragedy or danger would strike, I felt it in every bone in my body. I loved that who they were when they crashed did not define who they became.
Ultimately, to me, this was about family, about finding yourself in the most unlikely of places, and about home – true home, whether that lies in a person or in a place. And yes, maybe succumbing to the Unseen Messages instead of the ones easily read is the path that leads you there.
I loved this book with every piece of my heart and soul and Pepper kept me with her the entire way so I bow to her writing. I could sit here and be a ‘critic’ and nitpick but when you bring me to tears so that I’m sitting hours laters still mourning a fictional boy, still smiling bittersweet at the love and hard won good moments then I feel no need to get hung up on any perceived misstep. If you didn’t have me at ‘Hello’, you sure as hell had me before ‘Goodbye’.
5***** hauntingly, beautiful, clear and shining bright in the night stars.
Loved it! Was a excellent read!
LOVED IT
I am a big Pepper Winter’s fan. She is an excellent writer. She makes you fall in love with her characters. You feel as if you know them. You can experience their joy, heartache, laughter, pain and passion.
This is not a light, quick read. It is an emotional journey about love, loss, acceptance, family and being at peace with who you are. I laughed and cried and cried some more. It was so worth the time to read it!
This was so much deeper and involved than I thought it would be. I really thought it was going to be a light fluffy piece for an afternoon read, but I was absolutely wrong. Although unexpected, I became deeply involved with the characters and cried and celebrated and mourned with them. I feel wrung out, but satisfied, after devouring this book.
I’ll be honest the cover is what caught my eye first and then the blurb and I was hook. Line. Sinker. This definitely was a different style to this author’s writing but no less satisfying and thrilling and a page turner. The couple gets stranded when their plane crashes and it’s the story how they manage to face it and stay safe while learning about themselves. It also shows how love can blossom in the dark. It definitely touched my heart and left me with goosebumps. Worth reading.
I finally FINALLY got round to reading this. I have always loved Peppers words but hesitated to read the story due to the length of the book; I always worried that how a book of this magnitude could be written about crashing on an unihabited island. Whether the story would be sufficient to hold my attention…
That being said, I decided to take the plunge and so glad that I did; once again Pepper took my heart captive, made me fall in love with the characers, made me cry, curse, laugh, love and everything inbetween. Such an emotional journey and one that I have come to expect from this very talented writer. A story of survival, love and family values.
These are characters that will stay with me for eternity. I will definitely reread this again one day!
I loved and enjoyed reading the engaging, heartbreaking, intriguing, outstanding story by the wonderfully talented Pepper Winters.
Estelle receives several unseen messages to not board the plane and ignores them all. She is on a small, uncharted plane with a family with two children and another man, Galloway, when the plane crashes on a deserted island killing the pilot and the both of the children’s parents. Struggling to survive without medical help, food, water, shelter, and the basic necessities is challenging. Galloway figures out a way to start to save some water to drink. Even though everyone works together to try to find food and make some kind of shelter, it is a constant struggle to survive another day on the island.
Read the highly recommended, beautifully written, captivating story of Estelle and Galloway’s survival.
I love everything Pepper Winters puts to paper. Her books pull me in from the first page and hold me there to the very end. Unseen Messages is so much more than 5 stars to me. I fell in love with the characters so so much and didn’t want it to end. It was a long book and I still wanted more. I laughed at parts and oh my God did I cry at others…so hard. For those that read it know of the heartbreak I’m talking about… I’m still thinking about it this morning, knowing that in reality nothing can be 100% perfect, especially considering their circumstances. But I really wanted it to be…I cried and begged for it to not be true. I even put it down in the hopes the words would miraculously change by the time I picked it up again.
The story of Galloway, Estelle, Connor and Pippa is not one I will soon forget. My only regret is having not read it sooner.
Amazing!! Such a beautiful story when all hope is lost. The last thing you’d think to find is found. A must read. Not what you expect but so much more than you hope for. It has all the feels and so much more. So thought provoking you’ll want your own Unseen Messages.
This was a book I didn’t want to end! After a plane crash in the Fijian islands our characters are forced to find a way to survive. There’s love, romance, tragedy, a thoroughly enjoyable read
This book captivated me. I’m not sure if it’s my personal love of tragedy and finding light in the darkness, but I was captivated with this story. Highly recommend.
Had trouble getting into it the first few short chapters but then couldn’t put it down.
Such a good read and so not what I expected. Loved it.
A good story is thought provoking and initiates a dialogue amongst you and your friends, amongst you and your psyche. It’s often asked, if there was a fire , what three things you’d pick before you escaped. Answers range from phone to laptop, to kids to kindle to knife to lighter and even an occasional alpha man.
NONE of this matters. NONE !
Human spirit is tenacious and selfish. Two essential elements to being a survivor .
Estelle Evermore is a budding singer and songwriter. She’s en route home , to Australia after a year of concerts abroad. As she approaches to board her flight , she encounters a number of problems as if Fate is trying to tell her not to board this plane. She believes strongly in premonitions.
Unseen Messages , if you please, but trying to reinvent herself, trying o be more spontaneous , she walks the plank….sort of. On flight she meets Galloway Oak. He’s on to Fiji , running from his monstrous secret and on to do something constructive with his life, kind of a quest for redemption. Their paths collide , along with one more couple- Duncan and his wife , with their two kids Connor and Pippa.
And as it happens when fates collide – lives crash. And How !!!
They all crash on a deserted island.
7 people
4 survivors
3 don’t !
A door closes, a window opens.
A window closes, a car arrives.
A car stops, a plane flies.
A plane lands, a helicopter soars.
A helicopter crashes, life ends.
Life ends, a new world begins.
A new world ends, a person evolves.
A person evolves and finds fear terror ,hunger ,questions ,desperation ,struggle and strife and sadness true happiness
They are a bunch of odd people trying to hold each others hands and hanging on to life by a thread of sheer obstinacy to breathe.
Each hour, each day becomes a battle of wills.
Wills of these 4 to survive and will of mother nature to kill them. They go through everything. And I mean EVERYTHING .
hurricane, rain, fire, injury, hunger, accidents, starvation, thirst, sickness, pain, depression, sadness , deaths, birth…everything. yet they defy logic by steadily breathing .
Because, what else is there to do !
Breathe.
That’s all you have to do. Breathe.
When life shines brightly. Breathe.
When the world turns its back. Breathe.
When nothing works out. Breathe.
When luck favours kindly.
Inhale with hope and exhale with distrust.
Breathe.
That’s all you’ve got.
After all… that’s all you can ever do
This story pushes you to think about yourself. We , who are so esconsed in plump cushions of modern world , dependant upon technology , prepared meals, utilities and amenities , that we lose sight of our inner selves.
The truth that we entered this world with nothing and left with the exact same sum
We actually can exist on land, cut off from the world, living by the land as Stel, G, Pippa and Co do. And so does Coco.
In my humble opinion, this is the BESTEST work of Pepper. As much as I love Q and Jethro, in Estelle , she has created a perfect Eve. Amazonian by nature and Madonna by heart. She stands by her man, scrapes for her family, births and protects her babies, puts everybody else’s needs before her and takes it upon herself to provide food and shelter for her family.
she loves abundantly, Forgives wholeheartedly and accepts unquestionably.
The book also forces you to question as to what really is important in life , what really matters in the end
Small moments of love and happiness captured in life or big branded achievements in life
I’d lost the ability to feel pride of accomplishment and beauty in small things, brushing them under a rug of indifference and the endless desire for more. More wealth, more safety, more friends, more love, more, more, more
So, if someone asked me , what would I pick up in case of emergency escape …I’d say – My will power, my strength and judgement!
That. Is. All
“Love doesn’t live in first glances. Life doesn’t dwell in second chances. Our path exists in unseen messages.”
This book is HUGE, I just checked and saw that it’s 590 pages long. I LOVED every page in this book: the happy, angry, and the sad ones. This book was perfect, it took me back to when I first discovered indie books and read On The Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves (which is also about people being stranded on an island). However this is NOT a TABOO romance book. It was a beautiful coming together of two broken characters who found themselves in each others arms. I pretty much went in blind and didn’t read any reviews after I read the blurb. I love Pepper’s stand-alones and the description of this book was so intriguing that I had to read this it as soon as possible.
“And our lips…they met. She whimpered. She undid me, claimed me, owned my very soul with that whimper.”
This book is about Estelle Evermore and Galloway Oak who meet on a plane and feel a connection/attraction but do not interact. After a rough flight both are stranded in Fiji and can’t travel further to their end destination because of the weather. Both are struggling with their pasts and present lives and after a reckless decision they make they find themselves crashed and really stranded on an island.
“This wasn’t an opportunist fling because of our circumstances. It was a true connection between two people who happened to be thrown together by fate.”
From this moment on it was all about survival. I can’t even imagine how it would be to be stranded on an island without help, and nobody knows where you are. But Pepper Winters did such an amazing job of pulling me in, and having me experience everything in real life. I was on that island with them, I went through the same things they did. There were happy and bad times, I felt and experiences them all. Their love was beautiful and not always easy. They went through so much and I shed tears with them. I can’t explain how much I love this book. It has become one of my favorites and it will stay with me forever. I loved this book from page one till the end. This review doesn’t do justice to how incredible this book is. I recommend this book to EVERYONE!
“And you’ll let me into your goddamn heart because you’re already in mine.”
“I might be the one touching her body, drawing physical desire. But she was the one touching my soul, wrapping strings around my heart and fastening me to her forever.”
“You crashed with me. I fell for you. I love you.”
“Home is where the heart is. Home is where the soul is found. Home is where the good time laugh. Home is where the hard times heal. Home is home and there is no place I would rather be.”
Wow, this book surprised the heck out of me!
I never expected such a detailed story about being stranded on a deserted island. But one look at the page numbers should have clued me in 😉
Reading it felt like watching my own movie unfold in my head. Pepper did an admirable job here!
Unseen Messages pushes a lot of your emotional buttons. A story about survival, love, self-reflection, growing above yourself, second chances as well as life choices and their consequences. Dealing a lot with the question “What if” is what makes this book so real for me.
It’s great to see how the main characters grow each day above themselves. Amazing thing, this will to survive.
Honestly, sometimes I wished it wasn’t so detailed because somewhere in the middle it felt like the story stagnates. But Pepper did a clever job of keeping me as reader glued to the pages. The end felt a little rushed though, but I didn’t mind at all.
This book is not a light read and it keeps your mind busy. So if you are up for a little challenge and love survival romance, you should definitely go for it!
“The following novel is a blend of truth and fable.” I should have realized at that moment how consuming this book and the characters would become.
This book is not your typical Pepper Winters novel. It is not a dark like the Indebted Series yet it is dark in its own way. The situations that are presented are sometimes gut-wrenching, what would you do moments. Do you paying attention to the unseen messages? Do you see what is right in front of your face? What exactly would you do in this situation? Would you make it? This is a book to remind you to put your phone down. Pay attention to the people around you. Enjoy every moment. Live, laugh and love.
Estelle Evermore is a master of lyrics. After having a video of her singing uploaded to YouTube, she is now thrust into the spotlight that she does not want to be in. She has a fear of living and keeps everyone as far away as possible. She sees the signs but chooses to ignore it. Now she’ll spend years trying to make it all right.
Galloway Oak is broken. He is trying desperately to outrun his past. Galloway is trying to make amends for his wrong doings and get to where he needs to be. He just didn’t plan on bringing a helicopter full of people to hell with him.
This book took some time for me to read. I really took my time, enjoyed the story and felt everything right along with Estelle and Galloway. Estelle was absolutely amazing. She was so determined to survive and make life the best she could in the situation they were put into. Galloway put everything out on the line from the start. He made no secret his feelings for Estelle and his determination to take care of everyone was remarkable. Then they fell in love. Once Estelle and Galloway finally get on the same page, their love is incredible. You will feel every single emotion along with them.
There are so many things I want to say about this book. So many things that I cannot say, because I just don’t want to ruin one minute of the story for anyone. I really fell hard for every character in this book. There are books that you read and enjoy but don’t really think about every again. This is NOT that book. This is honestly the first book that I can say that the characters will stick with me forever.
This is totally unlike anything you have read from Pepper Winters before. It was totally unexpected but I enjoyed every minute. If I could go higher than five stars, I would. I highly recommend this book to everyone. You will feel every single emotion that these characters have as it jumps right of the page. There is excitement, heartbreak, love, unhappiness, pain, every single emotion you can think of…and it’s mind-blowing.
I absolutely loved this story!!! I cried, laughed, and felt every emotion there is. I could not put the book down. Loved it!!!
I couldn’t put this book down and I was so sad when it ended. Loved the way the characters grew and changed but stayed true to their inherent nature. Full of trajedy, yes, lives ended and others changed forever but what a wonderful, dream come true ending.
Pepper Winters doesn’t disappoint. I fell in love with these characters, and my love kept growing and changing with them. I laughed, I cried and I cried some more. (And I’ll add that this is the 4th book to bring out my tears. Which is something because I average about two books a week.)
G and Estele’s relationship was moving and with the relationships of the other characters as well. This book will stay with me forever. 5 HUGE stars!