NIGHT OWL – M. Pierce
The Night Owl Trilogy , Book 1
St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN-13:  978-1-250-05823-2
July 2014
Erotic Contemporary Romance

Denver, Colorado

Hannah Catalano is an online writing partner with nightowl, an online name.  Nightowl has several rules, including never trading names, addresses, or even pictures.  He wants them to remain totally fixed on their writing, until she accidentally sends her picture to him.  Nightowl is irate, but Hannah is more upset about leaving her loser boyfriend and moving back to Denver to live with her parents until she can find a job.  Right before she moves, she and nightowl have online sex.  This is so against his rules that he doesn't get back to her for a week.  But, as luck would have it, nightowl also lives in Denver, and has now become obsessed with Hannah.  When nightowl (Matt) gets her a job with his literary agent, Pamela Wing, as a secretary and she gets a chance to do work reading manuscripts, life seems almost magical.

Matt Sky, who has carefully hidden his real name from only a few people, and despite seeming strong to Hannah, is really a fragile soul who has dealt with alcoholism, drug addiction, DUI's and even an attempt at suicide.  Besides writing as M. Pierce, he is also extremely well off, and pretending to be a businessman with Hannah seems unnatural to him.  In addition, his girlfriend Bethany is off on vacation, and he is cheating on her.  But when he breaks up with Bethany because Hannah is becoming more and more important to him, she lets the cat out of the bag and tells the world Matt Sky is really M. Pierce.  He begged Hannah to come over that morning before she heard the news, but she never came and sent him an email telling him never to contact her again.  With people harassing him about his identity and living in a sort of fog, beating up a reporter barely registers in his mind, and he is sinking into a hell of his own making.

When Hannah finds out Matt is really M. Pierce, her favorite writer, and he had a girlfriend while they were together, she cuts off all contact with him, even changing her cell phone number and email address.  She moves to her own apartment but is living only half a life as she is dying inside and can barely live each day.  Matt, however, is completely undone.  He can't concentrate; he writes lists of how to get Hannah back, and he can't write at all.  When his brother talks him into staying at their cabin in New York State, Matt suddenly remembers how much he missed drinking, and proceeds to drink anything and everything that he can.  Truly, losing Hannah has taken away everything from his life; he is a shell of himself.

M. Pierce has presented us with Hannah and Matt, and each chapter is written with alternating viewpoints.  Hannah is fascinated with nightowl, who she soon finds out is really Matthew Sky.  Their love life is filled with passion and the edges of kinky sex.  Matt becomes fixated on Hannah and soon wants to spend every minute with her.  The writing is smooth and fast paced, and you are quickly drawn into each of their stories.

Secondary characters are Pam Wing, Matthew's literary agent, and Nate, his older brother who has taken care of him all his life.

NIGHT OWL is a complex and biting human drama of a man's passion for a woman and what happens when their breakup turns him back to alcoholism and withdrawing so deep inside himself it's almost impossible to get himself back.  LAST NIGHT is the next book in the trilogy and comes out in October.  You will be surprised at how NIGHT OWL ends, and wonder what will happen in the next story.  If you hunger for something different to pique your interest, NIGHT OWL is just the book for you.

Cece Johns