GOING NOWHERE FAST – Kati Wilde
A Perfect 10
Berkeley Intermix (Digital)
ISBN: 978-0-3995-8525-8
April 2017
Contemporary Romance

Oregon and California – Present Day

To celebrate their graduation from college, Aspen Phillips and her best friend, Bethany Gage, have planned a month-long trip hiking, rafting, and other things in Oregon and California with Bethany's older brother, Bram. But just as Aspen meets up with Bram to start the first leg of the trip, Bethany sends a text message to Aspen that she's bowing out and instead going to enter a drug treatment facility on the Oregon coast. Bethany begs Aspen to not tell the overprotective Bram where she's at. Bram is upset to say the least, especially since Aspen won't divulge his sister's whereabouts. She figures their planned trip is now kaput, but to her surprise, Bram wants it to continue, just the two of them. Bram is wealthy and waves money in front of her to convince her. How can she turn down a free ride to graduate school and a chance at her mother's massive debts being paid off?

In the four years that Aspen has known Bram, he has always looked like he hates her, and she expects the trip will turn out to be one massive mistake that will make her miserable. At first, that turns out to be true as they fight and argue, but that anger Bram expresses soon turns into lust, especially after a day riding with Aspen's cousin's biker gang. They can barely make it back to the campsite before they're having sex. A night of burning hot sex leads to the inevitable conclusion for Aspen and Bram that they're strangely attracted to one another, and the fighting between them only leads to even better makeup sex.

GOING NOWHERE FAST proves that opposites attract for Aspen and Bram, as they find themselves involved in some steamy hot sex while on the trip of a lifetime. Up until now, every time Bram was around Aspen, he made his disapproval known because he's always thought Aspen was a bad influence on Bethany. While the girls do like to party, it was an ex-boyfriend from Bethany's hometown of Seattle who led her into using hard drugs. Now Bethany wants to get clean, but doesn't want to deal with Bram, who would likely be disappointed in her. Bram and Bethany lost their parents eight years ago, leaving Bram, as the oldest, to run the company and raise his sister. This has made him act responsible to the point that he is no fun to be around. He only agreed to the trip with the girls because it was a way for Bethany to relive a fun childhood experience with their parents.

Aspen was raised by her widowed mom growing up in a trailer home, and they have always had to fight hard to earn the money to live on. After Bethany ditched them, Bram took Aspen home, only to end up rescuing her from her brother's drug high buddies who'd taken over the home while her mom was in Vegas. She appreciates Bram's help, but then he turned it around to blackmail her to accept his help. He really wanted to go on the trip…with her? Lurking in Aspen's brain is the realization Bram is sexy and dangerously attractive. He exposes her to the life of someone with money…and she grows to like it…and falls in love with him. But love isn't easy when cultures clash.

GOING NOWHERE FAST is told in the first-person narration of Aspen, but it's done so well that readers will immediately understand what makes her tick, but also get the underlying feelings of Bram. It ended up being a hard to put down story for me, turning out to be one of the best books I've read in April and the reason I have to give it a Perfect 10. It's in eBook form only right now, but I urge you to go to your nearest online bookstore and snag a download of GOING NOWHERE FAST.

Patti Fischer