Book Blurb
BY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR HM WARD
Money. Power. Sex.
The trifecta every man strives for and very few attain. I had these things and walked away from the endless stream of women, from the family fortune, from everything. It was all mine in a life long forgotten. The past can't stay buried forever and hiding mine from Sidney is getting harder. I'm not the guy she thinks, and if she knows the truth I risk losing her.
The thing is, I feel those old ways pulling me back, and if Sidney is part of my life she has to know. If she doesn't it could destroy us both.
The truth won't set me free. No matter what my name is, I'll always be a Ferro. But Sidney has a choice and I won't steal it from her.
Genre: New Adult Romance
This story unfolds over multiple volumes approx. 125 pages each.
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Toot's Review
Life Before Damaged by H.M. Ward is a new series and prequel of sorts to her widely popular Damaged story about the infamous playboy and sexaholic Pete Ferro turned English Professor Peter Granz, that we first meet in Damaged. When we meet Peter in Damaged, he’s completely changed his life from what the world knows him to be and he’s in hiding. He’s living a quiet life, working as an English Professor and he eventually falls in love with one of his students, Sydney. As their love story unfolds and secrets are revealed, we slowly learn that Peter is actually better known as Pete, one of the infamous Ferro brothers and more specifically, the one that has gone MIA. Although Damaged is a great NA series about love and redemption, we never really get the whole back story as to what lead up to why he decided to leave his old life behind and why, specifically, he decided to take the last name of a girl he was in love with, to pay homage to her and thus Life Before Damaged was born.
So just to clear all my dribble up, Life Before Damaged is about the younger Pete Ferro, Gina Granz and the circumstances leading up to his current incarnation of Peter Granz, College Professor and fiancé to Sydney.
This first volume to the new series starts with Peter going through some old boxes in the house that he shares with Sydney, only to find some journals written by Gina about her life with Pete Ferro. He decides that if he is to embrace this new version of himself and have a real chance with Sydney, he needs to come clean about his past. Even though she knows somethings about his past, there’s nothing like reading about it from someone who lived it. So he asks her to read the journals and so begins our history lesson on the man, the myth named Pete Ferro.
The entire story from then on is told as sort of a diary/journal entry of sorts. It’s not really told like some books I've read where it really feels like you’re reading someone’s diary/journal, it more just has chapter titles with dates and times, then proceeds to read more like a normal story from one POV. Although, I must say, at times it does get a bit wordy on the descriptions (which I don’t think normal people do when they do journal entries?) but like I said, it is supposed to be a journal, so it is from Gina's POV, so maybe she likes to describe every little thing? Other than that, it’s still a good start to the story. This first volume is mainly focused on world building and backstory filling while trying to set up the next volumes to come although in classic H.M. Ward fashion, she's already setting up the secrets, twists, turns and yes, cliffhangers!
One thing H.M. Ward is fabulous at is setting up secrets, it’s the only way I can say it. If you’ve read her, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, I just don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes it’s with a look or a twist in the story and you are blindsided with a 2x4 as reader but then when you think back on it, you’re like, damn why didn’t I see that and she definitely doesn’t disappoint in this story. Pete is being a typical Ferro until he is put directly in Gina’s path and you think it’s just happenstance but when you finish the book you’re thinking to yourself.......was it really?
It’s a great start to what promises to be another great Ferro tale and one her fans have been dying to know!
4 out of 5 stars
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