Review: The Outskirts by T.M. Frazier

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Outskirts Duet #1
Release - September 10, 2017
Genre - Contemporary Romance
Dual POV - 1st person
Heat - 4 out of 5
Length - 298 pages

The swamp is about to get a whole lot HOTTER.

After a tragedy, Finn Hollis escapes
into the swamp to be alone.
That is until Sawyer Dixon shows up,
all SCORCHING HOT innocence,
claiming she owns the land less than
fifty feet from his front door.

Sawyer gets under his SKIN, but even worse?
She makes him CRAVE things.
Things Finn hasn’t thought about in a very VERY long time.

Finn WANTS Sawyer gone.
Almost as much as he wants her in his BED.

Find your copy of The Outskirts here:
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FREE with Kindle Unlimited

MY REVIEW

I wish I could give 10 stars to "Huckleberry" and "Tom"!!

T.M. Frazier pulled no punches with this book. We’re caught in the middle of the heart of this story right from the start. These characters were oh so broken. Finn was struggling, isolated and in pain. And the path to his old life seems so very far away.

He’s anything but fine and for two years he hasn’t let anyone in. And then along comes Sawyer. A young woman who carries her own burden of pain, but she radiates her innocence, naivete, wholesomeness and utter goodness for all to see. She brings the missing spark back to Finn’s life.

Suddenly he has to face his own pain. She forces him to start healing without saying a word. She gives him hope and produces feelings inside of him he’s never felt before. As corny as it sounds, she’s the sunshine to his rain.

"I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never even seen anyone like you. These freckles… This mouth… You make me want things, Say. Crave things. Things I haven’t thought about in a long time." - Finn

I’m not sure what about these words captured my attention more than any others. Maybe it was because when he said them, Finn was torn between what and who he wanted and a vague sense of hope for his future and the past that had a stranglehold on his present. Maybe it was because Sawyer was completely unaware of her appeal and Finn was the one to slowly but surely enlighten her. Sawyer grew up in a world that hid her very humanity. She was treated as a second class citizen, in her own words. She didn’t know who she was or hoped to be. And yet she and Finn shared a connection that these words cannot even sum up. I really don’t know what it was, but these words were the ones that spoke to me the loudest.

Finn and Sawyer’s story was a slow build but it was completely worthwhile. I loved seeing this brooding, miserable, hottie of a man turn into the sort of man that his woman needed. And I really enjoyed getting to see Sawyer come a bit into her own and discover some of what she’s been missing. These two together seemed fated. C’mon. Their names alone should tell us that, right?! But the author captured their serendipitous meeting with what I viewed as realistic expectations. This wasn’t love-at-first-sight or even a meeting of friends. However, as ill-timed and as negative as their first encounters were, it eventually grew into something more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.

Frazier has a sweet habit of getting me to love everyone involved in her stories, not just the main characters. I adore Josh and Miller. They added so much to this story, even if it was comic relief because of their non-stop bickering. I hope their relationship finally takes off and they get their own happy beginning. Even Critter is worthy of a mention and I can’t wait to find out more about his role in everyone’s lives. With that ending, I’m anxiously awaiting the release of The Outliers, Book 2 of The Outskirts Duet, which releases in November.