Wild Card, an all-new contemporary STANDALONE by New York Times Bestselling author Karina Halle is available NOW!!!

Wild Card is a standalone novel and the first book in the North Ridge Trilogy about rough and rugged Canadian mountain men, the Nelson brothers. Canada’s never felt so hot.

She swore she’d never go back home.

She swore she’d never see the man who broke her all those years ago.

But you don’t always get to choose your path.

And sometimes that path is as wild and rugged as the heart.

Rachel Waters thought she saw the last of the small mountain town of North Ridge, British Columbia, when she left six years ago. But while her advertising career blossomed beneath the skyscrapers of Toronto, her mother’s sudden illness has the 26-year old returning to North Ridge to care for her, putting her career on hold while dealing with family secrets, regrets and unresolved goodbyes.

Shane Nelson has always been a bit of a wild card. The youngest of three brothers, Shane’s spent most of his life being underestimated and misunderstood. With his quiet intensity, classic good looks and thoughtful demeanor, he’s an enigma on horseback, managing his father’s sprawling ranch on the slopes of North Ridge.

But while Shane remains the quintessential brooding cowboy, complete with an arsenal of inner demons, all of that changes when Rachel steps back into his life.

She was the girl he pushed away.

Now she’s the girl who wishes she could leave.

Despite the odds, Shane will do everything to convince Rachel he needs a second chance that he doesn’t deserve but when the two of them head off into the wilderness together in search of lost cattle, more than just their hearts are at stake.

Whether it's love or lives on the line, one thing is for sure: always bet on the wild card.

Read Today!

**ARC provided in exchange for an honest review**

"I wasn't drowning in the memories-I was dying in them. And every single thing I felt for her? It came rushing back, a flash flood of desire and pain that nearly blindsided me."

I can always depend on Karina Halle to come up with a great romance story. It doesn't matter if it's a dark, suspenseful, funny or contemporary romance. Wild Card was a very beautiful second-chance contemporary romance. I have read a lot of those and was looking forward to see how the author would differentiate this story from all the rest. I think the main way she did it was with the personalities and actions of the characters. They didn't make the obvious decisions in certain situations.

"Love isn't a chain, Rachel. It's not a shackle. Love is what sets you free, love doesn't confine. What I feel for you...it's wild and it's raw an it's as real as that sun above us."

I either hate or love flashbacks in books. And I was really happy that they were included in this book, because it enforced my believe in their love. Without the flashbacks the story would be missing a lot and it would be harder for me to connect to the characters. Thankfully, they weren't too long and actually added to the story. It was obvious that the love between Shane and Rachel was still alive, maybe a bit broken but not unfixable. However, it wasn't easy for them to overcome their obstacles and I could really feel the pain of both characters. What I also enjoyed reading was the interaction of the main characters with the secondary characters, such as Shane's brothers Maverick and Fox. Especially Shane and Fox have a very complicated relationship, and I am looking forward to learning more about that in the next books.

"Rachel, I love you. I loved you then, I love you now, and I loved you in all the light and darkness in-between. I love you with a wildness I can't tame."

I really loved Shane and Rachel's personalities and they made such a great couple. Wild Card in my opinion was a great first book in the North Ridge series, and I can't wait for Fox and Maverick's stories. This book helped me get out of my month long book slump. There was no unnecessary drama thrown into the story to add angst, so I really appreciate that. All the decisions made by the characters made sense for them, and that is how it suppose to be. Wild Card was another solid contemporary romance by one of my favorite authors Karina Halle!

Karina Halle is a former travel writer and music journalist and The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling author of The Pact, Love, in English, The Artists Trilogy, Dirty Angels and over 20 other wild and romantic reads. She lives on an island off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and her rescue pup, where she drinks a lot of wine, hikes a lot of trails and devours a lot of books. Halle is represented by the Root Literary and is both self- published and published by Simon & Schuster and Hachette in North America and in the UK.