What is Nothing Left to Lose about?
Annabelle Spencer’s life is every girl’s dream. She has wonderful parents, great friends, and of course the perfect boyfriend, Jack Roberts. That all changes on her sixteenth birthday when her life comes crashing down around her. Her dream night turns into a nightmare when Jack is murdered right in front of her, and she’s kidnapped by his murderer, Carter Thomas, a big time drug and arms dealer.
After five months of being with Carter, she’s found, but the experience has totally changed her. She’s no longer the happy-go-lucky girl that everyone used to know and love; she’s now cold, hard and suffers from night terrors. It appears that Carter broke not only her body, but her spirit too. A shadow of her former self, her slogan for life is now: ‘If you don’t care about anything, then you have nothing to lose’.
Carter is currently serving time for the murder of Jack, a conviction that Anna helped secure. But his retrial is coming up because some key evidence appears to have been tampered with. Unbeknown to Anna, death threats are being received by her father, the Senator. It appears that Carter is still interested in Anna and will stop at nothing to get her back.
Ashton Taylor is brought in to protect her. He’s a newly qualified SWAT agent, a bright spark, the agency’s new golden boy. He is assigned undercover, posing as her boyfriend. His job is to help her through college and keep her safe until the end of the trial in eight months’ time.
For three years she has been the broken, damaged girl, refusing to feel emotion or pain, but can Ashton help her rebuild her life and finally deal with the grief of losing her childhood sweetheart? Will he be the one to make her see that life is, in fact, worth living and that not all men will hurt her?
All the while, the shadow of the trial looms over the both of them, taunting them, reminding them that it isn’t over yet. After all, Carter Thomas will stop at nothing to be reunited with his ‘Princess’.
Due to heavy subject matter and sexual content, this book is recommended for ages 17+
What did I think the Nothing Left to Lose?
The book starts off by introducing you to Annabelle "Anna" Spencer, and her boyfriend Jackson "Jack" Roberts, as they wait in line to get into a club (fake IDs in hand), for Anna's 16th birthday. While waiting in line, Anna and Jack are approached by Carter Thomas and his friends, who offers to get Anna into the club without having to wait in the long line. Anna turns down his offer when it becomes clean that Jack is not included in the offer. Once Anna and Jack eventually get into the club, they have a great night, dancing and drinking the night away. As Anna and Jack had decided that her birthday would be the night that they would go all the way, Anna is anxious to leave and enjoy the rest of her night with Jack.Unfortunately, Carter has other plans for how she will spend the night on her birthday. When Anna refuses to leave Jack, Carter takes matters into his own hands and kills Jack in front of Anna and kidnaps her, where she will remain for the next 10 months
Three years later, Anna is free of Carter, however is not free of the nightmares that haunt her as soon as her eyes are closed. Gone is the fun loving 16 year old that she once was. Carter Thomas took everything good from Anna. In her place is a broken girl, who is scared to be touched and hates the attention of men, so she hides her body with loss clothing. To protect herself, she has mastered martial arts and self defence training, so that if she ever comes face to Carter Thomas again, she will be able to protect herself.
"He can't hurt me anymore, no one can. I have nothing left to lose" -Annabelle Spencer
However, this protection mechanism is not limited to Carter. When men touch her, Anna reaches by breaking their nose to ensure that they understand not to touch her again. Sadly, this has caused her to be kicked out of numerous schools over the past two years. With her father running for president, and Anna having one last opportunity to start over at a new school, Anna is introduced to Ashton Taylor, her new near guard and pseudo-boyfriend.
After the death of his parents, Ashton Taylor grew up in foster care, with a rebellious streak in his teenage years, Ashton was on the path to becoming a law breaker, instead he turned his life around and decided to follow the law instead of breaking it. Now Ashton is a bad ass. He has just graduated from the police academy where he finished top in his class, setting 5 out of 7 records. Ashton has aspirations of working for SWAT on the front line, which is highly competitive and hard to get into. Ashton is given the mission of keeping Anna safe for the next 8 months, on the lead up to Carter's re-trail. If Ashton can successfully completed this mission, he will be given a job on the Front Line. The only problem - no near guard has managed to last more then a couple of months.
"All things worth having are worth fighting for" -Ashton Taylor
As soon as Ashton meets Anna, he is enamoured by her, and even though Anna is reluctant to admit it, she finds it hard to resist Ashton. Anna pushes the boundaries as often has possible, often leaving the compound without guards, Ashton realises that he has his hands full if he wants to protect Anna.
"Her eyes only flicked to me for a split second and held no reaction whatsoever before she turned to her father. My heart skipped a beat and my stomach tied in a knot. I wanted to run to her, wrap my arms around her, and tell her everything would be okay. I wanted to make her smile and hear her laugh. Oh fuck it; I really am in deep shit!" - Ashton Taylor
Anna struggles to deal with her feelings and attraction to Ashton, as she still is very much in love with Jack. She feels a lot of guilt over his death as she believes that she is to blame. After all, he was killed so that Carter could have her. As Anna and Ashton need to attend her new school under the guise of boyfriend and girlfriend, Anna has to learn to tolerate Ashton's touch. Anna is surprised to learn that he enjoys Ashton's touch and her body starts to crave the moments when they hold hands, or lock lips. This brings on a whole new layer of guilt for Anna as she feels like she is betraying Jack.
"There was just something about Ashton. He was slowly fixing me, I could feel it. The trouble was though that I actually felt guilty for letting him" - Annabelle Spencer
Then there is Carter Thomas. He is a drug dealer, murdered, and all around bad guy, with a very unhealthy obsession with Annabelle Spencer. While in jail, Carter sends Anna a letter every week, detailing how much he loves her, and that he can't wait to see her when he gets out of jail. Anna never receives these letters, as her father ensures that they are intercepted, so that Anna can continue to live as much of a normal life as possible. How will Anna react when she finds out at her father and Ashton have been keeping the letters secret from her?
"This is why Ashton's here, a SWAT guy. I finally get why he was assigned to me. Carter wants me dead [...]" - Annabelle Spencer
"He doesn't want you dead, Annabelle" -Tom Spencer
"Well what does he want?" - Annabelle Spencer
"He wants you back" - Tom Spencer
"He doesn't want you dead, Annabelle" -Tom Spencer
"Well what does he want?" - Annabelle Spencer
"He wants you back" - Tom Spencer
I originally read Nothing Left to Lose last year, when it was available on Wattpad. I have to start with an admission. I am a little bit obsessed with Kirsty Moseley. She writes the most beautiful love stories ever. I have read every book she has written at least twice! I absolutely love her books, and that why it is so painful to admit that this book kind of let me down. :(
It is not that the writing is bad, because it isn't, AT ALL! As always, Kirsty Moseley writes with a beautiful, flowing style that makes the book easy to read and understand. The main characters and the back story to the characters are brilliant. The book is creative. It provokes emotion from you. So why did I find this book lacking???
On paper this book is brilliant and the concept is compelling and captivating. I mean all you have to do is read the blurb and I think you will agree that the book sounds brilliant before you have even turned one page. So what was the problem?
Let me just clear this up before I continue. I DO NOT think that the book is bad, by any stretch of the imagination! I just found that the book was a little bit too long and the will they, won't they, back and forth was a little drawn out. I think that one thing that really impacted my enjoyment of the book, is that I read it when it was on Wattpad, and I really enjoyed it then, however, before it was published, Kirsty Moseley announced that there were going to be some changes. So the whole way through the book I think I was analysing the book and looking for the alterations, rather than really enjoying the story.
The next book in the series is Enjoying the Chase due to be released in the Spring of next year. This will be about Nate Peters, Ashton's best friend from the Police Academy in LA. I will definitely be reading this book and I am already counting down the days!
