Get ready for NYT Bestselling Author Lexi Ryan’s new
series Here and Now! The first novel in the series, LOST IN ME, is a sexy New Adult
contemporary romance released April 7th!
The
Here and Now Series By Lexi Ryan
“Do you know what retrograde amnesia is? Because I just learned about it and I have this story idea…” This was few years ago on call with my critique partner. The conversation was supposed to be about the book I was finishing, but I was distracted by this shiny new story idea.
The kernel of the idea was there, born from my fascination with retrograde amnesia. A woman wakes up in the hospital and is engaged to a man she remembers (though she doesn’t remember getting engaged…doesn’t remember anything from the last year, in fact). She’s in the days approaching her wedding…but there’s this other guy. This guy who seems to know things about her life that no one else does. This guy who’s in love with her and doesn’t want her to marry her fiancé. This guy she doesn’t remember and yet feels connected to somehow.
I carried this kernel of a story idea with me. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it or whose story it was. I never know much about my plot when I start writing. Instead, I start with emotion and character, and I was fascinated with how it would feel to wake up and think you had to perfect life, think you’d finally gotten everything you wanted…but have no memory of how you got there.
Meanwhile, I was also carrying the character of Hanna with me. Hanna who has struggled with her weight her whole life, who’s totally in love with a guy she grew up with but believes herself to be completely unworthy. I met Hanna while I was first writing Maggie’s story (now Unbreak Me), and I knew from the beginning she needed her own story.
Then, one day while I was writing a scene in Wish I May that had Hanna pining for Max, the puzzle pieces floating around in my head clicked together. Since I’d already written about Max and already “met” Asher’s musician friend Nate Crane in my mind (I know, writers are weird), the rest of the premise fell into place. I knew not only that I needed to write this sexy amnesia love triangle for Hanna but that it had so many twists and turns it was going to take me more than one book to tell it. And so the Here and Now series was born—a series where the main character has to choose between the two incredibly sexy guys that want her. How do you make the right choice for your future when you can’t remember your own secrets?
I hope you’ll check out Lost in Me, book one of the Here and Now series.
Excerpt
When Asher leaves the stage, Nate stays behind, strumming chords to a song I don’t recognize. He lifts his gaze. For five painful beats of my heart, our eyes lock. There’s so much in his eyes. Pain, anger, frustration. I see it all there before he refocuses on his fingers and starts to croon the lonely lyrics of his song.
I’m nobody’s hero, baby. Try not to fall too deep.
I’m nobody’s angel, love, but you were crying in your sleep.
I’m useless, empty, nothing, sugar. Wait around and then you’ll see.
You thought you’d find your answers, but now you’re lost in me.
The words tap into me, loosening something in my chest until I feel like anyone looking at me can see my confusion and the inexplicable aching of my heart.
And when he lifts his head and watches me as he sings the last verse of his song, I don’t move. I don’t hide from those eyes that know too much. I don’t run from that face that could destroy my whole world. I stand transfixed, the words rolling through my veins like they’re part of my blood.
After he strums the final chords, he puts down his guitar and leaves the stage without explanation or promise to return.
My feet are following him before I’ve decided what to do. He heads up the stairs and out back, through the French doors and onto the patio, where he keeps going until he hits the path in front of the river.
He’s trying to escape me. I should be happy, right? The past can stay in the past, and whatever mistake I made with this rocker can be left behind with it.
But I can’t let him walk away without answers.
“Stop!” I rush down to the river, my heels sinking into the rain-softened earth.
“Who are you?”
He turns slowly, the confusion back on his face. “Is that supposed to be funny?
Pretending there was nothing between us wasn’t enough? You need to pretend you don’t even know who I am?”
“I—” Oh my God. The hurt in his eyes. “I don’t know who you are,” I say carefully. “But maybe I should? I was injured and I have amnesia, so I honestly don’t know you.” And if that doesn’t sound like a line from a Lifetime movie,
I’m not sure what does.
“Amnesia? You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not.” He starts toward me, and I hold out a hand to stop him. “I’d prefer you to stay over there. Please.”
He pulls back, watching me. “Amnesia,” he repeats.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t know who I am.” It’s not a question—more a realization.
“I don’t know who you are or why you would crawl into my bed in the middle of the night. I don’t understand why—” My breath catches and fat, hot tears spill onto my cheeks. Suddenly this is just all too much. “I don’t understand,” I repeat, and leave it at that.
“You don’t remember anything? Do you know who you are?”
“Yeah. I remember everything up until about a year ago, but the last eleven months are just…gone.”
He drags a hand through his hair, and I’m struck again by how gorgeous he is.
Dark messy hair, dark intense eyes. His T-shirt clings to his sculpted arms.
Tattoos peek out from the sleeves. No matter how hard I look, I can’t remember being with him. So why do I have this feeling in my chest like my heart knows something I don’t?
“Do I know you?” I ask.
He lets out a huff and stares at the starlit sky. “Yeah. You do.” When he drops his gaze back to meet mine, his eyes are moist with unshed tears. “I’m the idiot who’s in love with you.”
In love with me? “But I’m engaged.”
“I saw that,” he whispers, his gaze flicking back to my hand. “Can I ask? Did that happen before or after the amnesia?”
“Before.”
“Fuck.” The word isn’t screamed or thrown like a stone. He breathes it—exhaling the sound like so much disappointment.
To me, Nate’s a stranger, but to him, I’m…what?
We just stare at each other, him looking heartbroken and angry, me trying to piece it all together in my head and make some sense of this. I’m engaged to Max Hallowell. I’m not the kind of girl who would get engaged to one guy when she’s been sleeping with another.
Am I?
LOST IN ME
is on SALE for just .99 cents the first week of release as a fan appreciation
from the author!
LOST IN ME is the
first book in the Here and Now series, a spin-off of the New York
Times and USA Today bestselling New Hope series. This
sexy amnesia love triangle is intended for mature readers.
The last thing I remember is having drinks at Brady’s
and trying to avoid eye-contact with my life-long crush—the gorgeous,
unattainable Maximilian Hallowell. They tell me that was a year ago, but I have
no memories of anything since then. What I do have is this ring on my finger
that Max says he gave me, and this much-thinner body I’ve dreamed of most of my
life. Aside from a case of retrograde amnesia, everything seems almost…perfect.
But the deeper I immerse myself into this new world of
mine—planning a wedding to a man I don’t remember dating, attempting to run a
business I don’t remember starting—the clearer it becomes that nothing is as it
seems. Do I have the life I’ve always wanted or is it a facade propped up by
secrets I don’t even know I have?
I need answers before I marry Max, and the only person
who seems to have them is the angry, tatted, sexy-as-sin rocker Nate Crane. And
Nate wants me for himself.
LOST IN ME is not a standalone novel, as the story
continues in Here and Now book two, FALL TO YOU, releasing in June.
“Do you know what retrograde amnesia is? Because I just learned about it and I have this story idea…” This was few years ago on call with my critique partner. The conversation was supposed to be about the book I was finishing, but I was distracted by this shiny new story idea.
The kernel of the idea was there, born from my fascination with retrograde amnesia. A woman wakes up in the hospital and is engaged to a man she remembers (though she doesn’t remember getting engaged…doesn’t remember anything from the last year, in fact). She’s in the days approaching her wedding…but there’s this other guy. This guy who seems to know things about her life that no one else does. This guy who’s in love with her and doesn’t want her to marry her fiancé. This guy she doesn’t remember and yet feels connected to somehow.
I carried this kernel of a story idea with me. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it or whose story it was. I never know much about my plot when I start writing. Instead, I start with emotion and character, and I was fascinated with how it would feel to wake up and think you had to perfect life, think you’d finally gotten everything you wanted…but have no memory of how you got there.
Meanwhile, I was also carrying the character of Hanna with me. Hanna who has struggled with her weight her whole life, who’s totally in love with a guy she grew up with but believes herself to be completely unworthy. I met Hanna while I was first writing Maggie’s story (now Unbreak Me), and I knew from the beginning she needed her own story.
Then, one day while I was writing a scene in Wish I May that had Hanna pining for Max, the puzzle pieces floating around in my head clicked together. Since I’d already written about Max and already “met” Asher’s musician friend Nate Crane in my mind (I know, writers are weird), the rest of the premise fell into place. I knew not only that I needed to write this sexy amnesia love triangle for Hanna but that it had so many twists and turns it was going to take me more than one book to tell it. And so the Here and Now series was born—a series where the main character has to choose between the two incredibly sexy guys that want her. How do you make the right choice for your future when you can’t remember your own secrets?
I hope you’ll check out Lost in Me, book one of the Here and Now series.
Excerpt
When Asher leaves the stage, Nate stays behind, strumming chords to a song I don’t recognize. He lifts his gaze. For five painful beats of my heart, our eyes lock. There’s so much in his eyes. Pain, anger, frustration. I see it all there before he refocuses on his fingers and starts to croon the lonely lyrics of his song.
I’m nobody’s hero, baby. Try not to fall too deep.
I’m nobody’s angel, love, but you were crying in your sleep.
I’m useless, empty, nothing, sugar. Wait around and then you’ll see.
You thought you’d find your answers, but now you’re lost in me.
The words tap into me, loosening something in my chest until I feel like anyone looking at me can see my confusion and the inexplicable aching of my heart.
And when he lifts his head and watches me as he sings the last verse of his song, I don’t move. I don’t hide from those eyes that know too much. I don’t run from that face that could destroy my whole world. I stand transfixed, the words rolling through my veins like they’re part of my blood.
After he strums the final chords, he puts down his guitar and leaves the stage without explanation or promise to return.
My feet are following him before I’ve decided what to do. He heads up the stairs and out back, through the French doors and onto the patio, where he keeps going until he hits the path in front of the river.
He’s trying to escape me. I should be happy, right? The past can stay in the past, and whatever mistake I made with this rocker can be left behind with it.
But I can’t let him walk away without answers.
“Stop!” I rush down to the river, my heels sinking into the rain-softened earth.
“Who are you?”
He turns slowly, the confusion back on his face. “Is that supposed to be funny?
Pretending there was nothing between us wasn’t enough? You need to pretend you don’t even know who I am?”
“I—” Oh my God. The hurt in his eyes. “I don’t know who you are,” I say carefully. “But maybe I should? I was injured and I have amnesia, so I honestly don’t know you.” And if that doesn’t sound like a line from a Lifetime movie,
I’m not sure what does.
“Amnesia? You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not.” He starts toward me, and I hold out a hand to stop him. “I’d prefer you to stay over there. Please.”
He pulls back, watching me. “Amnesia,” he repeats.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t know who I am.” It’s not a question—more a realization.
“I don’t know who you are or why you would crawl into my bed in the middle of the night. I don’t understand why—” My breath catches and fat, hot tears spill onto my cheeks. Suddenly this is just all too much. “I don’t understand,” I repeat, and leave it at that.
“You don’t remember anything? Do you know who you are?”
“Yeah. I remember everything up until about a year ago, but the last eleven months are just…gone.”
He drags a hand through his hair, and I’m struck again by how gorgeous he is.
Dark messy hair, dark intense eyes. His T-shirt clings to his sculpted arms.
Tattoos peek out from the sleeves. No matter how hard I look, I can’t remember being with him. So why do I have this feeling in my chest like my heart knows something I don’t?
“Do I know you?” I ask.
He lets out a huff and stares at the starlit sky. “Yeah. You do.” When he drops his gaze back to meet mine, his eyes are moist with unshed tears. “I’m the idiot who’s in love with you.”
In love with me? “But I’m engaged.”
“I saw that,” he whispers, his gaze flicking back to my hand. “Can I ask? Did that happen before or after the amnesia?”
“Before.”
“Fuck.” The word isn’t screamed or thrown like a stone. He breathes it—exhaling the sound like so much disappointment.
To me, Nate’s a stranger, but to him, I’m…what?
We just stare at each other, him looking heartbroken and angry, me trying to piece it all together in my head and make some sense of this. I’m engaged to Max Hallowell. I’m not the kind of girl who would get engaged to one guy when she’s been sleeping with another.
Am I?
About the Author
Once a college English professor, I now write full
time. I live in rural Indiana, where, when I’m not writing, I get to hang out
with my husband and two kids–a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old hellion, er,
girl. Not surprisingly, reading and writing remain my favorite activities,
though both come in bits and pieces these days, not the big hunks of time I
enjoyed before I had children. When I’m feeling virtuous, I like to go running
(I use that word liberally. I’m really, really slow) or do yoga. Don’t worry,
I’m always careful to balance out such activities with a hearty serving of ice
cream or a chocolate martini.
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