Michelle Hazen returns with the slow-burn romance of an even more unlikely pair: a shy wildlife biologist and a foul-mouthed construction worker.
BREATHE THE SKY (Berkley Trade Paperback; August 18, 2020) again draws on Hazen’s experiences as a wildlife biologist, trauma counselor, and nomad, to tell the story of two damaged people learning to forgive and love again.
In BREATHE THE SKY, Marianna Tucker would much rather spend time with animals than other people. A wildlife biologist and domestic abuse survivor, Mari takes the most remote jobs in the Mojave Desert to avoid human interaction and escape her ex-husband, who convinced her that she wasn’t capable of maintaining a relationship with anyone but him. Her job monitoring wilderness construction sites and protecting the endangered species in the Mojave allows her the simple and quiet life she wants… at least until she is assigned to Jack’s crew. Construction foreman Jack Wyatt is loud, brash, and has no problem making the “tree huggers” assigned to him cry. But after tracking a lost tortoise and catching an exotic lizard together, the two start to see each other in a new light. Jack realizes that Mari is much tougher than she appears, and Mari is sure that Jack is not as mean as he makes out to be.
Mari and Jack’s tentative friendship, built over homemade brownies and HGTV re-runs, soon blooms into a genuine romance that both of them were afraid to want. It turns out that Mari isn’t the only one with a tragic past, and when Jack opens up about his difficult childhood, it seems like they will finally be able to move on and heal together. But even the Mojave sun can’t chase away the shadows of their former lives, as both Jack’s drug-dealing brother and Mari’s abusive ex-husband return, pulling them in directions closer to the trauma of years before and away from each other. Only with courage will they be able to leave behind their backgrounds, hold on to each other, and build a new home together.
Michelle Hazen is a nomad with a writing problem. Years ago, she and her husband ducked out of the 9 to 5 world and moved into their truck. She found her voice with the support of the online fanfiction community, and once she started typing, she never looked back. She has written most of her books in odd places, including a bus in Thailand, an off-the-grid cabin in the Sawtooth Mountains, a golf cart in a sandstorm, a rental car during a heat wave in the Mohave Desert and a beach in Honduras. Even when she’s climbing rocks, riding horses, or getting lost someplace wild and beautiful, there are stories spooling out inside her head, until she finally heeds their call and returns to her laptop and solar panels.
Michelle was awarded first place in the 2015 NTRWA Great Expectations Contest, 2017 Lonestar Contest, and 2017 Linda Howard Award of Excellence in Romantic Suspense. Find her at http://michellehazenbooks.com/ on Facebook at Michelle Hazen, or follow her on Twitter @michellehazen.
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