RiverTime [Kindle Edition]

Rae Renzi (Author)

Book Description

Casey Lord needs a break. Her great-on-paper boyfriend, Reed, is pressuring her to marry him—but she's not sure if he sees her merely as an asset to help his political career. A river-rafting trip in the remote wilderness provides the perfect opportunity to clear her head. Until a flash flood sweeps Casey away from her group—and straight into the arms of Jack, a mysterious man also stranded by the flooding river.

Jack won't tell Casey his last name, and her innocent questions about his life are met with evasive answers. Yet they have to trust each other to survive, and as the pair await rescue, their uneasy truce slowly blossoms into friendship—and love. They agree to keep secret whatever differences may separate them in the real world.

When rescue finally arrives, will it spell an end to their budding relationship or can they find a way to stay in RiverTime?

84,200 words

Product Details

• File Size: 481 KB
• Print Length: 266 pages
• Publisher: Carina Press (February 14, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004K1F7TY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #590,798 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Skillfully plotted thrill ride and romance July 13, 2011

By Barbara J. Longley

Format:Kindle Edition

When I began reading Rae Renzi's RiverTime, it struck me as a "couple falls in love during traumatic adventure" kind of story. Casey is washed down the river during a flash flood, barely surviving, only to jump back in to rescue Jack, who is unconscious and stuck between two boulders. Great Scenario just by itself, but the story is so much more. This tale started out like one of those innocuous rides at an amusement park. You know the ones I mean. They appear to be tame, and then once you're in the middle with no way off, you realize it's not tame at all!

Rae Renzi skillfully hooks the reader with surprising plot twists and turns, just like the river where everything started for Jack and Casey.

I read it in two days. That's how much I enjoyed it. Couldn't put it down.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars What happens on the River Stays on the River...except... March 16, 2011

By akb--bookworm VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition

Casey Lord runs for the river when her theoretically perfect boyfriend, Reed, starts pushing for a wedding date. While rafting in the Grand Canyon, she is swept away during a flash flood. When the water recedes, she's able to get to dry land but also spots a man floating face down in the water. Casey jumps into action pulling him out and ends up with a buddy on her survival adventure awaiting rescue. Jack is evasive, but soon starts to buck up and help around their make-shift camp. When friendship blooms to romance, neither is sure they really want to be rescued after all, but have no real choice when a chopper finally locates them and sweeps them back to civilization. Now what's to come of them?

RIVER TIME packed more of a punch than I was expecting. Only the first 19 chapters out of 48 take place on the River. Casey and Jack are stranded for about 2 weeks and decide to follow the old Vegas adage that what happens in "river time" (i.e. while stranded on the river) stays on the river. Since they both feel free of their normal life and their normal restraints, they both fall head over heels for the other. However; once they return Casey wasn't prepared at all to face who Jack really is and what his lifestyle could mean to her. Feeling shocked and betrayed since Jack didn't even remotely hint at his life back home, Casey is determined to forget him and move on.

This is a hard story to review because it covered so many issues and emotions. The first part of the story on the river didn't really work for me. We don't know anything about Jack because we learn the truth about him right along with Casey. He comes off as a jerk during most of the river time, but slowly relaxes. Even though we see the two bonding while exploring, fishing, cooking, building, etc., I just couldn't buy into his sudden declaration that he loves Casey. One minute they are sitting there preparing dinner talking about Casey's boyfriend and then the next Jack says "I just had an epiphany. I love you." Then the next day Casey decides she loves him, too. But I just couldn't buy into it: Jack never shares about himself so I kept thinking "yeah, you guys get along and are doing all these things together, but who is he? Do you really know each other?" I know it's all part of the romance, but I just rolled my eyes at it and told myself to keep reading. I didn't buy into their love until they returned home. That was when I truly started to believe.

I was glad when the author brought them back to reality and they were forced to work and fight for their relationship. Casey is completely shocked when she learns about who Jack really is. She's hurt and decides to go back to her old life and continue on like nothing's changed. This is the point in the story where I couldn't stop reading. Things got messy, complicated, and intense.

The secondary characters added depth and believability to the story. I loved Casey's best friend Ditsy and Jack's twin brothers Justin and Nocona. They helped keep things real and remind Casey and Jack they were playing with fire. The manipulations of Reed and Ramona kept the tension high, but they don't hold a candle to Reed's boss, Senator Patricia Carr.

RIVER TIME doesn't follow any generic or standard romantic formulas and felt very real for it. Things got messy, and nothing was black and white. At times I didn't know how I felt about things since issues like infidelity, blackmail, and attempted murder crept up: all issues that aren't always comfortable to deal with.

All in all RIVER TIME was a great story, albeit something completely different than what I was expecting. I expected a sweet, romantic story about love found during survival. What I got was a realistic romance about love found during survival and strengthened in the real world.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Read February 14, 2011

By LAS Reviewer

Format:Kindle Edition

From cover to cover, RiverTime is riveting. Whether in `river time' or real time, when Casey and Jack are together, it is magic time. Survivers from a flash flood on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Casey and Jack ignore baggage of the past, realize the tenuousness of the future, and concentrate on surviving in the present. Casey's innate open curiosity as a social scientist and Jack's secretiveness create a unique atmosphere that makes the reader feel `in-on-the-know' with each new tidbit of information gleaned from the actions, conversations, and inner thoughts.

The imagery, metaphors, and delectable candy comparisons add richness to the story that feeds the imagination, heightens the senses, and often tickles the funny bone. The adrenaline-pumping beginning is a foreshadowing of the strength and underlying fortitude of both Casey and Jack, truly heroine and hero. Even with their flaws and fears, each withstands the slings and arrows of real time when the magical river time is no more.

RiverTime is packed with a fun cast of secondary characters like Casey's true friend, the politically incorrect Ditsy, that looks like a "goddess of fire" to Nocona, Jack's brother and security guard. Justin, Nocona's twin who is also a security guard, plays a subtle role that charms women. Both Nocona and Justin share a past with Jack that makes them never-failing friends with a super understanding of the foibles of human beings.

Reed, with his controlling ways and deceitful acts is a secondary character that creates a firestorm as he tries to bend every thing and every body to suit his own, self-centered wants. Ramona runs him a close second as she runs roughshod over whomever she needs to in order to get what she wants. But neither of them can hold a light to Senator Patricia Carr and her machinations.

The glorious, enormous, cathedral-like canyon where Casey and Jack stay during their `river time' nurtures their undeniable soul mate connect that seems impossible to make work in real time. As love finds a way through thorny, emotional, and often heartbreaking conflicts, the reader is engulfed in the maelstrom of events almost as scary and swift as the flash flood that set in motion the awesome RiverTime love story that looks at the worst and the best of what people can be.

Rae Renzi's RiverTime is a gripping, breathtaking, beautifully told tale. Thanks to this new author for a spellbinding, vicarious adventure.

Originally posted at The Long and Short of It Romance Reviews

More About the Author

By night, Rae Renzi (pseudonym) is a writer of adventure romance and urban fantasy; by day she battles in the frontiers of brain-behavior science. She has an undergrad degree in biology and a Ph.D in cognitive neuropsychology from Rice University. She has published numerously in non-fiction but only recently became entranced with writing fiction, which she views as a super-adaptive way to deal with life's little ups and downs. She loves to cook, garden, ride horses and bike, and lives in Houston, Texas in a bungalow set in an urban garden of Eden. RIVERTIME, a 2011 EPIC finalist, is her debut novel.