What do you think?
Rate this book
An Unknown Place
Mackayla Montgomery has built walls so high she can't see the outside world anymore. Kellan Freemont is a man on a mission to keep everyone at arm’s length. But when the two collide in an unexpected meeting, their worlds intertwine and build together in a way they never saw coming. Will their past history catch up to them and wreck their fragile relationship? Or will their past push them together?
292 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 14, 2016
1 person want to read
About the author
Felicite Lilly
5 books18 followersFelicite was born in Aurora, Colorado and lived some of her early years in Salt Lake City, Utah. She could ski way before she could walk. She graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with a degree in English/Creative Writing concentration (I know, shocker!). She now lives in Dayton, Ohio with her husband and son. Felicite keeps herself on this side of the padded cell by vegging out on Sherlock Holmes (BBC with Benedict Cumberbatch), reading someone else’s work, playing with her son and exercising (which are sometimes one and the same). She finds joy in the small things in life and wants to do one thing that scares the crap out of her each year.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 6, 2016
Review of An unknown Place. Felicite Lilly.
Before I begin reading another ‘romance’ novel, I need to express a few thoughts on the subject. Bearing in mind there are tens of thousands of aspiring authors in this genre, producing hundreds of thousands of novels, it need to be outstanding before it can hit the headlines and become the next Wuthering Heights or Gone with the Wind.
My observation is that the genre is predominantly written by women who are wishing, with all or part of their being, to live in all or part of the fantasy world they create on paper. There is nothing wrong with that. We all deserve to live our dreams. There is an inherent difficulty in writing a novel like this. It needs to remain a fantasy, unless you are writing a paranormal fiction, but it must also remain believable.
The more perfect the story becomes, the more difficult it is to separate reality from fantasy. The opposite is also true; if the characters stray too far from reality then the reader will feel cheated. If any authors really believed that the gorgeous, well-muscled and often well-hung, almost always a billionaire if not very rich, slightly roguish hero is going to come and sweep them off their feet and whisk them off to the fabulous life of happiness and glamour they have invented, then better she go out and find it in one of the locations in the novel, rather than sit at home and write about it. If she did find her man this way in reality then I am guessing the book list on Amazon would be about half as big as it is now.
The much overused hero; tall, dark, rich, handsome, devilish, dark eyed, dark-haired, misogynist (up to a point) strong, brooding, mysterious, sinister, of dubious background and family problems with an abusive parent, difficult childhood, must be getting tired of appearing in so many novels. I have yet to see a thin, short, blonde, sensitive, fragile, insecure, ill-educated, slightly morose, unambitious man feature in a novel where the strong woman brings him to maturity and molds him to fulfill her own fantasy. Please, one of you write such a novel!
Unless a romance novel is something special, with well-developed, believable characters and a sensible, exciting plot that stays within the realms of realistic fantasy, rather than stepping outside them, then it has a chance of getting through my very tightly drawn guidelines for the genre. As I say, 90% fail miserably. Let’s see if this is one of the 10%. I hope so.
This story relates the exploits of Mac, a twenty something woman who has suffered a traumatic rape in her past and escaped to a quiet life in LA. The hero is a rich brewery mogul who sweeps her off her feet and takes her back to his nefarious family in Maryland. There is inherent danger in doing this since the rapist is still resident in the coincidental home town they share. (is Maryland really that small?)
Spelling, word use, structure and grammar must always be 100% spot on so any failures or defects in either will immediately put me on alert to a badly written book. The excessive use of the verbs, was & had, is also an irritant and is a sign of lazy, ‘I will tell you the story’, writing. Let us begin.
The verb, was, appears 1075 times in this book of 63300 words. It appears 11 times in the 2 page prologue and 30 times in the first 4 page chapter! Had appears over 1100 times in the book. It appears 10 times in the prologue and 41 times in the first chapter. Far too much telling.
As we are all told, a good first line is always important in a novel, so this effort is a bit of a let-down.
I raised my hand to waive down the bartender.
Waive a bartender? Wave. Waive is to forgo or give up on something.
I noted every subsequent error of word usage, spelling and grammar and sadly, got well into double figures. Here are just a few of the more glaring instances; coup should be coop, Suma Cum Lade, should be suma cum laude, without CAPS, shoule instead of should, woah should be whoa, ousted should be outed and so on.
Grammar is more subjective but when you have instances such as these; I wanted tell him it was okay, they didn’t wanted to get involved, I never in a million years would I have guessed I would be… Lynn and I’s story, most officer’s (written as a plural), I called myself into the rug, I wasn’t incapable of sitting still, and this rather convoluted sentence; I’ve known Kellan since I was twenty-two, which I am now almost 30 and fresh out of college, then you can see I had good reason to be critical.
This book needs the skills of a good editor, not just a few beta readers. It has plot holes on the timeline. Kellan’s father drives three hours and arrives within minutes of being called after the kidnapping. Mac relates how she lived in a small apartment in LA and then relates how she lived on the streets for so long.
My main criticism of the book centres on Kellan. He is the typical hero in that he has a regular, almost daily string of sexual partners who he tells before the act that it is just for fun, so that they will not be disappointed when he makes them leave. Of course, all that changes when he meets Mac, the woman who will tame him and place him on the straight and narrow. He is an expert in seduction but somehow allows Mac to give him a blow job and then he returns the favor by going to sleep! He also does so many very stupid things after meeting her that he steps well out of the realms of fantasy straight into a horror story. He is abrupt, rude, angry, has a horrible temper, hits trees until his knuckles bleed for no apparent reason, hits his father for an even weaker reason and then when he finds his house broken into doesn’t have the intelligence to call Mac, who is eating lunch at the time. He calls the police instead.
Sadly, with so many flaws and such a poorly structured hero, who came across as really rather stupid in many instances, I find it difficult to say anything positive about this book. The two-handed POV changes works in some instances but this was not used consistently and quite often Kellan referred to himself as a girl, which confused the issue. The sequential changes in POV abruptly became parallel changes at the end of the story, breaking the rule set by the author.
Without an editor’s skilled touch and some serious re-writing, this book has gone the way of so many of its fellows, into the morass of Amazon’s lost jungle.
Two stars is generous, under the circumstances.
Before I begin reading another ‘romance’ novel, I need to express a few thoughts on the subject. Bearing in mind there are tens of thousands of aspiring authors in this genre, producing hundreds of thousands of novels, it need to be outstanding before it can hit the headlines and become the next Wuthering Heights or Gone with the Wind.
My observation is that the genre is predominantly written by women who are wishing, with all or part of their being, to live in all or part of the fantasy world they create on paper. There is nothing wrong with that. We all deserve to live our dreams. There is an inherent difficulty in writing a novel like this. It needs to remain a fantasy, unless you are writing a paranormal fiction, but it must also remain believable.
The more perfect the story becomes, the more difficult it is to separate reality from fantasy. The opposite is also true; if the characters stray too far from reality then the reader will feel cheated. If any authors really believed that the gorgeous, well-muscled and often well-hung, almost always a billionaire if not very rich, slightly roguish hero is going to come and sweep them off their feet and whisk them off to the fabulous life of happiness and glamour they have invented, then better she go out and find it in one of the locations in the novel, rather than sit at home and write about it. If she did find her man this way in reality then I am guessing the book list on Amazon would be about half as big as it is now.
The much overused hero; tall, dark, rich, handsome, devilish, dark eyed, dark-haired, misogynist (up to a point) strong, brooding, mysterious, sinister, of dubious background and family problems with an abusive parent, difficult childhood, must be getting tired of appearing in so many novels. I have yet to see a thin, short, blonde, sensitive, fragile, insecure, ill-educated, slightly morose, unambitious man feature in a novel where the strong woman brings him to maturity and molds him to fulfill her own fantasy. Please, one of you write such a novel!
Unless a romance novel is something special, with well-developed, believable characters and a sensible, exciting plot that stays within the realms of realistic fantasy, rather than stepping outside them, then it has a chance of getting through my very tightly drawn guidelines for the genre. As I say, 90% fail miserably. Let’s see if this is one of the 10%. I hope so.
This story relates the exploits of Mac, a twenty something woman who has suffered a traumatic rape in her past and escaped to a quiet life in LA. The hero is a rich brewery mogul who sweeps her off her feet and takes her back to his nefarious family in Maryland. There is inherent danger in doing this since the rapist is still resident in the coincidental home town they share. (is Maryland really that small?)
Spelling, word use, structure and grammar must always be 100% spot on so any failures or defects in either will immediately put me on alert to a badly written book. The excessive use of the verbs, was & had, is also an irritant and is a sign of lazy, ‘I will tell you the story’, writing. Let us begin.
The verb, was, appears 1075 times in this book of 63300 words. It appears 11 times in the 2 page prologue and 30 times in the first 4 page chapter! Had appears over 1100 times in the book. It appears 10 times in the prologue and 41 times in the first chapter. Far too much telling.
As we are all told, a good first line is always important in a novel, so this effort is a bit of a let-down.
I raised my hand to waive down the bartender.
Waive a bartender? Wave. Waive is to forgo or give up on something.
I noted every subsequent error of word usage, spelling and grammar and sadly, got well into double figures. Here are just a few of the more glaring instances; coup should be coop, Suma Cum Lade, should be suma cum laude, without CAPS, shoule instead of should, woah should be whoa, ousted should be outed and so on.
Grammar is more subjective but when you have instances such as these; I wanted tell him it was okay, they didn’t wanted to get involved, I never in a million years would I have guessed I would be… Lynn and I’s story, most officer’s (written as a plural), I called myself into the rug, I wasn’t incapable of sitting still, and this rather convoluted sentence; I’ve known Kellan since I was twenty-two, which I am now almost 30 and fresh out of college, then you can see I had good reason to be critical.
This book needs the skills of a good editor, not just a few beta readers. It has plot holes on the timeline. Kellan’s father drives three hours and arrives within minutes of being called after the kidnapping. Mac relates how she lived in a small apartment in LA and then relates how she lived on the streets for so long.
My main criticism of the book centres on Kellan. He is the typical hero in that he has a regular, almost daily string of sexual partners who he tells before the act that it is just for fun, so that they will not be disappointed when he makes them leave. Of course, all that changes when he meets Mac, the woman who will tame him and place him on the straight and narrow. He is an expert in seduction but somehow allows Mac to give him a blow job and then he returns the favor by going to sleep! He also does so many very stupid things after meeting her that he steps well out of the realms of fantasy straight into a horror story. He is abrupt, rude, angry, has a horrible temper, hits trees until his knuckles bleed for no apparent reason, hits his father for an even weaker reason and then when he finds his house broken into doesn’t have the intelligence to call Mac, who is eating lunch at the time. He calls the police instead.
Sadly, with so many flaws and such a poorly structured hero, who came across as really rather stupid in many instances, I find it difficult to say anything positive about this book. The two-handed POV changes works in some instances but this was not used consistently and quite often Kellan referred to himself as a girl, which confused the issue. The sequential changes in POV abruptly became parallel changes at the end of the story, breaking the rule set by the author.
Without an editor’s skilled touch and some serious re-writing, this book has gone the way of so many of its fellows, into the morass of Amazon’s lost jungle.
Two stars is generous, under the circumstances.
March 28, 2016
REVIEW GROUP 98.18+
"AN UNKNOWN PLACE"
by; Felicite D. Lilly
Woke up at 0300, had to see how the story ended…
Tall, handsome, rich, successful, and with a bevy of women standing in line to please him, Kellan Freemont suddenly finds himself on the floor of an airport bar in Las Vegas. When he comes to, he is treated to the site of an angle hovering over him. Even though he has just been Roofied by his most recent conquest, Kellan senses something special, beyond just an instant desire to have her, for the angle above him. The angle above him is Mac, short for Mackayla Montgomery, a petite beauty, the head bartender in the main airport bar. Normally a person who would head the other way in a situation like this, since experiencing her own traumatic life event a few years back. Mac is captivated by this handsome, and obviously physically fit man who has just collapsed in front of her.
Mac, cares for Kellan, until the EMS crew arrives, and then surprises her friend, and confidant when she rides to the hospital in the ambulance. A force, both unseen and unheard, but not unfelt, has passed between Kellan and Mac. A force that will change both of their lives, as the story builds towards a climactic finish that will eventually allow both to heal from their long-suffering pains. A wonderful story, beautifully written, and on that truly did get me up a 0300 to finish the book.
I received a copy of this book for the purpose of doing a review, as part of a review group within the GoodReads Review Group
"AN UNKNOWN PLACE"
by; Felicite D. Lilly
Woke up at 0300, had to see how the story ended…
Tall, handsome, rich, successful, and with a bevy of women standing in line to please him, Kellan Freemont suddenly finds himself on the floor of an airport bar in Las Vegas. When he comes to, he is treated to the site of an angle hovering over him. Even though he has just been Roofied by his most recent conquest, Kellan senses something special, beyond just an instant desire to have her, for the angle above him. The angle above him is Mac, short for Mackayla Montgomery, a petite beauty, the head bartender in the main airport bar. Normally a person who would head the other way in a situation like this, since experiencing her own traumatic life event a few years back. Mac is captivated by this handsome, and obviously physically fit man who has just collapsed in front of her.
Mac, cares for Kellan, until the EMS crew arrives, and then surprises her friend, and confidant when she rides to the hospital in the ambulance. A force, both unseen and unheard, but not unfelt, has passed between Kellan and Mac. A force that will change both of their lives, as the story builds towards a climactic finish that will eventually allow both to heal from their long-suffering pains. A wonderful story, beautifully written, and on that truly did get me up a 0300 to finish the book.
I received a copy of this book for the purpose of doing a review, as part of a review group within the GoodReads Review Group
March 13, 2016
An unexpected place...
Mac (Mackayla) works a bar in Vegas, having escaped a traumatic encounter in Maryland that shattered her trust in men. Kellan is a successful brewer, trying to hide where he comes from, who changes girls like disposable diapers. When he passes out in her bar, they both find something they weren’t looking for. Can it work...?
I’m on the fence on this one. The rich guy meets shy girl to discover the skeletons in each other’s closet seems to be a popular formula, if not really my cup of tea. The story is well written and edited, the characters believable, and it ends with a bang.
This book could be described as Fifty Shades of White, till about three quarters of the way through it suddenly explodes into Fifty Shades of Black. Aside from Kellan’s occasional crudeness, the tone is generally airy and optimistic, so the sudden eruption of rather graphic violence in the last chapters is all the more jarring.
Mac (Mackayla) works a bar in Vegas, having escaped a traumatic encounter in Maryland that shattered her trust in men. Kellan is a successful brewer, trying to hide where he comes from, who changes girls like disposable diapers. When he passes out in her bar, they both find something they weren’t looking for. Can it work...?
I’m on the fence on this one. The rich guy meets shy girl to discover the skeletons in each other’s closet seems to be a popular formula, if not really my cup of tea. The story is well written and edited, the characters believable, and it ends with a bang.
This book could be described as Fifty Shades of White, till about three quarters of the way through it suddenly explodes into Fifty Shades of Black. Aside from Kellan’s occasional crudeness, the tone is generally airy and optimistic, so the sudden eruption of rather graphic violence in the last chapters is all the more jarring.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews