**This story was inspired by true events. If you liked the movie Sleeping With the Enemy, then you might like this story too. **

No one knew a woman lived there or that she even existed. A monster, living in darkness... At twenty-two, Nicole doesn't even look human anymore. The beast made sure of that. So she hides. A monster, consigned to a life of fear and solitude. This is all she deserves, she is quite sure of that.  And then one day out of the blue, the autographed baseball caught by Brian Jensen at the latest Marlins game enters her prison and manages to turn her world completely upside down. Temptation comes in the form of pity at first, and then perhaps something more. Does she dare to believe the things she's told, that this is not the life she was meant to live? That being a monster is not her forever-fate? And will she be willing to risk everything, to reach out and accept the helping hands around her and share her deepest, darkest secrets? She knows only too well that hands can hurt. Finding out whether they can also heal is a risky proposition, especially when the beast is still out there. Looking for her.

A vingt-deux ans, Nicole n’a même plus l’apparence humaine. La bête s’en est assurée. Alors elle se cache. Un monstre, consigné à une vie de peur et de solitude. C’est tout ce qu’elle mérite, elle en est presque certaine. Et un jour, sortie de nulle part, la balle de baseball dédicacée, que Brian Jensen a attrapée au dernier match des Marlins, rentre dans sa prison et réussit à mettre son monde sens dessus dessous.

La tentation vient sous forme de pitié au début, et ensuite peut-être, quelque chose de plus. Peut-elle oser croire les choses qu’on lui dit ? Que ça n’est pas la vie qu’elle était censée mener ? Qu’être un monstre n’est pas son sort pour la vie ? Et souhaitera-t-elle tout risquer, reprendre contact avec le monde extérieur, accepter les mains tendues autour d’elle et partager ses secrets les plus enfouis et les plus noirs ? Elle ne sait que trop bien que les mains peuvent faire du mal. Cherchez à savoir si elles peuvent aussi guérir est une proposition risquée, surtout si la bête est toujours dehors. En train de la chercher.

Drawn together over a love of books, three women strike up an unlikely friendship, and end up forming bonds that move well beyond what any of them ever imagined possible. Desperate Measures serves up laughter, romance, cookies, tea - and a whole lot of love. Aimee: A housewife left in the dust by her philandering husband, with an outdated high school education but a serious talent when it comes to confections... Elizabeth: An accountant tired of crunching numbers for hundreds of clients with more money than they know what to do with... Kiki: An exotic dancer who wants nothing more than to get out of the game... [Formerly titled Desperate Measures Trilogy: Book 1, Full Measure, published under Elle Casey’s alter ego, Kat Lee.]

Celebrities all suffer from the same disease. I call it the create-your-own-reality disease. Most of them start out normal, like you and me, but somewhere along the way they lose sight of up and down, left and right, and then eventually right and wrong. It's my job to fix that. Who hires me, Scarlett Barnes, otherwise known as ‘The Normalizer’? Agents usually. Producers sometimes. They know they can trust me to be professional, discreet, and above all, not personally involved with my clients. I come in, I take over their lives, and I get them back on track. Help them remember what it's like to be an average Joe. My latest job acquisition? His friends call him Tear-It-Up Kilgour, but I just call him Tarin - lead singer and guitarist for the band By Degrees. I have thirty days to get his butt back on planet earth before he loses his record deal, his movie contract, and possibly even his life. I've never failed so far, and I don't plan on failing this time either, even if Tarin has other ideas.

Jason Bradley has everything going for him. He's Banner High's first-string varsity wide receiver, headed to another State championship, and the college recruiters are already knocking on his door. His girlfriend is every guy's dream, there's a brand new black Camaro with a 6.2L, V-6 engine parked in his garage, and he's on cruise control. But when the school's beloved football coach turns up dead and Jason's found standing over the body, his cruise control cuts off bringing his charmed life to a screeching halt, and the reality of being an accused murderer of the first degree takes over. When everyone else walks away and leaves him to hang, one girl can't. But it's going to take more than guessing and wishing to get through to him and the truth of what happened, since he seems bound and determined to accept his fate as a criminal, tried as an adult and eligible for lethal injection. Can one really determined girl get to the bottom of the mystery when no one else seems to care? It would be so much easier to watch him go down, and for many, maybe just a little bit too satisfying. After all, who isn't guilty of finding pleasure in seeing that perfect someone suddenly exposed for the self-centered prick that he really is?