Review: Deadly Obsession – Kristine Cayne

Deadly Obsession by Kristine Cayne
Series:  Deadly Vices #1
Release Date:  January 1, 2012
Publisher:  Kristine Cayne
Page Count:  280
Source:  Bewitching Book Tours
Buy the book at: Amazon 

When an Oscar-winning movie star meets a department-store photographer… Movie star Nic Lamoureux appears to have a playboy’s perfect life. But it’s a part he plays, an act designed to conceal a dark secret he carries on his shoulders. His empty days and nights are a meaningless blur until he meets the woman who fulfills all his dreams. She and her son are the family he’s always wanted—if she can forgive a horrible mistake from his past.
A Hollywood dream… Lauren James, a widowed single mother, earns barely enough money to support herself and her son. When she wins a photography contest and meets Nic, the man who stars in all her fantasies, her dreams, both professional and personal, are on the verge of becoming real. The attraction between Lauren and Nic is instant—and mutual. Their chemistry burns out of control during a photo shoot that could put Lauren on the fast track to a lucrative career.
Becomes a Hollywood nightmare… But an ill-advised kiss makes front-page news, and the lurid headlines threaten everything Nic and Lauren have hoped for. Before they know what’s happening, their relationship is further rocked by an obsessed and cunning stalker who’ll stop at nothing—not even murder—to have Nic to herself. When Nic falls for Lauren, the stalker zeroes in on her as the competition.
And the competition must be eliminated.

Hot Hollywood playboy, Nic Lamoureux works hard to keep up his image as Nic the Lover for his adoring fans.  What they don’t know is the man is alone and closed off from those that he loves due to his fame, his guilt and shame for acts in his youth and the stalker who threatens harm to any woman that gets close to him.  Nic Lamoureux is a complex man who doesn’t trust many people and spends the majority of the time being someone he’s not.  That changes when he meet the photographer who won a contest to conduct a photo shoot with Nic.  Suddenly, he finds the one person that makes him feel complete and able to be the true Nic Lamoureux.

Lauren James is hoping the photo shoot with Nic Lamoureux will help open doors for her and advance her photography career.  But she has a secret, she’s had a crush on her photo subject since they were in high school together in Chicago.  She hopes her crush doesn’t show, but she can’t help but be drawn to the man.  Soon Nic is sweeping into her life and Lauren finds herself falling for this adult version of the boy she loved and the object of Nic’s stalker who’s determined to get her out of the picture. 

I loved Nic and Lauren.  They were absolutely hot together and clearly the other half of each other.  Both of them had emotional baggage they brought into their relationship that, at time, threatened what was developing between them.  How either of them reacted to that baggage could have had the story and their likeability as a couple going either way, but Kristine Cayne gave us some emotionally charged scenes as they dealt with each issue.

The stalker storyline was seriously creepy and kept me just as entertained as the romance between Nic and Lauren.  I figured out early who the stalker was, but the lengths that she went to was so totally creepy and horrifying that I was riveted.

The secondary cast of characters were great and I’m hoping each one of them will get their own Deadly Vices story.

An awesome read that has found it’s way on my list of books that I will definitely be rereading!