Unlike my mother, I’d do anything to be free…

My mother made the ultimate bet…and lost…my father, my house, my dreams for the future.

When we came to live with the Wu family, I thought I’d found a new father, a new home, and new dreams with Jake. But we were too different. We still are.

His father is a billionaire.

My mother is his housekeeper.

I was paid to stay away from Jake forever.

And I did for a long time. Now that Jake is back, can we find what was once perfect? Or is too much damage already done?

********

WHAT WAS PERFECT is a full-length contemporary novel from author Jolie Moore about secrets and lies and an unbreakable connection. It's the first book in the engaging UNDENIABLE trilogy.

The music starts. I swing my hips to the thumping bass. Oh, so slowly I slip one button through a hole, then another, then another. I ease the black silk from my shoulders and toss it right toward her. 

I watch her pale glossy lips form a big ‘O’ before she catches it like a major league baller. The flashing lights blind me. Between beats, I can see her blue eyes zeroed in below my waist.  

I know what she wants. I give it to her. With a zip and a tug, the leather pants join the rest of my clothes. In my skin tight briefs, I dance just for her. With the last chord of the song, the stage goes dark.  

I know when the lights come up again, another guy will be dancing in my place because this is my last time. I’m not doing this ever again. It’s too bad I didn’t get her name. I really liked that shirt. But not enough to go back and claim it.  

If she wants me bad enough, she’ll have to find me. 

No matter how hard she tries, Hannah Morrison Keesling can’t get life right. She’s hopped from one career to the next, but fears she will never live up to the fame and success of her parents. Hannah’s also jumped from one relationship to the next, but couldn’t get that right either. In the end, she settled for a marriage with financier Michael Keesling. Because he loved her. Because he wouldn’t leave.

Somewhere along the way between leaving New York and moving to Southern California, Michael changed. Or maybe he’d always been the cold and casually cruel man she’d come to dread waking up to every morning.

Either way, Hannah is full of regret and ready to remake her life. Off she goes with her dog to the black sand beaches of Shelter Cove along California’s Lost Coast.

Once there she realizes that settling for a ‘good enough’ husband isn’t the way she wants to live the rest of her life. When Hannah meets veterinarian Ben Cooper, she wants nothing more than to make the right decision the second time around. But will Ben choose to carve out a future with…someone else’s wife?

Early readers are saying...

"...it was just great! The story was riveting and the characters were realistic."

"Filled with love, doubt, yearning, desire and confusion we travel down a path of discovery of what it takes to achieve what everyone really wants in life unconditional love and acceptance."

"This is a wonderful story, written with beauty, love, and heartfelt emotion."

Jake Wu’s plans to reunite with Isabella Aconi have gone bust. Buying the television network where she worked had seemed like a brilliant idea until she quit without two weeks’ notice. Now he faces his father’s wrath at having failed once again. The network he’d engineered buying is in trouble and he doesn’t know how to save it.

When Isabella comes to Jake with a show idea that could turn the network around, he says yes. Thrown together for their common good, can they finally share the truth of their past and seek a better future together?

Defying his parents and all conventional wisdom, Jake falls hard. When his parents discover the truth about Jake and Izzie’s relationship, they send Jake away to a posh boarding school. Knowing he can’t have the one girl he wants, Jake dedicates himself to being the child his parents always wanted, high achieving, obedient, getting engaged to the woman of their dreams and a perfect Chinese fuerdai.

When his father’s betrayal nearly ruins his life, he leaves China behind and strikes out for the only place he’d ever felt at home, the United States. And for the only woman he’s ever loved, Isabella.

•Left an abusive marriage. Check.

•Did a heap of therapy. And meditation. And yoga. Check.

•Got on Bumble. Got on OKCupid. Got on Tinder. Check.

Dan Savage ruined my marriage. But he saved my life.

Wisdom of a single advice columnist changed everything.

When I moved out, I took only the clothes I could carry, my writing desk, my office chair, and the books on my keeper shelf. Walking out of a two-decade-long marriage was the easy part. Getting my self-esteem back was much harder. Once I healed enough to realize I was okay, I was ready to start dating again. #50firstdates was born. Fifty dates seemed like enough to meet Mr. Right or at least Mr. Right Now. Dating in middle-age was nothing like I thought it was going to be. Follow me on my real-life journey…as I search for my next big love.

This is my own Crazy. Beautiful. Love. Story.