Book ~ "Until it Fades" (2017) K.A. Tucker

From Goodreads ~ Twenty-four-year-old truck stop waitress and single mother Catherine Wright has simple goals: to give her five-year-old daughter a happy life and to never again be the talk of the town in Balsam, Pennsylvania: population two thousand outside of tourist season.

And then one foggy night, on a lonely road back from another failed attempt at a relationship, Catherine saves a man’s life. It isn’t until after the police have arrived that Catherine realizes exactly who it is she has saved: Brett Madden, hockey icon and media darling.

Catherine has already had her fifteen minutes of fame and the last thing she wants is to have her past dragged back into the spotlight, only this time on a national stage. So she hides her identity. It works.

For a time.

But when she finds the man she saved standing on her doorstep, desperate to thank her, all that changes. What begins as an immediate friendship quickly turns into something neither of them expected. Something that Catherine isn’t sure she can handle; something that Catherine is afraid to trust.

Because how long can an extraordinary man like Brett be interested in an ordinary woman like Catherine ... before the spark fades? 

Catherine is a 24-year-old single mother working in a truck stop and barely getting by financially.  She is driving home from a disastrous blind date one night when she comes across an accident.  The driver is dead but she is able to pull the passenger out of the car before it explodes into fire.  Because the passenger turns out to be a professional hockey player named Brett, there is a lot of media attention.  Catherine had been part of a scandal in the town when she was seventeen and doesn't want to draw attention to herself or her daughter.

When Brett meets Catherine to thank her for saving her life, they become friends and then more.  But Catherine's life is very different Brett's.  She's living paycheque to paycheque with government assistance.  Money and media attention has never been an problem for Brett since he is a hockey player whose team is in the playoffs.

I've read a few books by this author.  This is a departure of style for her (not as intense) and I liked it.  I liked the story and the writing style.  It's written in third person perspective with a focus on Catherine.  As a head's up, there is swearing and adult activity.

I liked the characters.  Catherine has had to endure some hardships ... raising her daughter as a single mother with very little money.  She had just gotten back to having a relationship with her family (there was a riff because of the scandal seven years ago).  Despite having a privileged childhood (his mother is a famous actress) and now being a star hockey player, Brett wasn't pretentious or annoying.  He seemed pretty down to earth and valued honesty.