What will Nikki do when her mind doesn’t
remember, but her body does?
Architect Nikki Phillips awakens from a coma with no memory of the past three years. She believes she is in a three year relationship with her ex-boyfriend, basketball star DaJuan Spencer, but in reality she is engaged to Trey Williams – her high school crush and the most gorgeous man she has ever seen. Despite having no memory of a romantic relationship with the sexy veterinarian, Nikki can’t ignore the erotic visions she has of Trey making love to her or how her body tingles all over when he is near.
Devastated by the current situation, Trey is determined to help Nikki regain her memory. He supports her and shows her a love she has never known. DaJuan on the other hand, has fought hard to get Nikki back after destroying their relation. He feels lucky that circumstances have provided him with another opportunity. His only hope is that Nikki’s memory won’t return until after she falls in love with him again. Now being pursued by two gorgeous men, Nikki must decide whether to continue the relationship she remembers with DaJuan, despite her changing feelings for him or Trey the man her mind doesn’t remember but her body and her heart does.
Check out the Perfectly Designed Video Book Trailer http://youtu.be/Rsi4v7ZsVWk Contemporary Romance
ISBN-10: 0615652832
ISBN-13: 978-0615652832
Amazon Book Review by Miss C Solo
Love is such a wonderful thing to be shared between two people, building memories that will last a lifetime. How do you handle it when your memory is snatched from you but your body and heart has a memory of its own?
Nikki Phillips is a beautiful woman of twenty-four years old who has everything going for her, graduated from Tuskegee University summa cum laude, has a very promising career as an architect at one of the top architectural firms in the city, friends and family that love her very much and a fiancé that worships the ground that she walks on. After a work site accident, Nikki is in a coma and when she finally wakes from the coma everything comes to her but the one thing that she needed to sustain her love for the man that she plans to marry.
Trevon Williams is every woman dream, six-foot four inches, hazel eyes, curly hair, bronze complexion with a body of a greek god and can have any woman that he chooses. Trey is the love them and leave them kind of guy and the women don’t mind that at all, that is until he is reintroduced to Nikki. Nikki has always been around Trey because she is his brother Brian’s friend and because she is four years younger he never gave her the attention that she desired, until now.
Perfectly Designed is a beautifully written love story. It gives you everything that you need to keep you engrossed in the story. Great character interaction, drama, action, suspense, heartache and joy. Daphne Douglas has written this story very well and I look forward to reading more of her work. Great job, continued success.
A low beeping sound echoed through the sterile hospital room. Long tubes and IVs extended from a ventilator into Nicole “Nikki” Phillip’s unconscious petite body. She appeared peaceful lying in a hospital bed. Her chest rose and fell every few seconds. Complications from an accident caused her to lapse into a coma. After monitoring EEG results, doctors affirmed her condition was not life threatening, but they could not pinpoint when she would emerge from the coma.
For the past month, Trevon “Trey” Williams kept vigil by Nikki’s bedside, refusing to leave for any reason or significant length of time. Befriending the nursing staff, Trey assisted with Nikki’s daily external and oral hygiene. He read to her, sang to her, and prayed for her. Trey desperately missed Nikki’s radiant smile, the tone of her voice, and the warmth of her touch.
Lingering over her, his tear-filled gaze narrowed affectionately upon his beautiful fiancée’s face. His long fingers reached and removed several black strains of hair from her forehead. Pain streaked through Trey’s heart just as his hand made contact with her immobile body.
The sound of the door cracking open distracted him. Glancing over his right shoulder, Trey spotted Katrina, Nikki’s best friend, entering the room followed closely by his brother Brian. Returning his focus to Nikki, he spoke in a low throaty tone, “I thought you guys were gone home for the evening.”
They approached the bed. “We knew you’d still be here, so we brought you something to eat,” Brian said as he placed the Woody’s Barbeque bag on the nightstand.
“Thanks,” Trey uttered while still focusing on Nikki.
“Don’t mention it.”
Katrina rounded the foot of the bed while she glanced over at Trey. Quietly, she said, “Trey, you look so exhausted. Why don’t you go home and get some rest?”
“No!” Trey snapped. “I have to be here.” Noticing the concerned look on Katrina’s face, he softened his voice. “I have to be here when she wakes up.” He took Nikki’s left hand in his and rotated the three-carat diamond engagement ring he’d given her six months earlier around her thin ring finger. He thought about their wedding plans and how excited Nikki seemed when she finalized the location. In three short months, Trey and Nikki planned to exchange vows during an intimate sunset beach ceremony in Jamaica.
Filled with emotion, he lowered his head slowly and brushed his lips against hers. Tears streamed down his face and dropped one by one onto her cheek. Nikki’s luscious lips puckered against Trey’s full lips. In response, he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth just as she open her mouth, allowing her tongue to outline his top lip.
Eyes wide open, Trey’s heart slammed against his chest, and breath caught in his lungs. He rose to his full height of six foot four with his palm pressed to his lips. After a moment, he gently rubbed the side of Nikki’s face with his knuckles.
“Nikki … Baby … Wake up, baby. Come on, baby, wake up for me,” he pleaded, gasping for breath. Raising his head, Trey glanced over at Katrina and Brian who were frozen in one spot with their mouths hanging open.
Nikki fluttered her lids open, rolling her eyes from side to side.
Katrina snatched the bed remote and pressed the nurse call button.
“Yes,” a female voice inquired over the intercom.
“She’s awake, she’s awake. Nikki’s awake,” Katrina yelled.
Daphne Douglas dreamed of designing built environments only to discover a passion for designing romantic and fictional storylines. Born in Buffalo, New York and raised in Long Beach, California she earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Tuskegee University in 1994. In 2009 when architecture projects were few and in between she went on a reading sabbatical reading four to seven books a week primarily romances. This love for reading developed into a passion for writing and in 2010 she penned her first romantic fictional novel Perfectly Designed.
Daphne also designs and decorates wedding brooms and is the owner of BroomsbyDaphne. Married to her college sweetheart for sixteen years, they have two children and reside in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area. When she is isn’t writing, reading, or designing, she is watching sports or spending quality time with her family and friends.
BPM: Did you always what to be an author?
Not at all! As a child I wanted to become an architect, a ballet dancer, or a sports commentator. Growing up I think I only saw one female sports commentator and she wasn’t African American, the average ballet dancer is 5’9” and I am 5’3” so I knew the likelihood of me becoming a professional dancer was slim to none. In the end I pursued architecture despite the fact that only 1% of architects are African Americans and the numbers of African American female architects are even less. I realize that my purpose is to be a designer and I love it. Before I designed buildings, now I design storylines.
BPM: When did you get your first inkling to write, and how did you advance the call for writing?
I’ve always had a vivid imagination which is the reason I did well in creative writing. In my late thirties I developed an obsession for reading and literally began reading four to seven books a week. That obsession soon developed into a desire to create my own stories. What caused me to stop dreaming and start writing was one, encouragement from my husband and two, meeting Lutishia Lovely at a Ladies of Legacy Book Club meeting. Listening to her speak so passionately about her characters and her writing style made me believe I could do this. The next day I sat down at my desk and started to write Perfectly Designed.
BPM: Introduce us to your book and the main characters. What makes each one special?
Perfectly Designed is a contemporary romance. What will Nikki do when her mind doesn’t remember, but her body does?
Architect Nikki Phillips awakens from a coma with no memory of the past three years. She believes she is in a three year relationship with her ex-boyfriend, basketball star DaJuan Spencer, but in reality she is engaged to Trey Williams – her high school crush and the most gorgeous man she has ever seen. Despite having no memory of a romantic relationship with the sexy veterinarian, Nikki can’t ignore the erotic visions she has of Trey making love to her or how her body tingles all over when he is near.
Devastated by the current situation, Trey is determined to help Nikki regain her memory. He supports her and shows her a love she has never known. DaJuan on the other hand, has fought hard for three long years to get Nikki back after destroying their relation. He feels lucky that circumstances have provided him with another opportunity. His only hope is that Nikki’s memory won’t return until after she falls in love with him again. Now being pursued by two gorgeous men, Nikki must decide whether to continue the relationship she remembers with DaJuan, despite her changing feelings for him or Trey the man her mind doesn’t remember but her body and her heart does.
Perfectly Designed characters are young sexy vibrate people. They are easy to relate to. Some of them are real and others are real crazy. Let’s discuss Trey for a moment. Tall, mouth dropping tongue wagging gorgeous, educated and wealthy, he is the guy everyone wishes was their man. He is a player because he can be. Let’s face it, he has been chased by women his entire life. But what makes him so endearing is when he meets his soul-mate (Nikki), he immediately relinquishes his player-card and pursues her relentlessly. Nothing or no one will detour him, not even when he faced with her memory loss.
Nikki is like so many women, she is tired of promiscuous men playing games and telling lies. She just wants to be left alone. So when Trey starts making advances toward her, she can’t believe it, and she is hesitate to accept them. In addition she has her ex DaJuan aggressively pursuing her and Trey’s ex Renea trying to sabotage her blossoming relationship. On top of all of that, she loses her memory.
BPM: Which character or topic in the book can you identify with the most? Why?
I identify with Katrina, Nikki’s best friend. Like me, she is a Tuskegee University architectural graduate from Southern California. When I created her I used her voice to say everything I really wanted to say. It’s so funny, Katrina’s personality is so similar to my own and several of my friends. She is bold and sassy and expressions herself in a way that insures no one will forget what she has said. On top of that she is hilarious. Perfectly Designed is the first book in the Designer’s Series. Katrina will be in every book, with one of the books being her own story. I love her and have notice that my readers do as well.
BPM: What inspired you to write this book? Does your education or previous profession inspire your writing?
For me, life in general is an inspiration. The things I see, my personal experiences and the experiences of strangers and friends all inspire my writing. One of the coolest things about being a writer is when I hear about a situation that is unbelievable or a funny comment, I use it in my writing and the amazing thing is that it works causing the storyline to become even more real and more vivid than I could have ever imagined.
Writing is a platform and I plan to use it to highlight building design professionals – architects, interior designer, etc. So often I find that architects are depicted incorrectly in books, movies and on television. It is irritating and I want to do my part to show realistic characters in realistic situations so that the public will understand the truth about these professions and not the myths.
BPM: Is this the book you intended on writing or did the story take on a life of its own as you were writing? How do you stay focused?
Oh my God … this story took a life of its own. Initially I planned for the hero and heroine to both be architects. As the story unfolded the hero’s profession changed along with the storyline. My character literally wrote the novel. As I wrote I allowed the story to flow and I am happy with the finished product.
The goal of completion helps me to stay focus. I want to know how the story ends just as much as the reader. So I press on, constantly thinking of scenes that will add flavor to the story. As I write I try to think of ways to cause the readers mouth to fall open. I laugh when I know I have written a scene where the reader will pause and yell, “Hell nawl.”
BPM: Has your architectural background helped or hindered your writing career?
I actually believe it has helped it. I have been trained to believe that every problem has a solution. It is up to me to find it. I am used to deadlines and working under pressure. The biggest thing is I have though skin. I understand that creativity is subjective. Everyone is not going to like what I write so I have to write the best story for me.
BPM: We are here to shine the spotlight on your new book, but what's next? How may our readers follow you online?
I am currently writing my next book “Designing the Music.” The story is about an interior designer - Royce, and a music mogul – Kamron. It will be out Spring 2013. I invite readers to visit my website, follow me on Twitter and like my Facebook page.
BPM: Thank you for sharing a little bit about yourself, your journey and your book with our readers!
Thank you for this awesome opportunity. I hope everyone picks up the book and enjoys it.
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