Review: Lethal Lies

Lethal Lies by Rebecca Zanetti
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Heath and his blood brothers are still on the run and fighting their past. However, when he meets Anya, the danger of entanglements might be too hard for him to fight.
Anya decides that fighting back against the serial killer playing with her is better than watching others die around her. When she announces on live tv that her and Heath are engaged, she knows the danger she is putting herself in, but she never could have imagined the greatest danger was to her heart.

There was no mercy when monsters harmed women.

Book two in the Blood Brothers series reunites us with the Lost Boys. This time it is Heath who is the hero and with a mother who was killed by an abusive boyfriend, he has a big time trigger for men who hurt women. When he sees Anya with bruises, no matter of the innocent reasoning, and finds out that the Copper Killer serial killer is after her, he instantly goes into protector mode. This past hurt and resulting trigger for Heath, while emotional, was a bit overplayed and repetitive. The numerous times he saw red or freaked out made him seem less strong protector and more auto-pilot brainless alpha. The story didn't flush out his personality enough for me, he seemed like he only had two depths, alpha protector and hot for Anya. I did enjoy the scenes where Heath and the brothers interacted but I missed other personality nuances.

She studied him, her eyes darkening. Finally, one corner of her mouth quirked. "You're a beneath the surface kind of guy, aren't you?"

I kind of had the same problem with Anya, she had the hots for Heath (while kind of sorta but not being afraid of him) and wanted to be in charge of capturing the Copper Killer. At times she seemed brave and others she seemed needlessly talking big game while blindingly doing nothing. I also thought the emotion of losing her sister and fighting her attraction to Heath felt off, would she be fighting sexual thoughts the night of her sister's funeral? I think, ultimately, the uneven feelings I had with the lead characters came from the meandering feel from the story.

The beginning of the story gets going right away, with the back story and a continuing story thread I wouldn't recommend this as a standalone, but it also felt a bit choppy. It eventually smooths out as we are re-introduced to the handful of cast of characters that include Heath's brothers and the villains. Dr. Madison, who created the brothers (also the tie-in to the author's previous series Sin Brothers), Sheriff Cobb who works for Dr. Madison but also has a personal vendetta against the brothers, and Daniel, a soldier still working for Dr. Madison. The Dr. Madison and super soldier secret military program is intriguing, interesting and what I found captured my attention the most. As it is the continuing story thread, there is no resolution here but you can feel things building up in a crescendo.

Mostly, I found this book to be a slow moving, repetitive layover in the series. Heath and Anya have a bit of insta-love, the must protect Anya but Anya demanding to be in charge, bickering with FBI, and forced serial killer tie-in went in circles for too long. The next book is about the last Blood Brother, Denver. I'm hoping for more of the action, chemistry, and movement in the interesting super soldier program that appeared in the first.

"I like you, too," she said. Yeah, she'd just opened herself up. Perhaps she was crazy. His upper lip quirked. "You're dangerous lady."


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