TBRChallenge Review: Summer Games

Summer Games by Elizabeth Lowell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

This month's TBRChallenge theme was Celebrations!, fighting a cold, I reached into my garage sale book boxes and pulled out Summer Games. The 1984 LA Olympics count for celebrations I say! This book had a couple of reoccurring themes that just about drove me batty because of how hammered on they were. Our main male character Cord grew-up around horses and was a rodeo bronco buster before Vietnam called and he constantly is given a “shaman's” voice as he works to get our female main character's horse, Devlin's Waterloo, to trust him. If I had read this on an electronic device, I'd have done a count on how many times it was used, since I only had a paperback, you'll have to take my conservative estimate of one million times. There was also the discussion of coming in from the cold, the whole underlining women warm the hearth and home for the men coming in from cold of protecting and providing, the “queen” and “solider” analogy became a lot in it's repetitiveness. 

She was a fool to be interested in a man who was like her father, so involved in his work that he lived his life at the end of an electronic leash. She had left that world behind once. She would never enter it again, no matter the lure. 

At it's essence, Summer Games was a romantic suspense where retirement landing you in the soft thighs of a younger woman who also comes with a hot stallion sounds like a good idea and we're all destined to marry our fathers. Raine grew-up with a father that did super secret American government work and she hated how his family always came a distant second, he's never even seen her ride in her equestrian competitions. This has soured her on men of a certain cut of cloth, so when she's, literally, knocked out of her shoes by Cord, he has his work cut out for him. Cord came off a bit...intense. But I've never ran point on security for the Olympics, so who am I too judge? When Raine's looking over the course she'll run during the competition, he thinks she's a “Cuban or Lebanese commando” terrorist setting bombs. Their “meet-cute” has sparks flying and Cord instantly knowing he wants her while Raine only sees her father and tries to put up her walls. I say try because, lol, she be rubbing all up and down this man. 

But she was so warm in his arms, and he was so cold inside. 

The first half really focused on their romance and the pushing and pulling of their attraction with not wanting to get emotionally involved, Raine not wanting to get involved with a man she'll come second to and Cord knowing he lives too secretive and dangerous of a life. I went back and forth if I thought this was overwritten with remnants of purple prose or if we're losing the recipes. Example: He wanted to take Raine down to the golden grass and make love to her until nothing else was real, no past or future, no rights or wrongs, nothing but sunset sliding into night, a man and woman alone, two lovers turning and twining and blending intimately, two flames burning as one in a world of crimson silence. 

Purple prose-y, can see the cringe but “nothing but sunset sliding into night” and “burning as one in a world of crimson silence.”. We're using our words!! But maybe we already had made rent and needed to settle down. 

He wanted to seduce her in more than a merely physical way. He wanted her to trust him. 

The later second half finally gives us a focus on Raine's equestrian trials and you'll learn about dressage, cross country racing, and jumping, which was interesting and I didn't think textbook-ed it to eye-glazing. The suspense part about the notorious “Barracuda” assassin that was hovering on the edges also comes to the forefront, sort of, when Cord's constantly called away to “monitor” and do super secret DIA anti-terrorism stuff. I wish we had gotten more with Raine and her family, we get a few scenes with her father (guy plays the lips zipped spy well, give her more info!) so that more resolution could have been had there.

“And you're an expert on love?” she said, her voice hard and dry. 

“No,” he said softly. “I'm an expert on dying. On not loving. On being lonely. On looking at castles from the outside. On finding a woman worth having and then watching her bar the gate against me because I'm just a soldier, not a king.” 

After all are protected (any violence of this kind is completely off page) and Raine wins her Olympic medal but Cord disappears, she ends up on a ranch in Arizona until her HEA choppers in. The repeated term use of shaman, queen, and soldier was super tiring but the backstory of how Cord grew-up around horses (family of Mesteñeros ) was brilliant because of how it then linked and gave a thread to him helping and connecting with her through her stallion, which was her family for all intents and purposes. The women providing warmth and succor for warrior men theme was meh, Cord wasn't the cardboard cut-out alpha man, he had layers and it didn't feel like a treatise on the ideal, but meh. 

“I don't believe it anymore. Tomorrow will come for us. When it does, I want it to be right. I want to know that I didn't take you off-balance and more than a little afraid. I'm good at taking people that way. Too good. It's part of my job. But not you,” said Cord, his voice deep, a river running through moonlight and darkness down to a warm sea. “I want you in a very special way, Raine. I can wait one more day for that. I've already waited a lifetime.” 

What stood out the most for me, was the touching and caressing between these two (let me Bat signal – washes her hair scene), they weren't just slot A slot B fucking, which, please, bring back caressing. There were more than one purple prose remnant scenes like this: Shirtless, barefoot, Cord rode the screaming blood-bay whirlwind. The man's muscles bunched and gleamed in the bright moonlight even as the stallion's did, two powerful, supremely conditioned males fighting for dominance. 

Obviously can read a little goofball out of context but in this story and the contextual moment, it's also put a capital on that W-riting. So while I had fun with some of the scenery chewing going on here, I'm not sure I'd recommend for this to be one to go back and visit, but I'll give it up to the “I can wait one more day, I've already waited a lifetime” to it all.

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TRBChallenge Review: Captive of Fate

Captive of Fate by Lindsay McKenna
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars

“Damn you, Colonel. You're going to get everything that's been coming to you. I promise. God, how I promise.” 

I know, I can't believe there isn't an exclamation point in that sentence either.(!) 

The theme for this month's TBRChallenge was Change of Plans. In Captive of Fate Alanna is a twenty-nine year old woman who works for a Senator in D.C. She's been pulling sixty hour work weeks when he suddenly springs a trip to Costa Rica on her. She's supposed to go down there and prove that the US's head of a relief effort for earthquake victims, Marine Colonel Matt Breckenridge, is running and making money off a survivor goods black market. Having worked for the senator awhile and been tainted against Matt with all the horrible stories the senator has told her and that Matt is at fault for the senator's son's death in Vietnam, Alanna is gung-ho to get the evidence. 

He was honest in a way she had never known a man to be.

Of course, she gets a change of heart (plans) when she meets and spends time with him. Their first meeting initially sets up the friction with Alanna's presence bumping a radio specialist Matt really needed and him being angry at her but that dynamic doesn't rage as hard in this as I was anticipating as Matt softens and pretty obviously likes/falls for her quickly. Alanna for her part tries to keep her distance because she's been listening to the senator for so long but seeing Matt in action in Costa Rica and then realizing the evidence doesn't point to him at all for the black market has her leaning more into her attraction. 

He represented the emotional freedom she longed for. Yet, at the same time, he was a threat to her sense of security. He was dangerous. 

With the 1983 publishing date of this, you'll get a lot of Matt is so hot because of his masculine masculinity, He's sooooooooo male!, and leaned a bit too much into the fish out of water Alanna with some overemotional helpless female. With the Vietnam War fresh in memories there was a ton of “[...]Politicians versus military. Dove versus hawk.[...]” dialogue and ideology going on, I about fell off the couch when Alanna made a crack about Marines having a reputation for being rapists; 2000s military rom-suspense were, for the most part, ever up to touching that. It was interesting to me how Matt was portrayed, his thoughts on Vietnam (war is hell and all that but with how it was a waste of human life) and how though he was a Marine Recon the author worked hard at portraying him softer, very invested in emotions and wanting out of that kind of life, again I feel like the 2000s subgenre works hard at the messaging of for good of country/way of life and all that. (we're getting some years removed from the Afghanistan War so maybe I need to dip back more into rom-suspense and see if these feelings are being grappled with again) 

The last 40% they've left Costa Rica and the story kind of lost it's way for me. They romp around Maine for awhile as love, sex, and marriage are declared, had, and planned for but there's the senator wanting to take Matt down lingering in the background. There's a, sort of, third act breakup for the last 10% and Alanna leans way too hard into helpless female as Matt takes care of business and we eventually get our HEA. Some interesting character aspects to Matt, some disappointing from Alanna, the constant talk of “maleness” was wearing, a story that seemed to lose it's way for a while, kind of an odd late betrayal reveal, and interesting post war authorial thinking in the fabric, all lead to a not bad but probably not memorable book.

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Review: Your Knife, My Heart

Your Knife, My Heart by K.M. Moronova
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

I won’t kill my next partner. I won’t. 

You're Knife, My Heart had a sci-fi Suicide Squad vibe where recently caught murderer Emery and Dark Forces soldier Cameron are thrown together to survive the Under Trials. Listen, you're just going to have to roll with stuff on this. Emery was a forced to be murderer when her Underground (Mafia-ish) head of the family father forces her to become a hitwoman for the Family at age sixteen (I kind of question this man's leadership skills but c'est la vie). She was trained by someone named Reed, who we only get to know through her reminiscing and I guess was her mentor. She ends up getting caught, some plot comes out about this later, and gets pulled out of jail by a General Nolan who tells her she's going to be sent to a sort of boot camp and if she survives, she'll work for the super secret Dark Forces. When she gets there, she meets Cameron, who readers have already been introduced to, this is told in dual pov, and while she is instantly attracted to him, she senses something very off with him. 

My fatal flaw is the desire to fix broken things that don’t want or care to be fixed. I’m drawn to them like vultures are to carcasses. 

Cameron has already survived the Under Trials and worked for the Dark Forces on their team Fury for years. He's also been the only one to survive the drugs General Nolan's enhanced soldiers project has been trying out on these criminal soldiers. It takes a while to get Cameron's full background story but it's obvious he must have had an abusive childhood because he's damaged enough to want to keep taking the drugs, even though they're clearly giving him adverse side effects, he just can't stop killing people he's teamed up with on Fury, because his continued survival makes him feel special. He's been sent down to the Under Trials again because he needs to prove he won't kill Emery, his potential new partner, as they try to survive the Trials. 

I don’t want to be hidden when she’s around. Her eyes belong only on me. 

This was tagged as Dark Romance, Fantasy, and Military Romance, I know it's cringe to use “old” terms but, y'all, this is rom-suspense with some sci-fi. If you've read Anne Stuart or any Bodice Rippers from the '70s and '80s (I'm personally a reading survivor of Part 5 of Sweet Savage Love), you're not going to even flinch at anything in this. Cameron leans soft towards Emery from the moment they meet, insta-attraction, and while they like to talk up, while also disliking it, their killing natures (some Joker and Harley Quinn vibes) their relationship was pretty solid throughout. Emery slaps Cameron a couple times and while there's always talk of Cameron killing her, I can't say I ever felt the danger. Besides a closer to the end murder scene that did read squeamish gory, what I felt the darkest about this story was the constant vibe of Emery staying and wanting to help/fix/redeem the psychologically damaged and physically violent Cameron. I'm a sucker for the Beauty and the Beast trope but that line needs to be walked more careful than I think it was here, messaging is all I'm saying. 

Maybe two monsters like us really can find happiness. 

The trials and bedroom scenes (more descriptive/steamier than most newer big 5 pub house contemporary) get going around the half-way mark. There's some danger with each of the three trials but with some other points in the plot, rushed through and not really fleshed out. We get some last second reveals and a cliffhanger, which kind of surprised me as I felt Emery and Cameron's story felt completed. If you have a thing for the occasional “love” uttered by your MMC, some enhanced solider sci-fi, and a belief in a couple that stabs together stays together, this could be one for you to give a try.

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Review: Don't Look Back

Don't Look Back by Rachel Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

With both parents now dead, learning the truth wouldn’t hurt anyone except herself. 

Don't Look Back is third in the Evidence: Under Fire series, and while you'd miss out on arriving fully in the know about interpersonal relationships of characters, I didn't have a problem starting the series with this installment. There's enough nudging in of recaps to get new readers in the know and the beginning gives a flashback to a big moment between our leads, Kira is rescued by Rand; readers of the series will feel like they're just picking up where the last book left off. If you've been a reader of Suzanne Brockmann or binged through the tv shows The Night Agent, The Old Man, and Bodyguard (British), then you're definitely going to want to pick this up. 

She was flattered he wanted to date her, but she had no doubt he would crush her heart even more than her first love had. 

Kira's father has died and she's found some papers of his that leads to many questions as to why he took so many trips to the island of Malta. With how sheltered her parents kept her, she always wondered if her mother defected from East Germany and her father smuggled her into the United States. After getting kidnapped by a billionaire terrorist and almost dying (#2 Trust Me), Kira decides it's time to get her first stamp on her passport and find answers on Malta. Helping out one of her friends, she's set-up to teach three classes on a military base about respecting and protecting artifacts to soldiers, when she comes face-to-face with Lieutenant Commander Randall Fallon, the Navy SEAL who asked her out before she was kidnapped, ended up rescuing her, and then ghosted her. 

“Kira, I’m pretty sure I’ll follow you anywhere.” 

Rand is pretty sure Kira's father kept him away from her by deleting his emails and sending a fake email from “Kira's boyfriend” to get him to back-off. When he see's Dr. Kira Hanson will be on base, he's not going to let this second chance go. As she's shooting him down a second time, they hear actual gun shots and suddenly Kira's life is in his hands again. Since these two previously met in the prior book, Rand's attraction is already built-in and while there is an issue from a previous relationship in Kira's past that has her scared to give Rand a chance, she's also already attracted to him, I missed seeing some of their building attraction. While these two spend the vast majority of the story together, Rand ends up following Kira to Malta, reprising an undercover role, and they have some steamy open-door scenes, the romance still felt like only around 30% of this story, this was heavy on the suspense. 

She paused, pulling him to a stop. She turned and rose on her toes and kissed him. Brief and soft. “I really like you, Randall Fallon.” 

If you're into the suspense side, though, you're going to love this. When Kira goes to Malta to search out secrets, she gets way more than she bargained for. Even though her dad went to Malta multiple times, he told Kira he was trying to recover art stolen by Nazis, she discovers her father was involved in spy games. At around the midway point of the story, a big reveal happens and Kira is spun into a world of conniving Russian oligarchs, family secrets, and trying to stop an attack on United States soil. As this is an ARC, I don't want to spoil too much of the suspense plot threads, but just know, some you won't see coming and some tie back into book two. It's all suspenseful and at times the cast of characters really blows-up but it's tightly plot contained enough that, you won't need sleep, you'll need answers. 

Her past was a mess, but he offered her a future. She wasn’t alone anymore. 

The research additives, Malta setting descriptions will fascinate you, military jargon and actions give a good enough realism feel, and, because I'm a history nerd, I enjoyed one of my favorite named summits, Seasick Summit, getting a shout-out. Rand did his part as the strong, capable, little hot piece that uplifts and believes in the heroine. I thought the multiple mentions of Kira's social anxiety and feeling shy felt a bit overdone, as her character never showed anything but self-assured and her not believing Rand really wants her felt a little forced as he was always the one to ask her out and pursue. Together, they worked appealingly. The story takes place only a little over a week, and while I could have stood for more romance focus/development, the suspense was suspense-ing, this was packed full of plot threads weaving in, out, and together, delivering a heck of a ride.

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Review: Pardon My Frenchie

Pardon My Frenchie by Farrah Rochon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

Thank goodness she had an iron-clad list of reasons why men were off the table, because Mrs. Frances’s grandson had her reconsidering her life choices. 

Pardon My Frenchie was a story about two leads that had a million and one things on their plate. Ashanti is the caregiver for her two highschool twin sisters, her parents both died from separate incidents six years ago, trying to expand her doggy daycare business, and get her newly popular homemade dog treats side business going. Ever since her ex jeopardized her having custody of the twins, her father's aunt is constantly a stress as she wants to get custody of the twins, Ashanti has sworn off men. I get it, with her schedule, I don't see how she would really fit anyone in. However, this was marketed as romance, so the readers have to be thrown a bone, enter Thad, the grandson of one of Ashanti's regular customers and the new caretaker of his gram's poodle, Puddin'. 

It was the freckles. A smattering of freckles on a woman’s nose and cheeks got him every damn time. 

Thad is fresh out of a fifteen year military career and has a business plan with his friend to open up a bar that would cater to active, former, and retired military. He's not a fan of his gram's poodle and really not a fan of how much doggy daycare costs, causing him and Ashanti to oil and water in the beginning, and especially when Thad ends up buying the house Ashanti had planned on buying to expand her business to. However, they get forced together when Puddin' and Ashanti's dog Duchess, go viral for their cute antics on the live daycare feed. Both need the publicity coverage to drum up interest, which will hopefully lead to money, Ashanti's trying to win a business loan venture contest and Thad's trying to get his new business name out there. 

“He’s so annoying,” she said, setting the phone on the counter. Ashanti caught herself grinning and immediately stopped. 

There's slow burn and then there is me checking to make sure this was tagged as romance. The first fifty-percent of this you will get next to zero romance, it's all introducing and hanging on for the ride that is Ashanti and Thad's busy lives. I happen to gel with this author's writing, it's so smooth, draw you in, naturalness between character interactions, and my kind of readable, that I still flew through this first half, but still, where was the romance? There's some thinking the other is hot and a little back and forth, but you won't get much more than that. At the halfway point, Ashanti and Thad finally spend time together as they travel to New York City for a press junket about their dogs and promote their businesses. There we get a kiss and bedroom scenes but I'm not sure I truly felt the connection between these two to really enjoy them. Their talking to get to know one another was a good amount of Ashanti laying out her troubles/trauma from her parents dying, stress of aunt trying to take twins, and one of the twins not talking to her when something is obviously wrong. There was just so much going on in these characters lives that the romance was like number ten on the going to get to list. 

She found him attractive enough when he was being a surly curmudgeon. She would not be able to handle funny and charming. And gorgeous. She couldn’t forget gorgeous. 

When they come back from NY, Thad doesn't let Ashanti have all the other issues cutting in front of the romance fun, the house he and his friend/business partner bought has a slew of issues that is threatening to push back the opening date they wanted and a seemingly innocuous issue that was brought up earlier, really comes into play with Thad learning something about his beloved grandfather, causing some emotional turmoil. You'd think this would all be enough, but oh no, Ashanti comes back in and that drama that was brewing with one of her sisters, bewildering blows up at around the ninety percent mark. Why was there so much added, taking away the vast majority of room for the romance to build and develop? 

She let herself into the room and closed the door, pressing the back of her head against it like the lead actress in a sappy rom-com. 

A last second drama with Ashanti's business has her realizing that she must get things in order and we get a great happily ever after with her business life and then finally a little bit of time with Thad for a good happily for now (the epilogue does expand on this some). If you're someone who wants the romance immediately, you'd probably struggle to hang in there with this one but you do get some payoff in beginning second half, before these two get busy (not the good kind unfortunately) again with their businesses and life issues.

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Review: The Blood Trials

The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

"I am Verne Amari's granddaughter. I won't break." 

You really have to hit the ground running to keep up with this story. It's got magic, gods, wars, scifi, fantasy mish mashed all into a New Adult tone. You only get a sense of the world through the characters mentioning things, no solid grounding explanation to the structure of this world. 

It's all told from a first person pov from Ikenna, a nineteen year old who's grandfather just died. Racism and sexism are prevalent in this world and therefore mentioned, acknowledged, and raged against. Ikenna's that her grandfather, who was born of Mareen (dominantly white country) and Khanaian (dominantly Black country) parents and was a Tribunal because of how he won the war for Mareen, didn't just die of a heartattack but was assassinated. This motivates her to go through the Trials, a Hunger Game-ish, SEAL Hell Week like war games that weed out/kill the weak for the strong so they can go on to become Praetorian Guards. Ikenna wants to become a Praetorian so she can get closer to the people in charge and find out who gave the orders for her grandfather to be killed. 

The bulk of the story is the Trials and Ikenna trying to fight through her act first think later rage and discern friend from foe. The first 70% read super fast as you're just trying to keep up with Ikenna and hope for her survival. The last bit ends the trials and then more of the world politics comes into play and it really slowed the story down for me as I still wasn't fully immersed into the world and the moving bits now coming into play. 

Ikenna's also dealing with Blood Magic, it's apparently a power bestowed upon people by the Gods, but the Blood Emperor is who Mareen fought the war against (Ikenna's grandfather won the war for them but his daughter, Ikenna's mother was killed by the emperor). So, Ikenna is trying to hide this part of herself to not be killed as assumed a traitor. 

There's, obviously, a lot of moving parts and elements, but having most of the story centered around Ikenna helped, it was when the outside world that hadn't been flushed out too clearly came in, that I struggled. 

This ends on a cliffhanger and I'm going to dive right into the second because I'm very curious to see how it all ends up. If you can handle some worldbuilding pushed to the side, want some scifi and fantasy elements, a step above YA, and want to see a lead character not hold back their anger/rage (it did get frustrating at times as I wanted Ikenna to stop, take a breathe, and think), then this would be a hold onto your butts one to pick up.

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Review: One Lucky Day: Head Over Heels / Lucky in Love

One Lucky Day: Head Over Heels / Lucky in Love by Jill Shalvis
My rating: 5 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. 

Books three and four in the Lucky Harbor series, One Lucky Day, features some of the best of Shalvis' writing. 

Head Over Heels stars one of my favorite couples, Chloe and Sawyer. The first three books in the series star three sisters that weren't raised together but come together after their mother dies and they inherit an Inn in the small town of Lucky Harbor. Chloe is the youngest sister and the “wild child” while Sawyer is the Sheriff and by-the-book. The first two books show the two developing some heated sexual tension as they circle each other and their own book delivers on all the promised heat. There's a suspense plot threaded in that has Sawyer contracted out to the DEA that gives a little danger but for the most part, this story is all about the tension and heat between Chloe and Sawyer. These two are steamy together and more alike than anyone realizes. I also like how we get emotional growth from Chloe and scenes with her sisters as their bond solidifies. Sawyer has his own friendships with the past heroes in the series and some of his own family drama with his father but I mostly enjoyed how Chloe settles him and draws out that teasing, flirting with naughtiness side of his. 

Lucky in Love brings in some side characters that we briefly meet in the previous three books, hometown sweetheart Mallory and the sexy mysterious new guy in town Ty. Mallory gets her own “sisters” with Amy and Grace (their the heroines in the next two books) and they decide that it's time for Mallory to date Mr. Wrong, a chance for her to try the wild side. Mr. Wrong turns out to be Ty, he's in town because his friend Matt (he's a Lucky Harbor Park Ranger and yes, he gets his own book) invited him to stay as Ty recovers from an injury. Ty is a former Navy SEAL, currently a government contractor and is used to being on his own. Mallory and Ty meet-cute while Ty is concussed and we get a sort of blind date and a “we'll only sleep together but not catch feelings”. This story has a little bit of a more weightier feel than usual light and sexy Shalvis but I liked the change of pace, especially in a longer series like Lucky Harbor. These two take a little while to work through their individual issues but deliver the sexiness while doing it.

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Quickie Review: Midnight Confessions

Midnight Confessions by Candice Proctor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.3 stars 

This is romance but the murder mystery is the louder component. I didn't mind because I get to then use it for Halloween Bingo, lol. The romance is there but quieter and slow, this was very atmospheric. Set in New Orleans during the Civil War (1862), a lot of thick air, rain, Beast Butler hatred, and that languid pace. 

Zach is our provost marshal, a cavalry Major finishing up healing in New Orleans. When a doctor is killed in a graveyard he is called in to solve the murder. He meets the woman who was with him, Emmanuelle, newly widowed and works at the same hospital the victim was at. We get some background on Zach, he's famous for solving a serial killer case out west, so he doesn't just take things at face value. 

The murder mystery slowly unravels, was Emmanuelle the actual intended victim? The reader never really knows more than Zach and as more people around Emmanuelle wind up dead and she's not totally honest with Zach, she's a suspect, but a suspect Zach is finding himself attracted to. 

This story was all atmosphere, mystery, and languid. There were creditable red-herrings for the murder mystery but towards the 60% it becomes a little clear who is responsible. Around 80% I felt like it started to drag, mostly because I was sick and tired of Emmanuelle lying or not telling the truth to Zach about certain things, like, come on, truth time. The romance is more in the subtleties and Zach's character mostly saves the romance side because he's pretty swoony. 

Sept/Oct was the perfect time to read this, need time and patience to sink into the languid pace, and prepare to grow impatience with characters not being truthful and taking too long to share things with Zach.

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Review: Hard to Forget

Hard to Forget by Incy Black
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

If you caught my update, you'll know I blasted through half the book in one night. The thriller plot of the story starts right away, Lowry a former black ops agent is having an art showing and Jack, her former commanding officer is there to warn her to keep a low profile because of her former agent status. The sparks fly between them, anger, hurt, betrayal, and attraction, their antagonistic relationship has that quality that keeps your eyes on them. At the art showing, Lowry spots the man who raped her and her flight or fight goes full flight, Jack chases her down and from there, the running and gunning is on. 

When I started this, I couldn't help feeling I had read it before, turns out I read the next in the series a couple years ago, probably why the group of Assassins that work at the Cube as part of the clandestine faction of the UK military/government sounded familiar. The third book I stated that I probably should have read in the books in order because I was lost in the world building. I read a lot of romantic suspense, so the general elements I could hang in there on this one but I still felt like I was coming into a story a few chapters late, or as this is second in the series, a book late. I guess, I'm saying, read these in series order. 

Lowry joining the Assassins but immediately not fitting in because of her attitude and convinced there were turncoats at the Cube, is covered in retelling/reminiscing, why you feel like you're coming into the story late. She goes off on a solo mission to try and get the evidence she needs to prove her theories right, she gets captured by the sex traffickers' and raped by their leader before Jack and his crew can come in and rescue, a rescue that has Jack shooting Lowry to save her. Again, this is all relayed by the characters reminiscing, some flashbacks in there. 

The retelling is happening while Lowry is trying to run to stay safe from the leader of the sex traffickers that raped her and Jack trying to get her to tell him the full story so he can help her. This is 90% suspense thriller, your romance comes in the form of Jack gritting his teeth and/or clenching his hands and Lowry finding Jack sexy but angry and hurt he didn't believe her about the mole at the Cube. If you read Anne Stuart rom-suspense, it's a bit like that. Lowry comes off a bit young and flighty at times and Jack closed off stoic, but they were still charismatic characters, separately and together. 

There were times I wanted things to slow down, so I could get a footing in the world but the pace was also what kept me reading. Not romancey romance but charismatic at the least.

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Review: Moonrise

Moonrise by Anne Stuart
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Night had already fallen—it came early in October, and the moon was beginning to rise, covering the area with a silver light. In the moonlight, fresh blood would look black. 

I'm going to get this out of the way right away, there isn't any romance in this story. I know this is classified as romance but Annie and James' relationship is love/hate, zero romance, think more teeth gritting than swoony. As I've talked about before, Stuart has my trust as a reader, so when her heroes cross my fiction world soft lines, I hang in there. Y'all, I lost count of the times Jame said or thought about killing Annie, I'm not talking about the “haha, I could strangle you” out of love/frustration we see more often in romance, more of the: 

He looked down at her slender, delicate throat, and thought about how much pressure he'd need to exert to break her neck. It would be simple, easy, no more than a flick of the wrist, and she and her questions would be no threat to anyone. 

He was either going to have to do his damnedest to convince sharp-eyed, quick-witted Annie Sutherland that her father was a harmless bureaucrat who'd died in a freak accident. Or he might have to kill her himself. 

 If someone was going to kill Annie Sutherland, then it ought to be him. 

"I ought to fucking kill you," he said furiously. "You stupid little bitch, if I had any sense I'd cut your throat and have done with it." 

That last line was said around the 85% mark, this was some stark stuff, folks. 

The man who knew the secrets. That's what her father had said years ago. If ever anything happened, anything questionable, she could go to McKinley for the answers, Win had told her in a rare burst of openness. 

Review: Down Comes the Night

Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft
My rating: 3 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. 

War had made orphans of them all. 

Down Comes the Night is a standalone story marketed as young adult, fantasy, romance, and Gothic. I don't often venture into young adult but I was surprised when there was a sex scene in the last ten percent of the story, but maybe this isn't unheard of. The characters are around nineteen which, with the overall tone, made me think this fit more in New Adult, just less sex than I'm used to seeing in that sub-genre. With our characters having magic abilities, Wren, who is our main protagonist, can heal and Hal, the enemy-to-lover, can kill with his eyes, the fantasy element was there. The world building gives us three countries, Danu, Vesria, and Cenos, with Danu and Vesria currently in a truce after warring for centuries. This is why the military ranks are full of young adults, as there has been mass casualties on both sides. The war seems to be about religious differences and power struggle between the magic empires. Cenos has remained neutral as their citizens don't have magic abilities. 

“It’s uncomfortable, yes, to be so aware of you.” Good, she wanted to say. Suffer with me. 

The story is told from Wren's point of view and she is the illegitimate daughter of the queen of Danu's sister. With her mother and father both dead, Wren is sent to a holy cloister until she is twelve years old and then sent to the military academy to train in the medical corps as her magic heals. There she meets Una, and with a little hero worship in their relationship from Wren, they become friends and eventually have one night together before Una declares it can never happen again because she is Wren's superordinate in the military. When three soldiers of Danu who were patrolling the border between Danu and Vesria go missing, one who happens to be Wren's friend, the queen sends Una and Wren to investigate. Wren's sense of mercy allows a lead to escape and she ends up getting punished by the queen and sent back to the holy cloisters, feeling let down by Una. There she receives a letter from Lord Alistair Lowry III, a noble in Cenos, asking her to come help cure a servant and use her status as an almost royal to work as a liaison between their countries as he wants Cenos to side with Danu and defeat Versia. Wren, wanting to finally prove her worth, goes against the queen and Una and leaves to help the servant. 

Something was undeniably rotten in Colwick Hall. 

Wren arrives in Cenos, around the twenty percent mark, is where the Gothic tone creeps in more as Lowry lives in a dark and forbidding castle that is rumored to be haunted. It started off with Gothic promise but I'm not sure it was fully sustained but if this is written for young adult minds, then the howling and mystery of the closed off East wing could hit the mark for them. When Wren goes to heal the servant, she discovers that the servant is in fact Hal Cavendish, The Reaper of Vesria, a soldier that has killed thousands of her country brethren and supposedly in line to become the ruler of Vesria. While at Colwick Hall, Wren discovers that Hal's sickness and Lowry are not all they seem and she finds herself growing to care for Hal as she battles the desire to deliver Hal to the queen and become a hero in the queen and her country's eyes. 

But it would never be simple. He was Vesrian, and she was Danubian. 

I thought around the fifty percent mark, when Wren finally begins to trust Hal as he says that he is also investigating disappearances but of Vesria soldiers, that the pace started to slow down. The newness of the world ebbed and I started to look for more depth behind certain elements, the queen's obsession of clocks, the queen herself, the war, Severance (taking away someone's magic), and world itself. Wren trying to figure out what exactly is going with Lowry had her going in circles for too long and then Wren and Hal running from the castle felt needless and pointless to the overall plot. At first, the story felt set in some kind of fantasy medieval time but when it moves to Cenos, it switches to Victorian, which with Cenos supposed to be more technologically advanced, I guess could make sense but really it just made the fantasy and Gothic elements not mesh right and neither ended up feeling developed fully. 

I believe you, he’d said, with more trust and affection than she thought she’d ever deserve. Now she had to believe in herself. 

The author's messaging was clear, endless wars cause horrible suffering, the lies from leaders at the top usually have self-serving purposes, and mercy and caring are not weaknesses. Wren and Hal getting to know one another and dispelling rumors and lies about each other, clearly built up their friendship. Their attraction had sweet moments that I thought fit into young adult but their physicality sometimes leaned into New Adult for me. The messaging was good but I thought it got lost in some slow pacing that could have been trimmed up. As fantasy novels usually come in trilogies though, Down Comes the Night does deliver a good story in a one-stop.

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Review: SAS: Red Notice

SAS: Red Notice by Andy McNab
My rating: 3 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. 

An on the run tried and convicted war criminal, Laszlo Antonov has an international Red Notice warrant on him and UK officials think he is hiding out in London. After a mission to capture him goes bust, he's on the move again. Tom Buckingham was part of the SAS force that tried to capture him and after his night gets extended with another commitment to the Regiment and his brothers in arms, he finds out that his girlfriend Delphine is leaving him. Not wanting to let her go, he races to make the Eurostar train she's on, and passes none other than Antonov on the same train. Hostage situations, bombs, guns, and war criminals are nothing new to Tom but this time, the love of his life is in the mix. 

With a prologue that starts in 1996 and from the pov of Antonov, the author set-up a heartless villain that had no problem killing children and raping woman, while also throwing in a mystery Englishman to plant a double crosser seed. Antonov is South Ossetian and his hate of Georgians killing his countrymen sent him on the path of being funded by the Russians for a paramilitary group that gets dubbed the “Black Bears”. Later in the book, readers also learn that Antonov was secretly supported by some UK officials because of an oil pipeline and was in fact trained by SAS forces. He's a villain that brings the violence, double-crossing, and government conspiracies. 

Surprisingly, I didn't feel as if I knew our hero Tom as well. This is the first book in a series, so some of Tom could be held back but I never felt like we really penetrate his personality. There are some flashback scenes interchanged with the current action that show how him and Delphine met, their relationship, some moments with his teammates, and his parents but he mostly still came off wooden to me. Later on when he's working to put a stop to Antonov and save Delphine, we get some more emotion but I still felt I couldn't pick him out of a military fiction line-up; he doesn't quite spark enough to want to follow along in a continuing series. 

The beginning was a little bit rough to get through, there is a lot of jargon, acronyms, and lingo (described and explained) that I'm sure is second-hand for the author but for the uninitiated it was a bit much to start off with and try to retain and get involved with. The chapters were very short, which I thought worked for all the pov changes we get but, along with some of the flashbacks scenes, there were a couple misplaced because they cut into the action flow and stalled any suspense and thriller feelings that were building. I also thought that the decision to have Antonov's character, somewhat, grudgingly grow to respect Delphine and drag her along, ruined the previous work done to set-up him up to be so ruthless. Any child killings began to feel more for simple shock factor instead of character building. 

As for the series, this left some dangling threads, political maneuverings, double-crossing, and the start of a revenge plot for Tom to follow. With a whiff of Die Hard, I can see why this is going to be made into a movie and I do think it will translate over well.

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Quickie Review: SEAL's Promise

SEAL's Promise by Sharon Hamilton
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This says #1 but it must be a spinoff and I would highly suggest anyone check out any possible previous books before tackling this one. My face as I got about 7% in,  

There were a lot of characters that I'm not sure I fully made heads or tails of and the ones I could with their relationships...umm, No. It seems like the bride and bestman are going to end up together after the groom dies. I'm going to spout the company line of this writer's voice just doesn't seem to be for me.

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Quickie Review: Enemy Mine

Enemy Mine by Megan Mitcham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

Interesting romantic suspense Kindle Freebie. Common format with a secret group of agents working for the government, Branch, our heroine works for them and she was totally butt kicking. Hero is a childhood love who seems to have turned evil working for his father, the same father that killed heroine's parents. 

Action, undercover, and fast paced. I thought towards the end one too many bedroom scenes interrupting the good action that was going on but these two probably deserved that time :) 

Some editing mistakes but this looks to be self-published and, again, I downloaded as a Kindle Freebie, so I can look a little past since they weren't completely glaring and/or ruined the flow of story. I'll definitely be checking out the next in series.

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Review: Lethal Game

Lethal Game by Christine Feehan
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. 

The sixteenth installment of the Ghostwalkers series, Lethal Game was full of enhanced super soldiers, political plots, family, and love. Some would say I have no business jumping into a series at #16, and they could be right, but when I read the synopsis I was intrigued and wanted to give the story a chance. The author does a great job of informing any new readers to the backstory of Ghostwalkers, scientifically enhanced soldiers, without info dumping. I was completely locked in when the story started off with Air Force para-rescuers, Malichai and Rubin, set down in the mountains of Afghanistan as they help rescue a group of injured soldiers pinned down. Malichai and Rubin's powers are revealed as they telepathically speak to each other and have super strength and speed. Malichai ends up getting grievously injured and is forced to take some vacation time, this is when he meets our heroine. 

 He was dangerous to her in more ways than was good for either of them. 

Amaryllis is also a Ghostwalker, one that escaped from Dr. Whitney (the mad scientists behind enhancing humans) and is on the run. When Malichai ends up staying at the bed and breakfast she is currently working at, they both sense something in the other. Their attraction was instant and although they both were a little wary, it was around the 30% mark that these two were pretty much already together. I missed more of an emotional growing attraction and some of the push/pull that can happen. Along with Amaryllis being on the run from Whitney and an enhanced soldier named Owen that feels Amaryllis needs to be punished for showing him up, Malichai and Amaryllis seem to have stumbled upon a planned terrorist attack that is headed by individuals in their own American government. I thought this plot was completely unneeded as it confused and clogged the story at times. 

 “I pay attention to detail because you count. You matter.” 

Falling in love with Amaryllis and trying to ferret out the terrorist plot, Malichai is also dealing with the injury to his leg that just won't heal. This is where the author brings up past characters from the series and some past plot threads. I still never felt overwhelmed but around the last 20%, it is pretty much full on a collection of series characters and some particular angst following a past couple. Frequent readers of the series will probably enjoy revisiting them but I wanted more of a focus on Malichai and Amaryllis. They worked well together but the quickness that they got together and then lack of focus on them, made this feel less like a romance than a Ghostwalker book. The story also had a tendency to get very repetitive, a lot of character inner dialogue would then be repeated as outer; a good amount of editing needed to be done to clean this story up. 

 “Baby, you aren’t hearing me when I talk to you. I’ve been all over the world. In just about every country. I’ve looked for you. I’ve actively looked for you. I didn’t think you actually existed. There is no way, after finding you, that I’m going to wait to tell you how I feel. I know the real thing because I saw so many others who weren’t. You’re right for me. You’re always going to be right for me. Now, or ten years from now. It won’t matter. We fit. I told you this already.” 

Amaryllis and Malichai's romance developed too quickly for me and the terrorist plot felt jammed in but the overall theme involving how humans become Ghostwalkers was interesting. With groups of Ghostwalkers living in Montana, San Francisco, and Malichai's in Louisiana, I'll have to go back to the beginning and read about how it all started. With two women who escaped with Amaryllis still out there and some fellow Ghostwalker brothers of Malichai needing their own heroines, this series looks to still have threads to follow.

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Review: Lethal Redemption

Lethal Redemption by April Hunt
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.

Grace's job as a FBI profiler has pitted her up against some of the most dangerous people. When the Vice President of the United States asks for her help in rescuing his daughter she can't say no, even if it involves going back to the cult she escaped seventeen years ago.
Cade will never stop loving his bestfriends' cousin Grace, even if he felt he had to walk away from her nine years ago. When she has to put herself in danger for the mission, he's going to be right there beside her.
Grace and Cade may have their second chance at love but they'll have to stop the murderous rage of a cult first.

Her worst fear---or one of them---was about to come to fruition. The other had been watching the man she loved---and trusted---walk away and out of her life.

Lethal Redemption is the second installment of the Steele Ops series, a group of former military men and women who have built their own security business. They operate out of a beer distillery and do operations that the U.S. government doesn't want their name attached to. The Vice President's daughter has fallen into The New Order of the Dawn, a cult, and needs to be rescued but the Vice President doesn't want any media attention. If you read the first in the series (Deadly Obsession) you'll remember Grace and Cade as the antagonistic twosome that obviously still had feelings for each other. Even though we got glimpses of these two in the first, you could still comfortably start here.

After seventeen years of being free of Father Teague's daily Blessings and her mother's nonstop disapproving lectures, she was headed back to New Dawn...and back to the people who stole eight years of her childhood.

Grace came to live with her four male cousins when she escaped from the Order of the New Dawn cult. Her father had died and her mother had dragged her into the cult. Cade and his sister Zoey (heroine from book one) were friends with the four Steele cousins and thus Cade and Grace grew-up together. They dated while in college and had big plans put Cade decided to reenlist in the Army without telling Grace and they broke up. I really missed watching Grace and Cade grow to be in love. Their second chance romance didn't get as much page time as I would have liked because of the cult storyline dominating the plot. The two did have a nice flow to their interactions but the feelings and attraction build-up has already happened and we get more of “well, let's try this again”, some fear from both sides, and then “we're together again”. These actions and emotions don't necessarily cycle through quickly, but they didn't have the number of steps and depth I need to really get involved with a couple.

She trusted him.
Now it was up to him to make sure she never regretted it.

Grace was the much more shaded in character, with her time in the cult, escaping, adjusting to living with cousins, Cade issues, and then having to go back into the cult and seeing her mother again. There is some ground work laid from the first book about the issues Cade has with his father but Cade was mostly in the story to support, get protective if Grace put herself in danger, and be there for the sex scenes. The fact that they had previously developed feelings of love and the cult plot really stole any page time from their romance.

The New Dawn cult, their workings, was interesting but the conclusion to how the Vice President's daughter fit in and the threads that untangled to reveal the who and what, made for a somewhat muddy and trying too hard to be clever climax. There are still some Steele Ops members that need their happily ever after and a possible Vice President's daughter and Secret Service Agent. This author does always manage to pull me into the story, there's an easy of flow and movement to characters that I enjoy, so I'll still be checking out the series next romance and adventure.

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Review: Dream Maker

Dream Maker by Kristen Ashley
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.

Dream Maker is the start of a new series but characters from the author's previous series, Dream Man and Rock Chick (some Chaos) heavily feature in it. I've read books in Dream Man but none in Rock Chick, I was able to hang in there in regards to who was who and connections but barely. If you're completely new to Kristen Ashley, this probably isn't where you should start.

One could say I was correct in my concerns about Daniel Magnusson. I didn’t know if he was toxic. But he was a bossy damned alpha. And meddling.

If you're not new to Ashley, you'll recognize her writing style but with some tweaking. Danny speaks in full sentences but “Babe” and a controlling nature that make Ashley heroes a love them or hate them, was still evident in the character. Evie was the klutzy nerd that makes her adorable to the hero and because of how forced and jammed in it felt at times, she super duper cares about the environment (she drives a Prius and wears shoes from recycled bottles!) in what I think was probably added to make her seem more Millennial/Gen Z. Evie broaches pushing back at Danny's controlling nature, he's a “commando” so he wants to run the show in regards to protecting her, but Danny ends up pretty much doing what he wants. There's insta attraction between the two and I think all the “babes” and whispered talk was supposed to be the evidence for these deep feelings. I can't say these two left a lasting impression on me.

“Mac is no fool. This isn’t about you sorting my shit. It’s her setting me up to sort yours.”

Lottie, Evie's friend, set-up Danny with Evie and told Evie Danny was sleeping his way through Denver because he was having a hard time emotionally. However, Danny sees how crappy Evie's family treats her and then reads a text message that shows how much danger Evie is being put in because of her brother and he thinks Lottie put them together to help Evie. The plot involving Evie's brother, drugs, and danger was supposed to be the continuing thread throughout the book but it never gets filled out enough and gets ignored for the majority of the time in favor of Evie and Danny whispering at each other in short sentences that “Ooh that must have meant something, they really care about me!”. The suspense plot felt ignored, was slow, and never filled out to create any semblance to a plot.

“I’m a little scared, Danny,” I admitted.
“I am too,” he surprised me by saying. “But you’re worth the risk.”

The whole series gets laid out, Evie was set-up with Danny through Lottie and we learn that three other women that Evie works with at the strip club and she realizes are her friends, are lined up and paired off with Danny's friends and co-workers. There isn't any surprise or suspense in who the couples will be in the coming books. There was a couple that interested me but the utter lack of plot in this has me very tentative to try another in this series.

These people. These crazy, kindhearted people.

Evie felt like a fully formed character but Danny's background was absent and it left his character a bit vapid. Evie gets kidnapped twice and their first sex scene is after Danny was shot and was previously in a lot of pain. There's enough of Ashley's tried and true elements that previous readers could find enjoyment and enough tweaking that it could bring in new readers, for me, I really just needed more plot.

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Review: Total Bravery

Total Bravery by Piper J. Drake
My rating: 3 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.

Mali is in Hawaii doing research for a human rights study focusing on sex trafficking, when her principal investigator blows his alert whistle when her and her colleagues are out doing street interviews, she knows she's in trouble. Her former military sister Arin works on the island, so she calls her for help.

Raul has just been hired by Search and Protect Corps, a job his former colleague and friend Arin helped him get. When he gets a call forwarded from Arin's phone because she is currently on a mission and hears her little sister asking for help, he knows he has to act.

Mali and Raul both have trust issues but as they work to find out what happened to Mali's colleagues, the spark between them is getting harder and harder to ignore.

Her laughter faded, and her dark brown eyes sparkled with mischief. “Well, if you're going to get in trouble anyway...”

She bent then, leaning a hand on his chest, and pressed her lips to his.

Total Bravery, is number four in the True Heroes series but you would have no problem picking this up with no prior knowledge. I've only read the first in the series and I never felt lost. The story brings you into the action right away, which really worked for me in some ways and not in others. Raul's partner is a German Sheppard named Taz and, something that I thought was missing from the first book, the author utilized Taz wonderfully. Even though Mali is running and hiding, the way Taz brings Raul to her started the story off cute and exciting. However, jumping right into the danger that sets up the action plot didn't allow for an introduction to Mali's colleagues. When Mali manages to evade the ominous men in suits that caused the leader of her research group to warn people to run but her colleagues all get kidnapped, I didn't have an emotional stake in their danger or any future reveals pertaining to the characters; nixed a supposed surprise ending thread.

A cold nose touched her thigh, and Taz slipped his head under her hand. The big dog pressed against her leg. Raul murmured gently, “We won't leave you.”

Mali was the stronger of the two characters because of getting more background information on her. She grew-up protected by her older sister and this caused her to look up to her but also have some fear towards the violence Arin exhibited in front of her. We get a scene between the sisters where Mali learns that Arin thinks of her in a way that Mali was clueless about and bolsters her confidence. I wish we could have gotten more scenes between the two because their uneasy but loving relationship provided great complex emotions. The same with Raul and Arin, I would have liked to see these two friends together. As the new guy on the job, Raul didn't have any connections and he didn't seem to have family or other friends than Arin, this left some of the different layers of his character blank for me.

She was doing research because she believed people were worth saving. He'd spent the better part of his last assignment proving to people that there was a hell, and it didn't take demons to send them there.

Mali and Raul had a cute start, even though their first kiss happens very quickly and as Mali's character gets revealed more, it made the first kiss seem out of character for her. Their romance felt pushed to the side a bit too much in favor of the plot to find out who and why Mali's colleagues were taken. The villains behind the sex trafficking plot felt a bit whiffed on with their structure and reveal but maybe since they're close to the Search and Protect corps they will show up again. I'm a dog person and I adored the relationship between Taz and Mali and how Taz worked with Raul; Taz made this book for me. I thought the writing was smooth and the author handled the moving parts well, research felt evident in how scenes and characters were conducted, most importantly, it kept me wanting to read but I didn't fully feel the love building between Raul and Mali. Even in the later half of the story Mali was still not thinking a relationship with Raul would be serious. I wish the ending text messages that Raul sends to Mali would have been shown so we could read and feel more of an emotional connection between the two.

She stared up at him. “I am so glad you're here.”

He smiled then, slow and incredibly sexy.

Each book in the series has a main character paired with a dog (keep hoping for a Rottweiler someday!) and I love that. Trust me, you're going to love Taz, the moment where he shuts a car door during a mission was ridiculously cute and high training impressive. This was the second book in the series I've read and even though I thought the romance relationship between the two could have been better, I enjoyed it even more than the first.

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Review: Nothing to Fear

Nothing to Fear by Juno Rushdan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 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.

Someone in his unit, someone they trusted with their lives, had murdered a suspect in custody— here in the ultrasecure facility right under their noses.

The Gray Box is a so deep undercover organization in the US government that even people in the know don't know about it, and they have a mole. The first in the series, Every Last Breath, introduced us to the Gray Box and the men and women working to keep America safe. The idea of a possibility of a mole is talked about there and by the end confirmed, Nothing to Fear is the story of Gideon, known as Reaper, going rogue to protect one of their programmers and hackers, Willow, from being set-up by the mole. You could start the series here but you'd miss out on the foundation of character relationships and the author does such a great job of constructing the plot that I think it is worth it to read the series in order.

When he looked at her, he didn’t see a target or a mission. Only an exquisite woman, tender and sweet, ready to open herself. She was giving him the precious gift of her trust— a miracle and a mistake inextricably tangled.

Nothing to Fear was just about a non-stop action ride that I highly enjoyed. As this is romantic suspense, I do think the romance could have been a bit stronger but if you enjoy action and a strong plot, this is a must read. For me, not completely feeling Gideon's character contributed to the romance not feeling as strong. He's infused with more emotional bearing than the typical alpha males in this sub-genre but the slower reveal of his background kept me from knowing him. At the end there was also a bit too much, “I'm not good enough for her/I'm too damaged” that starts to feel angst for angst sake after reading the majority of the story where the couple has already fallen in love. Our heroine Willow felt more like a complete character and her always feeling like an outcast because of being on the spectrum will tug at some hearts.

The power she had, to have him unraveling with a look.

This is the second book I've read by this author and while I've enjoyed the lead romances, I think where this author really shines is her ability to construct these twisty turn-y, high action plots carried out by main characters you want to fall in love and secondary characters you become wildly impatient to read their books. The concept of a super secret government group isn't new to the romantic suspense world but I do feel this author is top notch at pulling it off. The ending conclusion and wrap-up on some of the mole plot was a little rushed (the main baddie had a background that I would have actually liked explored more) but for the vast majority I was locked into the action and flew through this book.

If you like romantic suspense, I highly recommend this series. The romance does take a backseat at times but you'll find yourself invested in all the characters and the engaging plots. I can't wait for the next in the series.

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Review: Her Deadly Secrets

Her Deadly Secrets by Laura Griffin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 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.

Kira had no idea that meeting up with her boss and mentor Ollie at high priced lawyer Brock Logan's house would turn her life upside down. As private investigators hired by Logan's firm to help find information on their current trial involving a surgeon supposedly killing his wife, they've been working around the clock. Ollie claims he's found out something that will win the trial but before he can tell Kira, a masked and hooded man murders him.
Jeremy is just getting off a plane after a botched mission and wanting some rest and relaxation but Wolfe Security needs him on another protection case. Protecting lawyers seems easy but when Jeremy gets assigned to Kira he knows he's in trouble.

What had started as a straightforward PI job had spun out of control, and Kira felt as though her life had been hit by a tornado.

This is second in the Wolfe Security series but easily read as a standalone, you'll recognize some Wolfe Security members but the author takes the reader on a completely new murder case. The murder mystery is more of the focus than the romance, the lead detective on the case, Charlotte Spears, gets multiple povs throughout the story. This helped to develop and involve the reader in the murder case but definitely took time away from the romance. Kira was a fun heroine to follow along with at times, with her, somewhat, unconventional job as a PI. I struggled with her stubbornness and frustration with her protection detail, though. Her boss and friend Ollie was murdered right in front of her and she is obviously in danger because of what she might know or have in her possession but she still tries to skirt Jeremy and others assigned to her safety. She defers to them later in the story but in the beginning, it wasn't so much showing me how independent Kira was as how foolish she was.

This was going to be a hell of a case, Jeremy had suspected it the instant he'd seen the client, and it had taken about two minutes alone with her to confirm his suspicions. This woman was headstrong and sneaky as hell.

For being a lead, Jeremy wasn't a character that I felt I got to know well. We get some canned former military, PTSD, alpha, and still struggling with last mission that went wrong, background but I had no idea who this guy really was. He seemed nice, smart, and capable but five minutes after finishing the book I could never pick him out of a lineup. As the story seemed more focused on the murder mystery, Kira and Jeremy's relationship development was severely lacking for me. Their first kiss felt completely adrenaline fueled than deeper attraction. I appreciated how the author kept Jeremy focused on his job, as lives were on the line, but it also made Kira's seemingly bewilderment as to why Jeremy wanted to keep things professional even more glaring.

Her bossy voice turned him on, which was the dead-last thing he ever planned to tell her, bit it was true.

Towards the middle, the case meandered a bit and then the end had a bunch of information revealed fast, which gave a bit of anti-climatic feel. There was also some details added, multiple scenes of people having to stop talking because something like a coffee pot was too loud and secondary character traits like Logan being an alcoholic, that felt useless, unless Logan and others show up in the series again. I think romance readers will miss more romance and relationship development and murder mystery readers will miss a more gritty and whodunit feel. The writing is good and the outline is there but the details and relationships that make a story memorable for me were missing from this one. Wolfe Security still has some bachelors and I'm going to look forward to more romance to go along with their gun toting.

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