CW: Rape

I don’t think I liked this book all that much, and that’s a crying shame because it had so much going for it.

This book needed a better content editor, one who isn’t afraid to cut things. This book could have been tighter and shorter. As with the previous book Dangerous Waters, there are too many viewpoints. Not head-hopping or anything, it’s not confusing, but it is frustrating and unnecessary. And speaking of unnecessary, did we really need to get that detailed rape while in the villain’s head? We’d had Anna’s rape, we’d had the bad guy telling us how he liked to rape many many times, was it really that important to give us his point of view while raping a woman? It was a stupid thing to do too, since he’d been almost caught and was running and yet he had time to rape? While he was literally running and hiding from the cops?!

The story itself was intense, which is why I had a hard time not finishing it; I did want to see how it ended.

Brent is an ex-con, don’t worry, you won’t forget that since they remind us every 5 seconds. At age 16 he killed his abusive father who had beaten his little brother into unconsciousness. He hit him over the head with a bottle and his dad died. You’re going to tell me a town of a couple hundred people sneer and turn away now that he’s out because he had a bad lawyer and got 20 to life?! They knew those boys were being abused and they knew he’d done it in defense of his brother. All of that town is stupid. So now Brent is out and has made a name for himself as an amazing artist. He’s worth a ton of money. Yet the town can’t ever see him as anything but a killer.

Anna’s dad went to prison for embezzling a million bucks. He maintained his innocence, but did his time and got out. Then he got another job and worked it, and worked it well for 4 years. The company he worked for looked like they were setting him up for embezzling $60 mil. He knew that no one would ever believe him so he sent hid the money and made copies of everything and got the heck out of dodge. But the company figured it out before he’d even left sight of the building. He’d mailed the papers but was killed in the process.

Anna is one of my problems with this book. Look I am under no illusions that I would magically turn into Rambo (Rambette? Rambina?) if I were caught up in this type of scary situation. BUT if I were sent by my dad to the one man he trusted, the one man who could help, and that man was doing everything possible to avoid jail again, you better believe I’d take it seriously and not be in denial about how dangerous it was. I would not try to go back home. I would not try to go to my mom’s house, my grandmother’s house, my dad’s house, I would not do anything but what he told me. Seriously.

Brent is in great shape. But he’s not a Navy SEAL or anything, so I’m not sure what his skills are at avoiding professional mercenaries. That being said, his brother is former Special Forces, his soon to be sister-in-law is a Mountie and her dad is the Director of the Mounties. I like that Brent went to them, but I hate that he ran off and tried to do it alone.

The ending was good, the plot was good, but I’m glad this series ended at 2 books. I don’t want to read another. That being said, I’ve been recommended this author’s books so many times from people I trust, that I’m wondering if her other series would work for me.

This book has excitement and intensity, and a good plot. I just didn’t like the characters all that much. It’s much more a Romantic Thriller than a Romantic Suspense (I know that I made up a genre, but it feels more accurate here). I’ll be giving this author another chance, but I don’t think this series worked for me.

***I got the book via Kindle Unlimited.