Sergeant's Christmas Siege on October 29, 2019 Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
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Danger lurks in the wilds of Grizzly Harbor this Christmas but it's love that has Alaska Force in the cross-hairs, from the USA Today bestselling author of Sniper's Pride.
When straight-arrow, by-the-rules Alaskan State Trooper Kate Holiday is sent to investigate a local band of secretive commandos in remote Grizzly Harbor over the holidays, her least favorite time of year, her objective is clear: disband Alaska Force and arrest them. But Kate didn't count on the diabolical temptation of Templeton Cross. The former Army Ranger exudes charm and has absolutely no respect for the rules of law that govern Kate's life - too bad he also makes her mouth water and her knees weak.
Templeton has always been good at keeping his game face on and his emotions hidden, especially in combat. But working with Kate brings back memories of losses he prefers to keep locked up tight. As the pressure mounts - and Christmas draws closer - it’s a given that someone's going to get hurt.
Trouble is, the more time he spends convincing his careful, wary trooper that there’s more to the holidays than her memories, the more he wants to keep her around. Forever.
But forever is the one thing a man like Templeton can't do. Not even at Christmas.Â
In this Alaska Force novel, we see that those bands of brothers we love here in Romancelandia don’t always get away with their off-the-books ops. Even though they’re the good guys, there are consequences to things blowing up.
Kate is an Alaska State Trooper who barely survived growing up in a cult and then escaping at age 12. She’s very by the book, and she is very good at knowing the difference between people who just want to live off the grid, and people who live off the grid to hide from the law. So it’s no surprise she’s sent in to check out the group made up of former military personnel and to figure out why so many things keep exploding around them.
Templeton is sent in to charm the state trooper who is going to be investigating him. His job is to show her that they’re just a bunch of aw shucks ma’am do-gooders. Which to be fair is mostly true. But Kate sees through his relaxed southern charm persona right through to the Special Forces soldier beneath. And Templeton loves that about her.
Kate is prickly, seems uptight, but really she’s controlled. No grey areas, black and white only. Templeton loves her all the more. But he needs to show her that life is full of grey areas, and Alaska Force operates in one.
But in the mean time, all of the events that attracted the troopers’ attention and focused in on Alaska Force, may have been a distraction for something bigger. Something that has very little to do with Alaska Force and everything to do with Kate.
This book had very little about Templeton. It’s all about Kate, which was mostly okay, it worked…until the ending. Each of these books so far has had a major family element, both found and blood. And the family reunion at the end could have used a bit of backstory. So much focused on everything else happening in the story, that there wasn’t enough in my opinion.
That being said, I love this series, and I enjoyed Kate and her prickly self. I also like that even though she loosened up a bit in the end, she never really lost that sense of self that she maintained throughout the book. I think that’s important since it was such a huge part of who she was.
This is a series that I enjoy and look forward to with each release.
***ARC courtesy of Berkley Romance via Netgalley
