⭐⭐⭐☆★
A semi-thriller and full-on romance was a genre we were a little leery about. Mixed genres with a word limit find it a little difficult to do justice to either the thriller part or the romance part. But this one was a pleasant surprise.
Gorgeous Dr. Chloe Maddox was abducted and subjected to horrifying
abuse. She becomes a behavioural profiler specialising in sexual abuse cases.
However, she has no memory of her own abuse and torture that had left her barely
alive.
Dana Blake is a detective whose wife was also abducted and
abused in the past. Dana lost her wife to that crime and needs to find the perpetrator
before she can move on. It is wholly possible that the person behind both the
cases is the same man.
Chloe and Dana set out to get justice together.
This book has so many plusses. The first is Chloe. She is
etched as a strong, independent person, not afraid to seek help. Also (thankfully),
she is neither hiding from what happened not being angsty about sharing it so half
the book is not spent in Dana (and the other characters) trying to break her
barriers and trying to reach her. We are (obviously) totally fangirling Chloe
(so, yeah, we do a lot of fangirling and crushing to some characters in lesfic…but
it looks like the woman we really want in our lives live only in the
imagination of various authors).
Dana is also drawn as a strong, sympathetic character. The attraction
and emotional build-up between them is excellently handled and we found ourselves
completely wanting it to happen without worrying whether it will – just wanted
to know how and when it will manifest.
The other big plus is Chloe’s dog, Taz. He is utterly human
and wonderful.
The thriller aspect is good and keeps us almost on the edge.
The minuses: the book felt about 20% longer than it could’ve
been. The whole part from the point both are abducted need not have been
there. The edge-of-the seat thrill got lost with that. The omnipotent villain could’ve
been a little more fleshed out in terms of just how he is so omnipotent.
However, the author manages to keep us invested in the book,
so it’s all good.
⭐⭐⭐☆★
⭐⭐⭐☆★
