Author: Anna Hackett

#BookReview: The Hero She Deserves by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: The Hero She Deserves by Anna HackettThe Hero She Deserves (Unbroken Heroes) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance
Series: Unbroken Heroes #4
Pages: 252
Published by Anna Hackett on December 4, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

When he goes to investigate a blaring smoke alarm, the last thing he expects to find is Hollywood’s hottest actress…naked.
Deputy Sheriff Sawyer Lane likes the pace of life on Maui. After years as a Navy SEAL and in Ghost Ops, he likes that no one shoots at him. Coming to the island saved him. He still can’t sleep, but he’ll take the sun, sand, and solitude.
Then Oscar-winning actress Hollis Stanton rents the house next to his and torpedoes his solitude. When she sets her coffee machine on fire, he meant to help, not see every glorious inch of her from her russet-red hair to her red-painted toenails.
Soon, they’re running into each other everywhere, and it doesn’t take all of Sawyer’s finely-honed skills to know she’s in trouble and hiding from something. Or someone.
Hollis Stanton usually loves her life—movie roles she enjoys, an Oscar on her mantel, financial security. She’s come a long way from the poor, gangly redhead in hand-me-down clothes. But one stupid party held by a powerful movie producer changes everything.
She accidentally overhears something she shouldn’t have.
Now, someone is following her, breaking into her house, and crashing into her car. Her plan is to lay low in Hawaii. What wasn’t in her plan is the big, muscular, and rugged deputy sheriff next door. Nor is their scorching attraction.
When danger closes in, Hollis realizes Sawyer is the real deal—a hero with scars, who helps those in need.
A hero who will do anything to protect her.

My Review:

And she absolutely does. After all the fake heroes she’s played opposite in all of her movies, Oscar-winning actress Hollis Stanton deserves a real hero of her own just when she needs him the most.

Even if, at first, she’s not willing to admit that she needs anyone to keep her safe, or that Deputy Sheriff Sawyer Lane is the hero she’s been holding out for all along. For more than just the present danger.

(And yes, I invoked that earworm deliberately. If this story doesn’t make Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” ring through your head, here’s the video to fix that. You’re welcome.)

One of the unfortunate things about information and cellphone cameras being available everywhere, all the time, is that a person can run but they literally cannot hide, at least not if they’re a movie star like Hollis Stanton.

Hawaii, like Alaska still is to some extent, used to be a place that was so far out there – far out in the Pacific Ocean – that once upon a time a person could run away from themselves and whatever demons were literally chasing them.

Of course, the demons that were only figuratively chasing them, the demons inside their own heads, came right along with them. After all, no matter where you go, there you are.

Hollis Stanton is being chased by very real demons. She overheard something she shouldn’t have at a party hosted by a shady Hollywood mogul, and then weird shit started happening around her. So she ran, to the house of a friend outside the tiny village of Paia, on Maui. She covered her tracks as best she could, but she’s a hot commodity and anyone who sees her instantly recognizes her.

Sawyer Lane, very much on the other hand, left the SEALs and Vander Norcross’ Ghost Ops team with a whole lot of demons. But Sawyer’s demons are inside him, and he brought them along with him to Paia.

The place, the job, the friends he’s made there are helping him lay those demons to rest, but it’s a long process that still gives him plenty of sleepless nights. Like all of the nights. Still.

At least until the fire alarm goes off in the ‘vacation home’ down the road, and his sometime neighbor calls Sawyer to ask him to go down and check it out. And finds himself checking out Hollis Stanton, ALL of Hollis Stanton, standing on a teetering chair in just a slipping towel trying her damndest to shut the damn thing off.

It’s already too late for her coffee maker. And it’s too late for Sawyer Lane – and Hollis, too – they just don’t know it yet. And might not survive the conflagration to come.

Escape Rating B: Just like the story reminded me of “Holding Out for a Hero”, the hero in the story reminds Hollis Stanton of the hero of the Jack Reacher TV series. The book’s cover does a damn good job of leading the reader in that same direction, although your reading and TV viewing mileage may both vary.

One of the things that I’ve loved about all the entries in the Unbroken Heroes so far, The Hero She Needs, The Hero She Wants and The Hero She Craves (and if you’re sensing a theme here you’re right) is that the heroines get their rescue parties started all by themselves. Not that the heroes don’t help a LOT, but the women of this series have all been active – and effective – participants in everything that happens around them.

Hollis, in spite of her timely escape to Maui, has a bigger set of blinders on than the others. Or she’s a bit more naive or has been just a shade too overprotected and oversheltered as a Hollywood star – in spite of her hard-knock start in life.

She keeps thinking she’s escaped when it’s clear that she hasn’t. To the point where I wanted to hit her with a clue-by-four before the story did it for me.

OTOH, Sawyer fit right in with the rest of Vander Norcross’ former Ghost Ops. Which reminds me, for such a badass, Vander (his book is The Powerbroker) is one hell of a mother hen. And seems to have always been one. It’s a fascinating combination.

The interesting thing about this romance is that both Sawyer AND Hollis have serious cases of the “I’m not worthies” and yet, it works BECAUSE they both do. He has demons from his service – as all the men from the Ghost Ops team have unsurprisingly had so far. Her demons are old and familiar – also familial. Her mother STILL doesn’t appreciate, approve or understand – but is more than willing to make demands and milk her daughter for money at the drop of a hat.

Like the rest of the Unbroken Heroes series, The Hero She Deserves is a story where the hero and the heroine rescue each other from demons that they initially weren’t willing to even admit that they couldn’t handle themselves.

That justice was finally served and evil got its just desserts turned out to be the icing on an excellent reading cake, as have been all the books in this series, and absolutely the author’s work in general.

There’s one more Ghost Ops member left for Vander Norcross to mother hen into his happy ever after, and we’ll get that story early next year. It looks like this last entry in the series, The Hero She Loves,  will be set in Alaska, so I’m especially looking forward to it!

#BookReview: Fury Brothers: Claim by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Fury Brothers: Claim by Anna HackettClaim (Fury Brothers Book 5) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Fury Brothers #5
Pages: 240
Published by Anna Hackett on October 17, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

It was only supposed to be one night—a hot, nameless encounter with the gruff, gorgeous older stranger.
When you’re on the run from a killer, you can’t afford attachments. For over a year, I’ve been alone, never staying in one place long, fighting to survive.
But when the tall, muscled man with the intriguing ink steps in to help me with an obnoxious admirer, we end up sharing a coffee. Coffee turns into the hottest night of my life.
I never expected to see him again.
But when I walk into Hard Burn—the best gym in New Orleans—desperate to learn how to fight, I discover my stranger is none other than Beauden Fury.
When Beau discovers I’m being hunted, I see the true depth of his protective streak. He gives me a job, and says he’ll train me to protect myself. But he also makes it clear that he thinks I’m too young, too vulnerable, and too nice for him.
Now we’re spending hours together, side by side, and it’s hard to remember that I can’t let myself get too close. It’s even harder to fight our red-hot desire.
But the man hunting me hasn’t given up.
Can I defeat a killer, and prove to Beau that what we have is worth fighting for?

My Review:

Claim is the fifth and most likely the final book in the Fury Brothers series (barring any epilog-type short stories) – because there are five Fury Brothers and as this book opens, Beauden Fury is the only brother left standing alone. Not that THAT lasts long after the woman he knows only as Bell walks into his New Orleans gym and pretty much demands that he train her to fight.

So she can fight back against the literal demon that is chasing her. Not that Beau knows what – or rather who – is driving her. Just that he’s certain that something is. Because the morning after they met in some tiny town in the middle of nowhere – and spent one glorious night together – she fled without a trace, leaving nothing but a sweet memory he can’t get out of his head and a name that isn’t nearly enough to track her down with – if it’s even hers at all.

He thought it was for the best. He’s convinced that he’s too old, too rough and too broken for her.

As much as her night with Beau was the best, safest, ANYTHING she’d had since she went on the run, Bell thought it was best to leave because it’s too dangerous for anyone she gets close to. Chandler Carr, the serial killer chasing her down and tormenting her every step is toying with her, his prey, as he runs her down – the only one who ever got away.

Bell comes to New Orleans because she always wanted to see the city – and because her would-be killer found her in Pensacola. She’s in Beau’s gym because she needs the best to train her to fight back – because if she can’t fight back and fight hard the next time Carr catches up with her it will be her death. The notes he’s left her – no matter how far or how fast she runs – make that frighteningly clear.

No matter how much Beau and Bell each tell themselves that the other would be better off without them – they can’t keep their hands off each other and can’t resist falling hard for each other. Even though they each believe that their relationship is best if it’s only temporary – until Carr is out of the picture.

Of course, they are both wrong, Wrong, WRONG! The question is just how big of an idiot one or both of them will have to be before they figure out that they belong together.

If Carr lets them live that long.

Escape Rating B: Readers of the Fury Brothers series will see echoes from the first book, Fury, in this final book. Mila Clifton was being chased by the mob in that first book after witnessing a murder. Bell is being chased by a serial killer after she witnessed him leaving her apartment and discovered that he’d murdered her roommate.

Neither woman was responsible for the mess that they found themselves in – and both of them were on the run because anyone they got close to got dead. Both of them get involved with the Fury Brothers because they’ve moved into the Fury orbit and have each met someone who can’t resist protecting them. And because they can’t resist their protector no matter how much they think they should.

The ‘heroine in jeopardy reacting by running’ trope is not one of my favorites. But it works for the Fury Brothers, in both cases, because in spite of it being a cliché it doesn’t descend into one. Bell is not TSTL. She doesn’t do anything stupid – although there’s a point where the reader thinks she might have that turns out MUCH better.

Neither is remotely responsible for the fix they’re in – not by any standard of guilt except possibly their own. And in neither case is their pursuer an EvilEx(™). I personally hate those stories.

Claim does run straight into another trope that can go pear-shaped, but in this case fits well within the setup of the series as a whole AND gets its comeuppance in very short order once Carr is out of the picture, and that’s the “I’m not worthy” trope. At first they’re both suffering from it as Bell’s presence does paint a target on anyone she gets close to, while Beau thinks he’s not worthy of anyone’s love because of the addict parents he ran away from. (The Fury Brothers have all had a bit of an issue with the “I’m not worthy” thing for reasons that are clear in their stories, so this isn’t out of left field. Also, Bell does a great job of separating Beau’s head from his ass as soon as their situation is resolved.

Very much like my reaction to that first book, I liked this one in spite of myself. The description had me worried that it was going to dive into a whole bunch of tropes that I’m not all that fond of, but it didn’t and the blend of if not going to any of the places I worried about while wrapping up this marvelous series of found family stories AND telling a hot romance set in a fascinating city absolutely did work for this reader.

#BookReview: Fury Brothers: Take by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Fury Brothers: Take by Anna HackettTake (Fury Brothers #4) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Fury Brothers #4
Pages: 251
Published by Anna Hackett on September 5, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

I share a perfect kiss with a handsome stranger…only to find out that he’s my brother’s best friend.

New Orleans is an exciting new start for me. When I’m not in my lab working on my project, I’m determined to enjoy all the city has to offer. That’s how I ended up at a party hosted by the Fury Brothers.

That’s how I ended up kissing Reath Fury. Six-feet something of dark, handsome, and gorgeous.

When Reath finds out I’m the little sister of his best buddy from the military, he’s not happy.

But then I get attacked in my lab. Someone is after my project. Did I mention I have top-secret military funding? Turns out some very bad people plan to auction my work to the highest bidder.

Now Reath vows to keep me safe. The former CIA agent gives new meaning to the words overprotective and bossy. But spending every hour of the day together makes it impossible to keep our hands off each other.

We agree to keep it our little secret—all sex, no emotions allowed.

But the criminal after my project has a history with Reath, and he’s out for revenge. My brother’s best friend, the man who tells me he doesn’t do love, is the only one who can protect me.

And the only one who can break my heart.

My Review:

They chose to call themselves Fury because that’s what they were when they bonded. All five – at that point VERY young men were in foster care. They were all, individually and collectively, furious at their treatment in the foster home when they met and bonded.

Because their so-called carer was a man who liked to take young male foster kids and break them. He enjoyed beating them to a pulp – because he could. Reath was his special target, because Reath was the youngest and smallest of the quintet – and because he was black and pretty.

But a man who can beat up and beat down one kid can’t necessarily take on five absolutely furious young men who have no one and nothing but each other. Together, Dante, Colton, Kavner, Beauden and Reath got back a whole lot of their own and left – bonded together and filled with fury.

Fast forward a whole lot of years. Those boys are now very successful men – not in spite of what they came from but because of it – and because of each other.

As the saga of the Fury Brothers and the piece of New Orleans they claim as their own has shown, Dante (Fury), Colt (Keep), Kavner (Burn) and now Reath have each been chased down and pretty much ambushed by love – in spite of every single one of them so far proclaiming to all and sundry that love is the last thing they need or deserve. Ever.

Reath Fury is not going to be the exception – no matter how much he thinks he is. He’s not going to be exempted from his brothers’ ribbing him about it, either.

Or, as it turns out, her brother’s – even though the “bro code” is one of the biggest things Reath thinks is standing in the way of any possible relationship between himself and his best friend’s all-too-grown-up little sister.

But Frankie Parker isn’t going to let the ‘bro code’, her overprotective brother, or even a whole gang of mercenaries led by Reath’s literal worst enemy keep her from what she has set her sights on.

Her first goal is to keep her genius biochemistry project out of the hands of anyone who would turn it to terrible ends. Her second goal is to get a reluctant Reath Fury to admit that not only does he have a heart – but that it is already all hers.

Escape Rating B: Take returns to what seems to be the standard pattern for the Fury Brothers series. There is nothing wrong with patterns, they can work very well. Tropes exist for a reason, after all.

The pattern in this series is that the female protagonists start the story out already in trouble – even if, as is the case of Frankie Parker in this story – she doesn’t know it yet. And she should have – or at least have considered the possibility.

It is possible that Frankie simply hasn’t read nearly enough science fiction, or seen enough of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because she’s had her nose to the grindstone concentrating on her work. Her genius project – and it absolutely is a genius project – screams “super soldier serum” at high decibel volume with a whole phalanx of flying bullets to go with it.

Which is where Reath comes in. Frankie is in trouble. There really are some very bad people out to get her, to take her research – AND her – and sell both to the highest bidder. Because every villain in every world wants to make super soldiers and her project is a shortcut to that particular hellish road.

Reath and Frankie both have reasons for not wanting to get involved. Both have done their damndest to put their hearts on ice and both have succeeded at that terrible ambition entirely too well – except where their respective siblings are concerned.

But as has happened in the rest of this series, Frankie needs protection and Reath can’t seem to resist providing that protection. Then again, he can’t resist Frankie, either, and the feeling is very, very mutual.

They just have to get the villains out of the way first. Which turns out to be a bit more of a challenge than Reath and the rest of his brothers imagined. But they still get the job done.

As much as I liked the characters, and I adore the New Orleans setting, there were a couple of things in this story that tripped me up a bit. As I said, I found it a bit difficult to believe that Frankie didn’t know that her project was obviously capable of being weaponized even if that was not her intention. Likewise, the replacement lab where the climactic kidnapping took place was a screamingly obvious set up.

(Maybe I’ve read too much science fiction. Nah…)

So, a couple of things in this one didn’t quite work for me, but I had a good reading time and I still very much enjoy the series as a whole. Which is a good thing, as there’s one Fury brother – and therefore one book – left in the series. Claim, presumably Beauden Fury’s story, is coming in October. And then the author is on to the book I’ve been waiting for all year, the (still untitled) start of her next Sci-fi Romance series. I can’t wait!

A- #BookReview: Sentinel Security: Stone by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
A- #BookReview: Sentinel Security: Stone by Anna HackettStone (Sentinel Security #7) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Sentinel Security #7
Pages: 141
Published by Anna Hackett on July 25, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

He’s the new silver fox recruit at Sentinel Security. The hot, tough former Marine Raider. And he won’t touch her because he works with her brother.

Real estate agent Magnolia “Nola” Newhouse has it all. Okay, not *quite* all. She loves her work, has a growing collection of designer heels, and is about to become an aunt…she’s just missing the love of her life. She’s watched her brother and her best friend fall in love, and Nola wants that too.

When she first sees the big, rugged silver fox across the bar, she feels an instant connection, and knows he does too. They share a passionate kiss, then he discovers who her brother is…

Former Marine Knox “Stone” Holman needed a change. He’s left California and taken a job at New York’s top security firm: Sentinel Security. What he never expected was to lay eyes on a tiny, curvy woman and feel his world tip upside down. But Knox lives by a code, which means his co-worker’s beautiful sister is off-limits. Besides, Nola has love, marriage, and kids stamped all over her, and he’s past that.

But when Nola goes to inspect an empty penthouse and accidentally witnesses an execution-style murder, everything changes. She’s on the run and being hunted by the mob, and Knox will do everything to keep her safe.

Running the gauntlet of the New York streets, Knox and Nola will discover just how hot their attraction runs. Knox is determined to protect her, and Nola is determined to make him hers.

My Review:

The Sentinel Security series opened with Wolf back in 2022, so it seems fitting that the series close with him too. Well, sorta/kinda and not exactly. But it’s all in the family.

Back in that first story in the series, Wolf fell hard and fast for his little sister’s bestie – not that they aren’t both adults when that story takes place.

In this wrap-up novella for the series, it’s Wolf’s little sister Nola’s turn to find her HEA with one of his friends and colleagues, the newest member of the Sentinel Security family, Knox Holman, codename Stone from his own days as an elite operative for MARSOC, the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command.

The sparks fly between Stone and Nola from their very first meeting – just before he’s introduced to his new team and learns that the woman he kissed up against the wall should be off-limits. A limit he’s determined to keep.

But their second meeting is a lot less cute, and throws all of both of their cautions out the window. That second meeting takes place behind a dumpster, where Nola is crouching to hide from the bad guys she just saw commit cold blooded murder in a high-end NYC apartment she was originally oh-so-thrilled to be contracted to sell.

On the run from her pursuers, chased at every turn, shot at at every opportunity, Stone and Nola have to hole up in one of Sentinel Security’s safehouses while their friends clear them a path to safety.

Even if it means breaking down doors, jumping through broken windows, and figuring out that no matter how much they should keep each other at arms’ length they’re both MUCH happier being held close.

Escape Rating A-: It looks like this is the really truly last and final entry in the Sentinel Security series after last year’s Hex. Not that we won’t see these folks again riding to someone’s rescue at some point in the future. (Something this author does that all her readers are grateful for, as it gives us an opportunity to see how our friends are doing!)

Still, this is the wrap-up novella and it does a terrific job of wrapping up. All the Sentinel Security agents have found their HEAs, sometimes even with each other, but we met Nola back in that first book and she still needed to find someone just for her.

Enter Stone, who is just what she’s been looking for, even if neither of them has a clue. Stone doesn’t even have a clue that he’s looking!

The romance in this one combined a couple of my favorite tropes, so two great tastes that went deliciously together.

First and foremost, Nola isn’t passive about her rescue – EVER. She’s on the run when she calls in her 911 to Sentinel Security, she’s preparing to fight back when Stone catches up to her, and she’s prepared to fight or fly the minute either of them sees trouble.

What made the story extra yummy for this reader is that it’s an age gap romance, and that’s always a favorite for me – no matter which direction that gap is in. That gap causes insecurities and questions and worries about the differing lengths of the emotional baggage train that each person has trailing behind them – as well as the places that they currently are in their lives and what they have in front of them.

Something that’s particularly true in this case as Nola is in her early 30s and the alarm on her biological clock is going off, while Stone, in his late 40s, tried marriage once, believes that the failure of it was all on him, and doesn’t think he has it in him to try again.

What made it work was that in spite of the 15+ year gap between them, they’re both more than mature enough to at least think they know what they want out of life and that it might not be the same thing.

Although we all hope they figure out that it is before the story and the series wraps. And of course they do.

This series has been fun, and it came to the perfect fireworks and explosions and happy ever after conclusion. The author is in the midst of her newest action adventure romance series, Unbroken Heroes, and will be returning to her Fury Brothers series in the fall with Take (Sept.) and Claim (Oct.) – but I’ll confess that as much as I’m looking forward to catching up with the Fury Family, the book I’m really anticipating is the opener for her new Sci-Fi Romance series in November!

A- #BookReview: The Hero She Craves by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
A- #BookReview: The Hero She Craves by Anna HackettThe Hero She Craves by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance
Series: Unbroken Heroes #3
Pages: 248
Published by Anna Hackett on June 13, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

The last thing he expects on his ship is the off-limits woman he can’t stop thinking about—his best friend’s daughter.
After a tough military career as a Navy SEAL, and a member of a covert Ghost Ops team, Lorenzo “Ren” Santoro now calls a research ship home. The ocean, very few people, and solitude…it’s all he needs.
Then as a favor to his best friend, he agrees to take a research team to sea to test a top-secret Navy project. He’s shocked to discover his best friend’s daughter is one of the scientists. The beautiful Halle Bradshaw who Ren once kissed, who ignites a powerful craving inside him. She’s too young, too innocent, and too off-limits.
When strange things start happening to Halle, Ren suspects she’s in danger…and he’ll do anything to keep her safe.
Marine biologist Halle loves the ocean, her work…and Ren Santoro. Being aboard his ship, she finally has the chance to show the stubborn man how good they could be together.
But someone is targeting the highly classified project she’s working on. One she can’t let fall into enemy hands.
The only person she can trust is Ren. Forced to abandon their ship, they will face the danger of the sea and the wilds of a jungle-covered island, all while being hunted by a relentless enemy.
Ren and Halle will no longer be able to hide from their white-hot desire or their demons. She’s determined to convince him to take a chance on love…but first, they have to survive.

My Review: 

Some tropes are classics for a reason, and The Hero She Craves wonderfully illustrates every single one of those reasons for one of my absolute faves.

There’s a bit of an age gap between former Navy SEAL Lorenzo “Ren” Santoro and Halle Bradshaw. And so there should be, as Halle’s dad is Ren’s mentor AND best friend. Tom Bradshaw saved Ren’s life when a young, tough, and let’s face it, dumb Ren tried to steal the older man’s car.

Instead of turning him in, Tom Bradshaw turned Ren’s life around, which means that Ren was around to watch Halle turn from a sulky, grieving teen after the loss of her mom in an automobile accident, to a beautiful woman that he knows he should keep his hands off of.

At her 20th birthday party, he didn’t. It’s been three years and neither of them has ever been able to forget that one, searing kiss. The one that marked both of their hearts – even if Ren is too caught up in guilt – and the damn ‘bro code’ to admit it – while Halle is just a bit too innocent to go out and get her man.

But those  three years later, Halle’s tired of waiting for Ren to quit avoiding her and the tension simmering between them. She’s a marine biologist, he’s the second-in-command of the research ship her team has contracted with for their latest round of experiments with a highly experimental – and sought after – submersible.

She thinks she’ll have all the time in the world to pin him down. He thinks he only has to avoid spending too much time with his greatest temptation for four days and then he can go back to avoiding the inevitable.

The forces that want to steal the submersible – a device that is even more revolutionary than Ren and his captain were originally told – have put Halle in their crosshairs as the weak link in the device’s security.

But Halle’s not weak at all – not with Ren to protect her from the very, very bad guys. Especially when he finally gets hit with the clue by four that the last thing he ever needs to protect her from is himself.

Escape Rating A-: Three books in, I have to say that I’ve enjoyed the first two books in the Unbroken Heroes series, The Hero She Needs and The Hero She Wants, but this is the first one where I’ve got to admit that this time around I fell hard for the cover, too.

That being said, the story in this entry in the series combines something that has been a feature in the whole series so far with one of my favorite romance tropes.

Not a single one of the heroines in the Unbroken Heroes series has been any kind of damsel. It’s true that they’ve each experienced more than their fair share of distress, but they’ve each participated 100% in their own rescues – often by rescuing themselves first. Halle doesn’t quite have that opportunity, but she keeps up with Ren through every step and stroke and kick of their dangerous escape, doing her part to make it deadly for the other guys and not for them.

No matter how kickass Halle turns out to be – and she does – the tension that lies at the heart of Ren’s bad case of “I’m not worthy” revolves around two very real problems. Ren is her dad’s best friend – and her dad is not going to be happy that someone at least a decade older than his daughter can’t keep his hands off of her. And there’s that decade or so itself. I adore an age gap romance because the problems involved are very real – and they are here as well.

It’s not that Halle isn’t an adult and doesn’t know her own mind or heart, it’s that they are at different points in their lives, have different-sized trains of emotional baggage behind them, and will need to reconcile those differences to have a decent chance at a future.

Of course, first they have to deal with the villains chasing them, otherwise they won’t have a future to worry about. And it’s that realization that gets Ren to finally acknowledge what’s been between them for so long.

I had a terrific time with this latest entry in the Unbroken Heroes series, and I have plenty to look forward to. The author’s next book will be a wrap-up novella in her Sentinel Security series, Stone. I’ve already read it and it was a terrific finale for that series! After that, it’ll be back to New Orleans for the Fury Brothers, which I’m very much looking forward to because I always enjoy books set in that fantastic city!

#BookReview: Knightqueen by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Knightqueen by Anna HackettKnightqueen by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: science fiction, science fiction romance, space opera
Series: Oronis Knights #3
Pages: 221
Published by Anna Hackett on May 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

A queen and her battle-scarred guard are on the run on an alien planet…with a relentless enemy hunting them.
Knightqueen Carys of Oron lives a life of duty to her people and planet. After the murder of her parents, she worked hard to become a fair and dedicated leader. She never expected to be abducted by the vicious Gek’Dragar and locked in a mountain prison, but having her head knightguard at her side makes it bearable. Older, scarred Sten is duty personified, the one man she’s always been able to trust.
He’s also the only man she’s ever loved, not that she’s ever told him that.
Knightguard Thorsten Carahan has sworn to protect his knightqueen, and lives and breathes her safety. He works hard to keep his mind on his duty, and not on the too young, too beautiful, and too kind queen who is way out of his league. But now they’ve escaped their enemy’s prison and are on the run on a dangerous planet. When they learn that the Gek’Dragar have created a lethal weapon to use against the Oronis, Sten knows he must get Carys home. But with danger at every turn, lines get blurred.
With only each other to depend on, Carys and Sten’s bond of duty and respect tangles with forbidden desire and need. As passion flares, they can no longer deny their connection, and they will discover just how far they are willing to go for their people…and each other.

My Review:

When last we left our heroes – actually, in this particular case, it’s more like “when first we met our heroes” back in the first book in the Oronis Knights series, Knightmaster. In the first story, the Oronis had just welcomed a delegation from Terra, our very own Earth, in the hopes of forging an alliance to fight the rapacious Gek’Dragar.

The Terrans had already formed a similar alliance with the Eons, in spite of a somewhat rocky beginning, as part of the stories told in the marvelous Eon Warriors series. The Eons are long-standing allies of the Oronis, and now all three planets face the same enemy, the Gek’Dragar.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” as that saying goes. Not that this alliance was EVER smooth sailing, as it began back in Knightmaster with the Gek’Dragar kidnapping the Oronis Knightqueen and her Knightguard, and framing the Terrans for the crime.

But once that misdirection got straightened out, the Oronis and the Terrans have been on a joint mission to rescue the Knightqueen – assuming that she and her Knightguard don’t manage to rescue themselves, first.

Which is where we left those heroes at the end of the second book in the series, Knighthunter. That hunter team blew open and blew up the prison where the queen and her bodyguard, were being held, and Carys and Sten escaped in the chaos.

Meaning that they unknowingly ran away from their rescuers, jumped out of the frying pan into the fire – sometimes literally – and have spent the past several days outrunning their Gek’Dragar pursuers, throwing off the effects of the drugs they were injected with that suppressed their normally formidable powers, and generally running themselves into the ground.

Because the monsters on this hellhole planet are just as deadly as the Gek’Dragar – if not maybe a bit worse – and Carys and Sten have no weapons or armor until their powers return.

All they have is each other. Which has always been more than enough – even if neither of them has ever admitted that to themselves – let alone each other.

It’s not right, it’s not proper, for a Knightqueen to fall in love with her Knightguard. But this time, it’s inevitable.

Escape Rating B+: Knightqueen is the culmination of the whole, entire Oronis Knights series – which is only three books long. Meaning that, on the one hand, you really do kind of need to start at the beginning with Knightmaster, while on the other hand, three novellas is just a lovely amount of reading for a rainy spring weekend – of which there are PLENTY this time of year!

Knightqueen is a bodyguard romance. Maybe not exactly like the movie – certainly the SFnal setting if Knightqueen is literally light years away from the movie – but the trope is the trope is the trope – and it’s ALL here in Knightqueen.

Except the music, so you’ll just have to bring your own. I kept hearing Whitney Houston singing “I Will Always Love You” in the back of my mind as I read – and it took the longest time to figure out why.

Unlike the movie, the ending of Knightqueen results in a resounding HEA. That may seem like a bit of a spoiler, but all of this author’s stories end in either an HEA or an HFN depending on just how FUBAR the world they are set on happens to be.

It is part of why I enjoy her work so much.

But this particular entry in the series hit one of my less than favorite tropes pretty hard. The relationship between Carys and Sten does have its questionable aspects, she’s queen, he’s her bodyguard, he’s over a decade older which isn’t itself enough to make things squicky but he watched her grow up which is at least on the border of questionable.

As it’s usually not so much the years as the mileage, it’s not the age difference per se so much as it is that Carys is inexperienced with romantic relationships – which is not a surprise as she’s been queen from a very young age and it would never have been politically safe for her to go on dates or experiment with either love or sex.

Nevertheless, the trope that this fell into that put me off a bit was that Sten had a really bad case of the “I’m not worthy’s” that was a whole lot more personal and ingrained in his psyche than just the difference in their respective stations. This is a “me” thing and may not be a “you” thing.

Putting it another way – I did love the bodyguard romance but wasn’t thrilled with how little the bodyguard thought of himself in it. Your reading mileage obviously may vary.

That being said, I still had a grand time with the entire Oronis Knights series and am a bit sorry to see it come to end even though I’m happy to see the Gek’Dragar put in their place – a grave.

As this series has come to a close – and doesn’t end with teasers for a spinoff, it looks like the author will be turning back to contemporary action adventure romances for most of this year. Leaving this reader looking forward to the next book in her Unbroken Heroes series, The Hero She Craves, coming next month!

#BookReview: Fury Brothers: Burn by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Fury Brothers: Burn by Anna HackettBurn (Fury Brothers #3) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Fury Brothers #3
Pages: 274
Published by Anna Hackett on March 13, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

I have one goal—arrest billionaire businessman Kavner Fury.
I’m dedicated to my job as a Treasury agent, and taking down crooked financial criminals. Just like the one who destroyed my family.
Kavner Fury is wealthy, powerful, and ambitious, a combination I know too well. He’s New Orleans’ favorite billionaire. Sure, he’s also handsome, charming, with a hard body no man who sits behind a desk should have, but I have no plans to let that distract me.
He’s my enemy, my nemesis…and pure temptation. I won’t let our scorching attraction derail my investigation. But as my money laundering case leads me into dangerous territory, I find myself under attack.
Injured and betrayed, I’m shocked that there is only one man I can turn to. One man who can keep me safe.
Now I’m working with Kavner, side by side, and I uncover a protective man who’s taking a blow-torch to my icy defenses. I get to see the real man beneath the gorgeous exterior, and I’m having trouble keeping my hands off him.
Suddenly, the only man I trust is my enemy, and we’re both caught up in a fiery attraction that could leave us both burned.

My Review:

Treasury Agent London Coleman investigates white collar crimes. She’s back in her hometown of New Orleans on the trail of someone laundering money for the cartels by buying expensive works of art with dirty money, shipping that art out of the U.S. to sell, and returning the ‘cleaned’ money to the cartel to do more of whatever terrible things they do with their money – which is mostly drugs.

London is happy to be back home, not just because she gets to spend time with her sister Lexxie, but because she honestly loves the city that made her who she is. Literally as London looks like the Creole descendant that she is, while the genetic gumbo that made her and Lexxie gave them completely different skin tones as well as looks.

As this third entry in the Fury Brothers series opens, the person of interest, both in her case and personally – even though she’s not ready to admit the second part even to herself – is billionaire businessman Kavner Fury.

His name has come up more than a few times in her investigation. She thinks it’s because he’s dirty and she hasn’t found the evidence yet. In reality, it’s because Kavner’s rich, he likes art, and he especially likes donating art to museums and galleries where kids just like the ones he and his brothers used to be have the opportunity to view beautiful things in just a little bit of peace and safety to help them hold on and survive until they can live their own dreams.

Just as he and his brothers did when they were all in the foster system and all too frequently at the mercy of neglectful, abusive or just plain violent caregivers.

London may not be willing to admit it, at least not yet, but keeping Kavner in her sights does put her in the places where whoever is hiding in the shadows is doing their dirty business. And he’s much too easy on the eyes, and too smooth in his business dealings, not to raise a few red flags.

That those red flags have more to do with her past than anything Kav has actually done is another secret that London is doing her damndest to keep to herself and out of her investigation. Something that proves utterly impossible when the cartel starts gunning for her, directly and literally – and Kav is the only one standing at her side and watching her back.

Escape Rating B+: Burn is a quick, hot read that is a whole lot of fun – for both parts of the category ‘romantic suspense’ into which this book and its series most definitely fit.

Like the first two books, Fury and Keep, this one is told in alternating first-person viewpoints, meaning that first we see inside London’s head and then we get Kavner’s take on what happens next.

Her head is a bit of a hot mess. The case has been long, drawn out, and utterly frustrating. The powers-that-be are hammering her boss hard. London has more than a bit of tunnel vision, seeing Kavner as a stand in for the fraudster who suckered her own father in and ruined the family’s life. She’s fixated on him being in this scheme up to his neck, when really it’s that she’s in the River DeNial up to hers.

Kavner isn’t worried about London’s investigation because he knows there’s nothing to find. He may hide the darker details of his origin story in the foster system before he and his brothers met, he may have taken on a much more polished veneer than he’d prefer because it’s good for business, but his money was legally earned, all his businesses are completely legit as well as profitable, and he really does give back a tremendous amount of money and effort to the city he loves.

And he has all the money he needs to get himself out of any ‘manufactured’ trouble. That’s what money and the lawyers it can buy are for, after all.

Which means that while London is focussing on Kavner as a suspect, Kav is keeping his sights on London as a woman – in ways that make him think, not just sexy thoughts, but also romantic and protective ones. The kind of thoughts he’s been avoiding all of his adult life, too busy being focused on buying and creating financial security for himself and his brothers, and their whole extended family.

What made this story work well for this reader is the way that London and Kav worked against some familiar tropes. He does not have a case of the ‘I’m not worthy’s’ that happen entirely too often. He’s just been too busy to think about settling down. London is definitely in distress, but she’s no damsel. She stands her ground and maintains her own boundaries even in the face of Kav’s protectiveness. She doesn’t get rescued by Kav and his brothers – she gets assistance in her own rescue.

There’s a whole lot of push-pull between these two workaholics and it’s fun – and filled with sexytimes – to see them work towards each other and their happy ever after. Often in spite of themselves. Making Burn the kind of read that will make any reader burn up the pages in one sitting.

There are two Fury Brothers left, Reath and Beau. Currently neither of them are even thinking about looking for an HEA of their own but that’s about to change. Their stories are coming in the fall, in Take (probably Reath’s story) and Claim. In the meantime, I have Knightqueen, the climactic final book in the author’s science fiction romance Oronis Knights series to look forward to. And I most definitely AM!

A- #BookReview: The Hero She Wants by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
A- #BookReview: The Hero She Wants by Anna HackettThe Hero She Wants (Unbroken Heroes) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Unbroken Heroes #2
Pages: 220
Published by Anna Hackett on January 25, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

The last thing he wants is to trek into the jungle to save the President’s daughter.
Shepherd “Shep” Barlow left the military behind. All he wants is to stay on his Colorado mountain—alone, with no interruptions, and no people. He especially likes to avoid people.
Then his former commander arrives, asking him to risk his life on a deadly mission to Central America. A mission to rescue the archeologist daughter of the President of the United States.
Once a member of a covert Ghost Ops team, Shep has the skills to get in quietly and rescue Ms. Sinclair. And as much as he wishes otherwise, he can’t leave an innocent woman in danger.
Hayden Sinclair loves her work. It keeps her far away from the liars, cheats, and phonies in Washington D.C. But when she’s abducted from her archeological dig in Nicaragua, she’s plunged into a life-or-death situation. Her captors plan to use her as a bargaining chip, and Hayden knows she has to escape.
What she never expected was to collide with the world’s biggest, grumpiest rescuer.
On the run in the jungle with six and a half feet of rugged, muscular, scowling man, she finds Shep rude and annoying. But as her captors ruthlessly hunt them, she also discovers a man who’ll risk his own life to protect hers.
Neither of them are looking for love, especially when they have to fight to survive…besides, there could never be a happy ending for the daughter of the President and a grumpy, battle-scarred soldier, could there?

My Review:

Archaeologists make the best protagonists – because there are just SO MANY WAYS they can get into trouble. Just ask Indiana Jones – or better yet, his father, Professor Henry Jones.

That rule certainly applies to this author’s work, as her very first heroine, in her very first book, At Star’s End, was an archaeologist among the star-scattered human diaspora. It’s a theme that has cropped up again and again, not just with the entire Treasure Hunter Security series (distant ancestors of the crew in that first book, but, also in this latest work with Dr. Hayden Sinclair, expert in pre-Columbian Central American history.

An archaeologist who also happens to be the daughter of the sitting President of the United States.

Hayden was determined to go on this dig, and determined to do it as a working archaeologist and not as a visiting dignitary or show pony or whatever. This is her job, and she’s determined to do it well and more importantly without a whole squad of Secret Service agents guarding her every step.

No matter how much, as it turns out, she might need them. Or, at least her teammates and fellow archaeologists do. Or did.

After all, the kidnappers plan on keeping her alive so that she can be auctioned off to the highest bidder looking for leverage on the U.S. President. The rest of her colleagues are merely…collateral damage.

Hayden Sinclair, is tied up and held captive in the middle of a compound full of the men who just killed her team and her friends. She should be at her lowest ebb – and she kind of is. But that doesn’t stop her from rescuing herself.

Only to walk straight into the arms of the one-man rescue team that has been sent to take care of that job FOR her.

Shep Barlow may be just a bit behind on Hayden’s jailbreak, but he’s EXACTLY the man she needs to walk beside her every step of the way home. No matter what it takes. No matter what he has to give up.

Because he’s the hero she wants, and she’ll do anything and defy anyone to keep him. Even her own father. Even Shep himself.

Escape Rating A-: This whole, entire series so far gives me a giant earworm. Everytime I even think about either of the books in this series so far, I get the chorus of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” playing in my head. Or even better – or worse depending on persistence – the scene from Shrek II.

Although Hayden doesn’t actually NEED a hero. She’s already rescued herself. Not that she can’t use Shep’s help and survival skills, because she certainly can. But she’s no delicate flower and doesn’t need anyone who will treat her like one.

The title of this entry in the series says it all. Hayden doesn’t NEED a hero, but Shep Barlow is certainly the man she wants – precisely because he knows better than to treat her like she needs rescuing. Not even her father is able to figure that out.

What makes the story in this one such a compulsive page-turner is the way that Hayden and Shep jump together out of the frying pan and into yet another fire, over and over again, as her kidnappers do their damndest to close off all avenues of escape.

What makes the romance in this one sing and zing is that this is a romance of equals in spite of the heroine-in-jeopardy start, a romance that has to carry both partners’ heavy baggage until they finally figure out they can drop it all and hold onto each other for dear life. For the rest of their lives.

The Unbroken Heroes series has been terrific so far, beginning with The Hero She Needs and continuing with this second book, The Hero She Wants. The third book in the series, The Hero She Craves, is coming in June and I expect that terrific streak to continue. What I’m loving about this series so far is that, although the link in the series is through those heroes, it’s the heroines who stand up, take charge, and participate oh-so-actively in their own rescues.

There are no delicate flowers here, and that’s the way I like it. One of the other things I like is that this particular set of heroes has interesting friends in some very high and dangerous places, like Hayden’s father-the-president, and the stories have high stakes that extend beyond the mutual rescue and the heart stopping romance.

Which is reminding me quite a lot and very much of M.L. Buchman’s romantic suspense series(es), particularly his Miranda Chase series, where smart civilians find themselves walking the halls of power to find the loves of their lives and keep the country safe along the way. So if you’re looking for something to tide you over between Anna Hackett’s heroes, consider this a recommendation for M.L. Buchman’s books as excellent readalikes with lots to explore.

Meanwhile, I’ll be waiting for Anna Hackett’s next entry in her action/adventure romantic suspense Fury Brothers series, Burn, coming in March.

Review: The Hero She Needs by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Hero She Needs by Anna HackettThe Hero She Needs (Unbroken Heroes Book 1) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Unbroken Heroes #1
Pages: 223
Published by Anna Hackett on December 7, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

The last thing he expects to catch in his river is a billionaire heiress.
Loner Boone Hendrix left the military with ghosts that haunt him. He lives with his dog Atlas on a farm in Vermont. Alone. Just the way he likes it. Until he rescues a half-drowned, beautiful brunette from his river.
Gemma Newhouse is the daughter of the richest man in America, and from the abrasions on her wrists and her drugged state, she’s on the run from someone dangerous. She’s nothing like Boone expected—sweet, smart, and likes baking—and she ignites a fierce need inside him.
Being a member of a covert Ghost Ops team taught him deadly skills, and he’ll use them all to keep her safe.
Gemma can’t remember the last twenty-four hours. All she knows is that someone abducted her. Someone dangerous. Her only goal is survival and she’s used to taking care of herself. She’s a constant disappointment to her driven, successful parents. She doesn’t want a brilliant career, all she wants is to bake and make people smile.
Finding herself in Boone’s strong arms wasn’t on her plan. Nor was his rugged face, hard body, and gold-brown eyes. She sees how much he’s cut himself off from life, how he believes he’s broken.
Thrust together, she realizes this quiet hero will do anything to protect her. Despite the danger around them, they can’t resist their growing attraction, but her captors are hunting her…
And Boone is the only thing standing in their way.

My Review:

When Gemma Newhouse runs away from her mysterious captors in the middle of densely forested nowhere, she doesn’t have time to hold out for a hero, she needs one right NOW. She doesn’t know there’s one just down the river – literally – so she does her damndest to get herself out of her kidnappers’ hands.

She doesn’t merely find one hero, she finds two. Or rather, one of those heroes pulls her out of the river that has been carrying her away from whoever grabbed her off the street in Los Angeles – just not as far or as fast as she would have liked.

If she were still conscious, that is.

But Atlas is a Very Good Boy, so he alerts his human that there’s something in the water that needs to be rescued. Which is exactly what Boone Hendrix does. Because that’s what he does – even if, or especially because – there was no one to rescue him when he needed it the most.

But, maybe that’s now after all, and maybe Gemma is that rescue. If he can just keep her alive long enough to deliver her to safety and figure out who is after her and why. While somehow managing to keep his hands off of her – even if that’s exactly where she wants them to be.

Unless, just maybe, she’s his rescue too.

Escape Rating A-: I always love it when the heroine rescues herself or is an active participant in her own rescue. Which is EXACTLY what Gemma Newhouse does. Everything that happens in this action adventure romance happens because first and most importantly, Gemma Newhouse put on her big girl panties and escaped from her captors.

She’s not a badass agent, she’s not a cop, she’s just a more-or-less ordinary woman that a bunch of asshole men believe is at their mercy for reasons she doesn’t even know yet. But as soon as she can get her feet under her after the drugs she was injected with even start to wear off – she’s off and running.

Boone – and Atlas – are her reward for taking care of her business. She just doesn’t know it yet.

The romance between Boone and Gemma is sweet and hot and funny, all at the same time. (Although a lot of that fun is that Gemma doesn’t want Atlas to witness any of the human’s ‘funny business’.)

Speaking of Atlas, he is a very good boy and is every bit as fine and good at the end of the story as he was at the beginning – if not a little better because he has two humans to spoil him instead of just one. So don’t worry about Atlas.

There’s more than enough to worry about between Gemma and Boone. Gemma is a combination of poor-little-rich-girl and bird-in-a-gilded-cage, but again, she’s doing a damn good job of filling her own well of purpose and happiness and kicking the door off the gilded cage. (OTOH, if she’d kept the bodyguards her dad wanted her to have she probably wouldn’t be in her present fix. OTOH, that might just have resulted in a couple of dead bodyguards as the stakes in all this are pretty high.)

It’s also excellent and different that Gemma’s relationship with her wealthy parents is still a loving one even though that relationship has a bunch of sharp edges in it. They’re not terrible, she’s not a misbehaving fuck-up, it’s just that they are not remotely on the same wavelength and everyone gets a bit hurt by it. Except for her parents’ megabucks, that relationship feels grounded in the real, which made it more interesting and all the better to empathize with.

Boone is one of the author’s classic too-damaged-to-think-he’s-good-enough heroes. He used to be a member of Vander Norcross’ Ghost Ops team (Vander’s book is The Powerbroker), and those ops left plenty of scars that may never heal. So Boone’s got a bad case of the I’m-not-worthies when it comes to a relationship with Gemma, but he’s all in on saving her life and is absolutely the right man for that job.

So, soft and sweet but with a core of steel goes head to head with hard and brittle with a core of marshmallow. The sweet treat that gets baked in that fire means that a good time is had by all the characters and absolutely for the reader as well.

I had a great reading time with this first entry in the author’s Unbroken Heroes series, and I can’t wait to see what happens with her next hero early next year.

Review: Fury Brothers: Keep by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Fury Brothers: Keep by Anna HackettKeep: A Grumpy Single Dad Romance (Fury Brothers Book 2) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Fury Brothers #2
Pages: 250
Published by Anna Hackett on October 19, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

My boss is a tough, grumpy bounty hunter—and a hot single dad—and now he’s sworn to keep me safe, whether I like it or not.
My name’s Macy, and I always look on the bright side of things. Life’s too short not to. Super grump extraordinaire Colton Fury is the total opposite. Luckily for him, along with the muscled bod, tattoos, and rugged face, it works for him.
When I start getting creepy calls at the office and someone breaks into my house, it becomes clear I’m a target, and Coltsort of…loses his mind. He turns even bossier and more protective.
Now I’m living with him and his super cute daughter, and trying very hard to remember that I can’t let myself fall for him.Before long, there’s kissing, touching, and a whole lot more. Colt tells me—okay, more like growls at me—that he doesn’t do relationships. And I promise him no strings or complications.
Every day that passes, the complications are growing and I’m starting to realize I want them. All of them.
But soon, it’s not only me in danger, and it’s not only Colt who’ll risk it all to save the people he loves.
The Fury fierce, loyal, and live by their own codeFive men who grew up in foster care and became brothers by choice. They vow to always have each other’s no questions, no doubts, no hesitation. They protect their own…always.

My Review:

Colton Fury and Macy Underwood are each firmly of the opinion that they have their lives together all by themselves. Separately, that is.

Neither of them does relationships – at least romantic relationships. Macy’s certainly all in on her job as Colt’s office manager, wrangling the arrangements for his frequent trips to capture the latest escaped criminals while coercing him to deal with the resulting paperwork as often as needed.

Macy feels needed, the job pays well, and the problems she left behind in San Francisco are well back in her rearview mirror. Or at least she believes they are. And believes that big, tough successful bounty hunter Colt Fury – along with his equally fierce and protective brothers – take care of their own when anything goes wrong.

As evidenced by the way they all gathered around Dante Fury and HIS bartender turned love-of-his-life Mila when her past troubles came calling for her in the first book in the series, Fury.

Colt, on the other hand, doesn’t do relationships because the way he sees it his life is already full up. Not with romance, because he doesn’t think he deserves that, but with the loyalty of his brothers and the heartwarming and heartstopping love between Colt and his niece-turned-adopted-daughter, seven year old Daisy Fury. Making sure that Daisy has everything she needs is a full time job all by itself, and he thinks he can’t afford to split his heart’s focus to find a more adult kind of love.

When Macy starts receiving prank calls she assumes it’s nothing that needs anyone to handle it besides herself. Just like her free-spirited mother taught her.

At least until the pranks escalate to life-threatening accidents, and Colt Fury can’t stop himself from stepping in and taking over Macy’s security and a bit more of her life than either of them ever planned on. Not that they haven’t both had entirely too many seriously hot daydreams about all the delicious possibilities.

But Macy’s ex didn’t take no for an answer then, and doesn’t plan on taking one now that he’s chased her down to New Orleans. Unless the Fury Brothers take him down before its too late for both Macy AND Daisy.

Escape Rating B+: I liked Keep better than Fury because I was able to get inside Macy’s head in a way that I wasn’t Mila’s or even Dante’s. I also enjoyed Macy more as a character because she was getting on with her life and living her best one in spite of the EvilEx™ lurking behind her in San Francisco. She’s not focusing on him, she’s not constantly looking over her shoulder at him, she’s not even thinking much about him until he turns up like a bad penny and puts himself back in her life.

One of the fun things about this series so far is that the romances haven’t been insta-love. We enter the story at the point where the relationship turns so fast on its dime that it almost seems that way, but Colt and Macy have been working together for months when their story begins. They are already part of each other’s lives – and part of each other’s daydreams even if neither of them is willing to admit that.

Well, Macy is willing to admit to the occasional sexy daydream, but recognizes that it’s not a good idea to go there because they work together. Colt, on the other hand, has a bad case of “I’m not worthy” that he’s only able to start getting over when Macy needs him to protect her.

There’s also a bit of ‘Kidfic’ mixed in, as Colt is an excellent dad to Daisy, and part of the whole Fury Brothers brotherhood is wrapped around taking care of little Daisy Fury. When Macy goes all in on being another one of Daisy’s caregivers it gives the story a gooey center that just worked for me. (I’ve been reading a whole lot of 9-1-1 fanfic recently, in spite of having never watched the TV series, and a whole lot of that fandom is kidfics – which are awesome if the kid is awesome and Daisy so is!)

Of course Colt gets over his stupidity in thinking that he’s a) not good enough for Macy and b) gets to make that decision for her. Meanwhile, Macy, in spite of a bit of stupid decision making over a threat to Daisy, manages to rescue the little girl and sets up her own rescue quite handily in the process, proving to herself and the reader that she’s the perfect addition to the Fury Brothers’ family.

One final comment. This series so far has books with VERY long subtitles. The subtitle for Dante’s book, “a fake dating workplace romance” was only true for a little while. Not that it wasn’t a workplace romance, but the fake part of their fake dating didn’t last very long at all.

Very much on the other hand, Colt is a grumpy dad from the very first page of his story until the last. Grumpy is part of Colt’s core personality. That grumpiness hides a heart of marshmallow when it comes to his family, but he’s a grump through and through. That gets to a place of being considerably happier in his grumpiness over the course of this story adds just that extra bit of sweetness – albeit still covered in a crusty – but delicious – exterior. (Come to think of it, Colt is a bit like a s’more – or at least Macy certainly thinks so!)

Ending this entry in the series on a high note, at least for this reader, it looks like business mogul Kavner Fury will be going head to head with Treasury Agent Coleman in the next book in the Fury Brothers series, sometime next year. I always love it when the heroine is able to kick ass and take names alongside the heroes, so I can’t wait to see Coleman do her level best to take Kav down – one way or another!