Summary
She sits alone in a coffeehouse, and her fearless innocence wrecks me.
My longing to ruin her is as painful as she is beautiful.
Katie Reed.
Math prodigy.
Lovely, determined, quite unexpected.
Mine.
When I find out she lied to me, that an assassin hunts for her father and she’s
in the line of the fire, I order her into my protective custody.
Keeping her safe is my job.
But there’s no one to protect her from me.
She’s my obsession, and the pretty lies on her lips only make me want her more.
Katie doesn’t belong in my sinful world.
I should let her go.
But the craving in my soul won’t allow it.
I’ll set my little bird free from her emotional cage.
Then, I’ll keep her in one of my own.
Excerpt
I stood with my brothers at our father’s graveside, cursing at the old man while swearing to myself that it would be the last time.
Brisk air rushed in from the northeast and over the ridge, rolling across the estate and back out to the English Channel. The gust carried nuances of brine and evergreen and spring’s wildflowers.
The wildflowers. Beautiful, resilient, and unintentional.
Like her—the someone. The one I planned to die for.
Death had never scared me.
As a child, I’d watched my father beat the fear of it out of my older brothers. From within the shadows cast by their giant forms, I had witnessed the repeated fracturing and mending of their spirits as he trained them to become his soldiers of fortune.
Richard Hastings had been the son of an earl, the next man in line to inherit a title earned as spoils of another monarch’s war. After a falling-out with the peerage, he abandoned the title. Still, his connections had remained strong.
Our father had supplied counterintel to Britain’s military intelligence organization and conducted assassinations for Homeland Security. And because he was useful, the nation’s ministers protected him. They overlooked the personal crimes he committed, the hits he made to line his own pockets, and the hits made for a protection pact that was part of our family history.
But while shielding him from prosecution, each of those ministers had also kept a personal running tab. My father’s sins had accumulated like credit in their bank accounts.
On my eighteenth birthday, it had been my turn to become the next soldier in my father’s legion. I accepted my fate without resistance, vowing to train hard and kill whenever it was necessary.
Three months later, my father had lost his life on a government mission, leaving the burden of his legacy and his debts on the shoulders of my three brothers and me.
After a decade of cleaning up our father’s shit, only one debt remained for my family. But the obligation belonged to one of my brothers—to Will. I would reconcile this one myself to protect him, to protect his family, to atone for my emotional betrayal.
I dropped my gaze to the ground, where blue blossoms and ordinary woodland foliage fought for real estate.
Review
(audiobook) It didn’t really work for me. It wasn’t bad per say–though there were a couple of things that could have been written better–but mostly I didn’t believe in the characters nor what happened to them.
One of the first things we learn about Thomas is that he was in love with his brother’s wife. It happens in the previous books in the series, and I feel like reading them would have given me another angle to experience the character. As it is, he’s the broody military man with lots of hangups and a penchant for dominance. He would be your regular alpha-hole if it wasn’t for the surprising power Katie has over him.
Katie is a math prodigy, and a virgin. And that’s pretty much it. The author insists her parents control her, and at the same time care little about her. She’s obviously to obedient, because such a situation would justify an act of rebellion, and the only one is to decide to go to Oxford. That’s why it’s quite surprising when she becomes assertive with Thomas. I guess meeting the man awake her true self.
Their romance is forbidden in a few ways. First of all, when they first meet, Katie’s still a minor, at seventeen. The author cleverly refrains from writing anything too graphic until she’s of age. There’s also a substantial age gap between her and Thomas. And finally, Thomas is quickly hired to protect her, and it isn’t too smart to be in a relationship with your ward. And finally, some kinks are involved when she’s still a virgin when they first meet. I’m not usually bothered by any of those elements, but I felt it was a bit too much.
The author succumbs to one of my pet peeves: she writes the same scene twice, from two different points of view. It’s repetitive and mostly unnecessary, in my opinion. That’s my main complaint about the writing itself. The other is the rushed ending. The big mystery we were waiting for seems trivial and inconsequential, and all the problems disappear too easily.
Both narrators are professional, so they do a stellar job. But with a weak material, they can’t really come up with a great audiobook. It’s still pleasant, but not as good as I expected.
Quickie
- Series: Hastings brothers #3 (can be read as a standalone)
- Hashtags: #romantic suspense #bodyguard romance #forbidden romance #age gap #virgin
- Triggers: violence and death
- Main couple: Katie Reed & Thomas Hastings
- Hotness: 3/5
- Romance: 4/5
- + Katie is a tempting little minx, loved that
- – not a great pace
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