~ About the Book ~
Detective Nate Quinn has just been cleared for active duty after a bombing killed eighteen people, including his partner, and left him dealing with PTSD. His first case back on the job involves the murder of Stephen Shaw, and his only lead turns out to be an old friend, Grace Callahan–and her life is in grave danger. Someone believes Shaw gave his psychologist information before he died. Information they are willing to kill for.
With her signature pulse-pounding suspense, Lisa Harris takes readers deep into the heart of fear in this race against the clock.
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Release date: 18 September 2018
Pages: 336
Publisher: Revell Books
Amazon US // Amazon AU // iBooks // Goodreads // Koorong
~ Excerpt ~
A sharp clatter jerked Grace Callahan out of the novel she was reading. She dropped the paperback onto the empty side of the queen-sized bed, then sat up, trying to determine if the noise had come from inside the house, or outside. More than likely it was her neighbor’s dog again, knocking something over. Or maybe she’d simply imagined it.
She glanced at the book’s ominous cover. Next time she should stick to reading something less . . . intense when trying to go to sleep.
Not that it would matter.
Nighttime had become the hardest, especially this time of year. Seconds stretched into minutes that eventually stretched into hours. But morning never came soon enough. And then when it did come, most of the time she was still exhausted. She’d tried every natural sleeping remedy she could find, yet most of the time the middle of the night found her wide awake and unable to sleep.
Like tonight.
She heard the noise again. This time she knew she hadn’t imagined it. She reached for the subcompact Glock she kept stashed in her nightstand drawer. It was one of the fallouts of living alone. She was now the one ultimately responsible for taking care of the broken garage door opener, filing taxes, and keeping the gutters cleared.
And making sure there wasn’t an intruder in the house.
Her mind started through a mental checklist as she made her way across the hardwood floor. Living alone made security automatic. Before she’d gone to bed, she’d made sure the front and back doors were locked, set the alarm, and turned on the night-light in the living room . . .
Everything Kevin used to do.
Shoving aside the thought, she opened her bedroom door and stepped out onto the upstairs landing, then paused to listen. The old clock that had been her grandmother’s ticked off seconds from the living room. The air conditioner pumped cool air out of the duct above her. Water dropped form the faucet in the guest bathroom.
Nothing sounded out of the ordinary.
She took a deep breath in an attempt to suppress the wave of anxiety. She of all people should know how to deal with stress, and yet she’d still let reminders of today’s date and the grief it always brought completely engulf her.
She started down the stairs for a final reassurance that she was alone in the house, then froze as the white beam of a flashlight coming from the kitchen caught her attention.
Oh God, show me a way out of this. Please.
~ My Review ~
The action starts in the very first line of this story and continues right up to the end as Grace and Nate try to work out exactly what it is that’s put Grace in the crosshairs of some pretty determined people. From cryptic clues left by a dead client, they begin to piece together a plot that has the potential to throw the whole country into chaos, and with the help of a recluse who’s now living completely off-grid in preparation for just such an attack, they race against time to find the crucial piece of software that has the power to save them—or destroy them.
As exciting as all of that sounds, I found it difficult to become fully invested in this story. There was something a little predictable about the way both the suspense and the romance plots developed. For example, the two main characters have reason to be wary of relationships—they feel the tug of attraction but frequently remind themselves of all the reasons why they shouldn’t pursue a relationship—and a lot of the action hinges around several attempts on the heroine’s life/physical safety. It felt like the story was sticking to a tried-and-true formula, even if some of the specifics were original to the story.
That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the novel. The writing is solid and there were a few surprises in the plot, but the characters didn’t grab me, which is often a big factor in how engaged I am with a novel, and I didn’t feel much chemistry between them. I did like cyber-attack plot though. It’s sobering to think about the implications of a world so dependent on electricity!
I received a copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion.
~ About the Author ~
LISA HARRIS is a Christy Award finalist for Blood Ransom and Vendetta, Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and the winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel for 2011 and 2015 from Romantic Times for her novels Blood Covenant and Vendetta. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent over twelve years living as missionaries in Africa where she leads a women’s group, and runs a non-profit organization that works alongside their church-planting ministry. The ECHO Project works in southern Africa promoting Education, Compassion, Health, and Opportunity and is a way for her to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves…the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.” (Proverbs 31:8)
When she’s not working she loves hanging out with her family, cooking different ethnic dishes, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari.
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