Love has a way of interrupting the best laid plans.

Brad Torrence is a new journalist at the newspaper, but he won’t be there much longer if he doesn’t start writing more gripping stories. Cory Wolfe recently lost his best friend and mother of his unborn child. Brad writes a story about Cory’s loss, and a wonderful romance begins between the two. Unfortunately, Brad’s next story might bring him fame, but it also just might get him killed.

Brad was very sweet, lonely, and a bit naive. He worked hard at the newspaper, and even though he was technically a good writer, he wasn’t doing a great job finding riveting stories. Cory was an anesthesiologist, extremely smart, hard-working, and still recovering from the loss of his best friend who was carrying his child when she died. The two of them together were presented as a realistic couple where life isn’t perfect and people aren’t always in a great mood. It was an interesting approach. The first part of the story focused on the two guys getting to know each other. After that, the focus was on the mystery surrounding fraud in the construction of the hospital. The plot moved quickly, the sex was steamy, and the romance was enjoyable.

The only thing that kept this from being a 5 star story for me was the amount of details provided about inane issues. It detracted from the flow of the story which was otherwise fantastic. If you like mysteries with your romance, this was a great romantic story!

Originally reviewed for The Romance Reviews. Complimentary copy provided by author/publisher for an honest review.
Book Blurb

Highlights of this story included the addictive writing style, being inside Tim’s head, and Jack’s character. I always find it intriguing when an author can say so much with a single sentence. There were just enough bits of information to make sure I understood the character better. Although the romantic interactions were light, the way Jack continued to go out of his way to help Tim spoke volumes. The murder mystery, which took place decades earlier, was interesting and had plenty of fun suspects. The revelation of the murderer and the motive made sense.

Book Blurb

On the run from a killer, can these two guys find time to fall in love and deal with old wounds?

Damien Mitchell was in a horrible car accident and is now suffering from amnesia. He’s still pretty sure that there’s something wrong with the people who are supposedly his parents visiting him in the psychiatric ward. After escaping, he goes in search of his best friend and band mate Miki. While trying to find Miki, Damien meets the owner of a bar, Sionn Murphy, who over time becomes a good friend and lover. Now they just have to survive the multiple death threats to see if they can have a real relationship.

The romance between Damien and Sionn was done nicely with a lot of time spent developing their characters and relationship through action and conversations. Sionn was a nice guy surrounded by a large and wonderful family, and he just wanted to take care of Damien. Unfortunately, Damien was such a beaten down character that it was a struggle to enjoy his story. He was severely abused as a child, almost died in a car accident and suffered from severe amnesia, lost 2 of his best friends in the same car accident, and is now being hunted by a psychotic killer. Any of those could be devastating, but having all of them come into play got to be a bit much.

I had issues with the flow of the story. For instance, during their first sex scene, there was a break in the middle of it to take us to a gory crime scene. During the sex scene, we were reminded once again about how Damien was tortured as a child. Needless to say, this really eliminated my enjoyment of the first time they made love.

This story spent about half the time on the romance and the rest in the mind of a psychotic serial killer. The details surrounding the killings are very graphic and gory. The romance started out strong with the focus on Damien and Sionn, but then the focus moved to the murders. It wasn’t really a mystery as to why it was happening, since that was explained fairly early on. The biggest question was about who would get killed next, since everybody was up for grabs.

I liked seeing Damien reconnect with his best friend Miki from the first story and get a feel for how that friendship worked since so much was mentioned about it in the first book.

If you enjoy your romance mixed with evil, psychotic killers, then I think you’ll really enjoy this thriller.

Originally reviewed for The Romance Reviews. Complimentary copy provided by author/publisher for an honest review.
Book Blurb