Reviewer: Jen In Safe Hands by Katie Ruggle
Series: Search and Rescue #4
Also in this series: Fan the Flames (Search and Rescue #2), Gone Too Deep
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: October 4th 2016
Pages: 416
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Series Rating:
In the remote Rocky Mountains, lives depend on the Search & Rescue brotherhood. But in a place this far off the map, trust is hard to come by and secrets can be murder...
It's all come down to this...
Daisy Little has lived in agoraphobic terror for over eight years. Trapped within a prison of her own making, she watches time pass through her bedroom window. Daisy knows she'll never be a part of the world...until the day she becomes the sole witness of a terrible crime that may finally tear the Search and Rescue brotherhood apart for good.
I gotta say, there’s something really satisfying about a 4-book romantic suspense series. Some series go on indefinitely and that can be fun too, but sometimes it’s nice to get a story arc that crosses multiple books but then actually is resolved. I have been excited about this series from the beginning, and while this final book wasn’t my personal favorite in the bunch, it was still a great ending to an intriguing storyline with a likeable cast of characters.
A note about spoilers: I’m not going to discuss spoilers here (even though I really want to!), but even knowing the hero’s name is a kind of spoiler after the bombshell that ended book 3, since you’re not sure at first who’s involved. If you don’t want the name, skip my review!
For those who haven’t been reading along, the larger story involves a small town in Colorado where a dead body was found in the first book. Slowly throughout the course of the books, other crimes have happened, including unexplained fires, people going missing, the involvement of local gangs and drug criminals, and more. The heroes and heroines each get sucked into the mystery and have been working to solve it. This time the heroine is Daisy, who has a severe phobia about leaving her house after she experienced a traumatic event as a teenager. She has not left her house even once in 8 years, and she has few friends beyond Chris, the police officer we met in previous books. In a kind of “Rear Window” twist, Daisy sees something suspicious from her window, and telling Chris about it sets off a series of events that puts her in danger and starts to tie together all the crimes that have been happening in town.
Somewhat unusually, the books in this series are all written from the point of view of the heroines, which means the women better be compelling! This is the reason I struggled with book 2–I didn’t find Rory as relatable as the other heroines, and at first I was worried that might be the case with Daisy too. I quickly grew to enjoy her, though. She’s smart and determined and funny. She’s attracted to Chris but she doesn’t sit around pining for him, and she isn’t angst-ridden or always feeling sorry for herself. She eventually makes changes in her life for herself, not for Chris, and she builds up a support network beyond him. I did wish her mental health issues were handled a bit more realistically. Things start out ok, but by the end everything is resolved a bit too easily. Chris is another strong silent hero (albeit not as silent as George from book 3, haha). His character isn’t quite as fleshed out as I might like, but it’s difficult to get that without hearing his point of view. It’s clear he has a strong sense of duty and is devoted to Daisy, though. I also liked the way he supports her without trying to fix her life for her.
Again, I won’t give spoilers but…..OMFG you guys! The villain turns out to be super villainous in this book and it made me so sad and upset and also a little confused about how this person could have decided this was the best course of action to pursue. Once again, I felt like things were resolved a little too easily and conveniently, but the ending was still absolutely satisfying and tied up the mystery’s loose ends.
I loved this series, and I hope anyone else who enjoys romantic suspense will give it a shot, too.
Grade: 4.25 out of 5
*I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.
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