Casee‘s review of Stolen Seduction (Stolen Trilogy, Book 3) by Elisabeth Naughton.
Hailey Roarke was never interested in her family’s fortune. That’s why she became a cop. But with her father and now her cousin dead, she’s suddenly on the wrong side of a police interrogation. The only way to clear her name is to solve the riddle before the real killer. Without getting killed herself.
Detective Shane Maxwell can’t deny the spark of lust he feels every time Hailey is near. But the woman is clearly hiding something. Trusting his gut—and the heat in her eyes—he joins her on an elaborate global treasure hunt staged by her late father. Caught between a sizzling seduction and a maniacal murderer, for Hailey and Shane the biggest reward of all will be making it out alive.
This is book three in Naughton’s Stolen Trilogy. Hailey Roarke is Rafe Sullivan’s ex-wife (from Stolen Heat Fury) and Shane Maxwell is Lisa’s twin brother (also from Stolen Fury). Hailey has been more of a recurring character than Shane throughout the series. They first met in Stolen Fury when Hailey took Shane’s ass down. Literally. It was a very memorable first meet.
Hailey is one of the Roarke’s, something that she’s tried to distance herself from her entire life. She never went into the family business of Roarke Resorts (think Hilton). She wasn’t going to be under her father’s thumb her whole life. When he asks her to step in as interim CEO for a month, she can’t refuse him. Then her dad goes ahead and dies. It’s glaringly obvious that nothing her dad did in life was easy, so dealing with his death was going to be anything but. The reading of the will shocks even Hailey. Her eccentric (read: crazy) dad is sending the family on a treasure hunt. The first person to find the sixth statue of The Last Seduction wins RR.
One of the Roarke’s—Hailey’s cousin Bryan—ends up murdered the night that she broke into his home to look at his statue. Enter Shane. He doesn’t think that Hailey is capable of murder, but after a recent snafu with his job he doesn’t trust his judgment. When it comes down to taking Hailey into custody to stop her from fleeing Chicago or helping her, he goes with the latter.
Hailey is my favorite heroine in this series. She is a straight shooter. She tells it like it is and that’s that. She doesn’t apologize for who she is or the choices she’s made in life. As she and Shane start tracing the statue down, it becomes less about Roarke Resorts and more about whether her father was murdered. It’s not as far-fetched as it seems, especially since someone has tried to kill Hailey (and almost succeeded) multiple times.
There’s also Shane and all his baggage. He has more baggage than Hailey which says something right there. Hailey’s whole family seems psycho whereas Shane’s seems so normal. That doesn’t mean Shane is normal. We don’t know what happened to Shane until the end of the book and it really is a doozy.
I really loved this book. The treasure hunt/family secret style of the book was exactly what I was hoping for when I picked it up.
4 out of 5.
This book is available from Love Spell. You can buy it here.
The series:
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