Tracy’s review of Midnight Rescue by Elle Kennedy.
Dangerous. Ruthless. Savage. And she’s the good guy.
Abby Sinclair had a desperate childhood until she was rescued and adopted by a retired army ranger who molded her into a master of self-defense. Now, she’s a cunning and fearless assassin thrust into assignment after dangerous assignment, using everything she has-nerve, resilience, strength, sex-to come out on top. Her only rule: trust no one.
Abby’s latest assignment is in Columbia: go undercover and snuff out a dangerous arms dealer active in the underground sex trade. But when Abby purposely blows her cover in a last-ditch attempt to free the helpless victims, deadly mercenary Kane Woodland is recruited as back-up. His mission: get Abby out of that hell hole.
The last thing Kane expects is to feel a primal attraction for Abby. But when she convinces him to join her on her perilous mission, their newfound passion could put the lives of their whole team at risk.
Abby Sinclair, assassin, is deep undercover when she discovers that the man she has been sent in to kill is collecting young teen and preteen girls and plans on selling them in an auction. Abby believes she can save the girls and purposely blows her cover so that she can be closer to them in the prison. Her boss, the Queen of Assassin’s, Noelle, seeks help from a mercenary group to help rescue Abby.
After Abby is rescued she manages to talk the mercenary group into going in to rescue the girls. Many avenue’s are taken in order to set everything up. In the mean time Abby stays at the compound with the merc group and she starts to feel a connection to Kane – one of the mercs who used to be a Navy SEAL.
Kane is somewhat fascinated by Abby. She is silent and stoic and definitely hard to get to know. He wants to trust her and he wants her to trust him but that’s something that will take quite a while to happen. While the group plans the rescue of the girls Kane’s focus is split between his job and Abby as he tries to get closer to her.
I had kind of a like/hate relationship with this book. I’ll go into what I didn’t care for first and end with what I did.
What I didn’t like:
Abby’s character. She was written in kind of a schizophrenic way and I could never get a handle on her. She had been hurt and sexually assaulted since the age of 7 and obviously had serious issues because of that. She didn’t trust easily and I understood that perfectly. What I didn’t get is that one minute she was solid, hardened assassin Abby and the next she was wimpy, needy Abby and I couldn’t get a handle on which way she was going to go next. She also had multiple nightmares on a regular basis but yet she had been deep undercover? How exactly did that work? I couldn’t figure it out.
I liked Kane (see below) but I didn’t like how he was so forceful with Abby. She was pretty damned delicate when it came to sex (having never enjoyed it before or had it just because she liked someone) and he was much more abrupt with her than I felt she should be. But maybe that’s just me.
The romance. I felt it was seriously lacking in the fact that the two had barely gotten together when they started having issues and then there were declarations of I love you. I expected it because I knew the book was wrapping up but I felt the couple truly needed to know each other longer and definitely better before that HEA came about.
The mercenary’s in the group seemed like good guys but we were given such little information on them (except one) that I just couldn’t get a handle on them. The information that we were given was pretty sketchy and honestly just confused me. If I didn’t know that this was the first book in the series I would have thought I missed something as it felt at first that I should have known who these people were – almost like it was the continuation of a previous story.
The flow of the story. For all of the action that this book should have had there were definite stops and starts in the story. It went from fast to slow and back again and when it was slow it was really slow.
What I did like:
Secondary characters Isabel and Trevor. Trevor worked for the merc group and Isabel Noelle’s team. They were put together as a couple when they went undercover and worked well together. But Trevor was still, after a year, mourning the death of his fiance and really had a death wish. Isabel tried to break through with Trevor but it just wasn’t working. I really liked the beginning of this relationship and hope it continues.
The overall premise of the story. The assassin’s working with the mercenary’s to rescue the girls and do away with the bad guy? Yeah, that was something I could get into. If my issue from above hadn’t happened then it would have been much better.
Kane was a great character and frankly I really wanted him to be with someone else. Lol He was kind and thoughtful and just seemed like a really giving guy.
Overall it was a decent story but it definitely had its low points for me. I may read the next book in ther series just because I want to find out what happens between Isabel and Trevor.
Rating: 2.75/3 out of 5
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place
This book is available from Signet. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
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