Reviewer: Casee Fragile by Shiloh Walker
Series: Rafferty #1
Also in this series: Fragile
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: February 3, 2009
Format: Print ARC
Source: Author
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Romantic Suspense
Pages: 346
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Series Rating:
Six years after trading in his combat gear for hospital scrubs, Luke Rafferty is faced with things just as heartbreaking as those on the battlefield. The abused children being brought in by the pretty redheaded social worker tug at his soul like nothing he's ever known.
For Devon Manning, being a social worker is a rewarding job, but also a constant reminder of her own troubled youth. Devon takes everything one day at a time—unable to form a relationship with anyone except the children she rescues.
When Luke meets Devon, he thinks he might have found what he's been looking for, but in order to get the life he wants, Luke has to break through Devon's emotional barriers and make her realize that his healing touch might be just the complication her life needs...
I didn’t really expect to like Devon. She’s exactly the type of heroine that I can’t really get behind. The heroine that doesn’t need anyone except for herself. The “tough-as-nails, I’ll kick your ass before I let you touch me, I don’t need you” heroine. You know the heroine I’m talking about. That’s the type I expected Devon to be, even while I was reading the beginning of the book. And she is that type of heroine, to a certain extent. She’s is tough, but that’s b/c she has to be. She is closed off from men, but she’ll open up to the right man. She needs family and she needs friends. So she was as I expected her to be, yet she was also more.
When it comes to being a social worker, Devon knows that she’s running on fumes. But she won’t give up. She won’t stop b/c there is always one more child to save, one more child that could be looking for what she looked for as a child. A way out; a way to a better place. The part of her job that she hates the most brings Luke Rafferty into her life. As an ER doctor, Luke deals with the worst of the worst. But the kids Devon brings in always tear at his heart the most. As does Devon herself. Luke never thought about settling down until he meets Devon.
Devon has definite problems with intimacy. What I liked about her was that she was willing to discuss it with Luke. She was willing to overcome her fears to be with this man that she knew was special. As for Luke, he knows a victim when he sees one and he can tell that Devon is one. That’s not enough to deter him from a relationship with her. Soon they’re in a full-fledged affair.
Unfortunately Devon’s work brings her into contact with parents that resent her presence in their lives. One case turns violent when Devon helps a teenage boy out of an abusive home. The boy’s father doesn’t take kindly to Devon’s part in taking him away.
The circumstances force Devon and Luke to get close faster than either of them anticipated. Basically there are two storylines going on here. That was a little much for me. I understand why they were both necessary. They were each there to throw the reader in the opposite direction. I can appreciate that. So even though it was a little over the top, Shiloh made it work.
I was glad there wasn’t a paranormal aspect to this book.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Rafferty
