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:

Oh, is he handsome. And charming. And sexy as all get out. Dr. Lisa Maxwell isn’t the type to go home with a guy she barely knows. But, hey, this is Italy and the red-blooded Rafe Sullivan seems much more enticing than cataloging a bunch of dusty artifacts.

After being fully seduced, Lisa wakes to an empty bed and, worse yet, an empty safe. She’s staked her career as an archaeologist on collecting the three Furies, a priceless set of ancient Greek reliefs. Now the one she had is gone. But Lisa won’t just get mad. She’ll get even.

She tracks Rafe to Florida, and finds the sparks between them blaze hotter than the Miami sun. He may still have her relic, but he’ll never find all three without her. And they’re not the only ones on the hunt. To beat the other treasure seekers, they’ll have to partner up—because suddenly Lisa and Rafe are in a race just to stay alive.

I’ve never been crazy about books that center around archaeology. In most cases, there is more information about archaeology than I ever want to know. It just bogs down the story and makes for really slow reading. I thought that this book was going to be the same.

Dr. Lisa Maxwell isn’t the type for one-night stands. Yet when she meets Rafe Sullivan, she just isn’t herself. More than willing to invite Rafe, a stranger, to her hotel room, Lisa hasn’t been so turned on in her entire life. Unfortunately for her, Rafe isn’t there for her. He’s there to steal one of the Furies she found in Jamaica. Lisa has staked her career on finding the three Greek relics and when she wakes up the next morning to find the Furie and Rafe gone, she tracks him down within hours.

Rafe has his reasons for robbing Lisa. He never expected to feel guilty about it, but after meeting Lisa, he found that it wasn’t as easy stealing from her as he had hoped. Not only is he physically attracted to her, but he also admires what she’s accomplished. Still, Rafe can’t forget why he’s there and soon returns to Florida, not expecting to see Lisa for weeks. He’s more than surprised when she turns up after a few days.

Lisa knows it won’t be easy to get the Furie back from Rafe, especially considering her attraction to the infuriating thief. The only thing they agree on is to work together to find the third Furie. Lisa doesn’t know that Rafe already has the first Furie and he doesn’t intend on telling her quite yet. He just knows he needs her to find the third.

Rafe and Lisa are both loners. They both love their families, but have few interests outside of their work. Lisa knows that falling for Rafe is something that would be beyond stupid. Rafe doesn’t think Lisa can accept him for who he is. In addition to their attraction to each other, they soon realize that they aren’t the only people trying to find the third Furie.

The reason this book didn’t seem bogged down with archaeology facts was b/c the suspense almost never stopped. The book seemed to start out slow, but once it got going, it really went fast. I think that Naughton did a great job with her debut, not only for the storyline, but for the characters too. And not just the main characters, but the contemporary characters as well.

4 out of 5

This book is available from Dorchester. You can buy it here.