Tag: Last Chance Rescue Trilogy

Review: No Chance by Christy Reece

Posted February 26, 2010 by Casee in Reviews | 9 Comments

Casee‘s review of No Chance (Last Chance Rescue, Book 4) by Christy Reece.

Skylar James told a lie to the man she married, and eight years later she still bitterly regrets the deception. Unknown to Skylar, her husband, Gabe Maddox, now lives in the dangerous shadows of elite operatives who rescue victims. When Skylar tries to save a naïve young beauty, kidnappers come after her. For Gabe, Skylar had been his last shot at trust and love. But news of her disappearance battens down his anger and launches him into action. Saving Skylar is Gabe’s only chance for peace and his last chance for happiness.

No Chance had remnants of Paradise by Judith McNaught. I noticed that right from the beginning. I only thought about that once—during the prologue—before it went out of my mind. That was a good thing. I hate when I read a book that that seems to be a rip off of a almost identical to book that you really have no chance of living up to (I’m talking to you, Rachel Gibson).

Skylar James seems to be your usual poor little rich girl. When Skylar meets Gabe, he looks at her like a normal person. Not like the Skylar James. As they become friends, Skylar regrets her initial decision not to tell Gabe who she really is. After getting to know him, she is confident that Gabe will love her no matter what. That was before she married him.

Ruh-roh.

After being in a foreign prison for years, Skye is like a breath of fresh air to Gabe. He sees innocence in her that does something to him. He can be himself with her. That’s why he’s so pissed (which really is a mild word for it) when Skye’s dad comes knocking at his door offering him money to go away. Skye insisted on flying home to tell her family about the marriage so they could get used to the idea. It’s not until later in the book that the full deception with her family is revealed.

Basically it’s this: Skylar thinks Gabe is gone and Gabe thinks Skye realized that she could get better than him. Skylar now uses her notoriety and celebrity to help people. Gabe went into LCR which gave him a chance to belong. Their paths collide when Skylar is kidnapped and LCR is called in to find her.

Skylar befriends young women that need help. She mentors them in a way. Her current charge is Kendra, who goes for a modeling job and then goes missing. When Skylar shows up to the place Kendra went, she is kidnapped as well. While she’s held captive, she realizes that there is far more to her abduction than a simple ransom. When Gabe rides to the rescue, Skylar thinks she’s dreaming. It’s after that that Skylar realizes what her father has done.

This book was full of stuff. I have no idea how else to explain it. It was jam packed with information. Not boring information. Just relationship information, bad guy information, kidnapped girl information. I think that Reece could have gone with one less point of view. I loved the point of view of the bad guy b/c he was just SO bad, but it just added to fullness of the book. Actually, he was too bad to have his POV taken out.

The relationship between Gabe and Skylar obviously changes once he appoints himself as her bodyguard. He wants to trust what she says about her feelings about him, but eight years has left him leery of trusting anything having to do with Skylar James. Skylar has to accept the fact that while she thought that Gabe was dead, Gabe knew that she was alive and well and didn’t try (hard enough) to contact her. I was really happy to see their happy ending. After the way their beginning started (before the interference of her family) they really were perfect for each other.

4 out of 5.

This book is available from Ballantine. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

The series:

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Tagged: 4.0 Reviews, Casee's Reviews, hristy Reece, Last Chance Rescue Series, Last Chance Rescue Trilogy, Reviews, Romantic Suspense

Review: The Perfect Liar by Brenda Novak

Posted September 15, 2009 by Casee in Reviews | 2 Comments

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Casee‘s review of The Perfect Liar (Last Chance Rescue, Book 5) by Brenda Novak.

Obsession leads to lies…

When air force captain Luke Trussell opens his door one Sunday morning, he’s shocked to find the police—and even more shocked when they charge him with rape. He knows he made a mistake in judgment the night before, but he certainly didn’t force his attentions on the woman who’s been stalking him for months.

Problem is…Karina Harter has the bruises—and the DNA evidence—to make her claim convincing.

And lies can lead to murder.

Determined to isolate Luke, Karina goes to victims’ rights advocate Ava Bixby of The Last Stand, hoping Ava will help put Luke behind bars. But Ava soon realizes she’s defending the wrong victim.

Problem is…switching her support to Luke could be dangerous—especially when she falls for him. Because Karina won’t tolerate losing the man she wants to anyone. Least of all Ava…

Brenda Novak is an author to keep your eye on. Her books get successfully better. And I would know. I’ve been reading her since Taking the Heat. Her books were good back then, but now they’re great.

The storyline in this book was very interesting. What you have is a sociopathic female villain who is out to get the hero. Her logic for eventually “getting” him is so skewed that it makes you wonder if anyone can honestly be that stupid.

The blurb says her name is Karina, but it’s actually Kalyna in the book. And she’s one crazy bitch. She’s had her eye on Luke Trussell for months and seizes the chance to make him hers. The only problem is that Luke doesn’t want her in return. So she does what any sane woman would do, she cries rape knowing that he’ll eventually turn to her.

To complete her plan, she turns to Ava Bixby of Last Chance Rescue. While the Air Force will try Luke, Kalyna also wants to make sure that Luke is punished by the general public.

Ava has no reason to doubt Kalyna when she comes to her for help. She has a niggling of doubt, but nothing that should make her turn away from Kalyna. Her story, along with pictures of the attack, prove that Kalyna is telling the truth. Yet Ava is nothing if not thorough. And when she starts digging, she realizes that Kalyna is lying and is not only crazy, but dangerous.

Luke turns to Ava when he realizes that she’s the only one that believes him. He has no idea why Kalyna has gone after him like this. He just knows he wants to clear himself. When Ava shows him how unbalanced Kalyna really is, he doesn’t heed her advice to be careful. She is a woman after all.

That’s about the only thing in this book that annoyed me. Luke’s unwillingness to take the threat of Kalyna seriously. I suppose it’s believable since Luke is a captain in the Air Force and believes himself superior to Kalyna physically. Still, his utter lack of belief to Ava’s concerns really annoyed me.

The romance between Ava and Luke really worked for me, too. I think they were perfect for each other. Ava has demons in her past that have shown her that love hurts. So that’s the last thing she wants from Luke. Unfortunately for both Luke and Ava, Kalyna thinks that’s exactly what Ava wants. And she’ll do anything to stop her.

Yet another great addition to this series!

4.25 out of 5.

This book is available from Mira. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

Other books in the series:

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Tagged: 4.25 Reviews, Brenda Novak, Casee's Reviews, Last Chance Rescue Trilogy, Mira, Reviews, Romantic Suspense

Review: Run to Me by Christy Reece

Posted August 7, 2009 by Casee in Reviews | 1 Comment

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Casee‘s review of Run to Me (Last Chase Rescue Trilogy, Book 3) by Christy Reece.

Driven by grief and fury, Shea Monroe, an operative for Last Chance Rescue, goes deep undercover, vowing vengeance against the man who killed her husband. Instead, she ends up a captive and the unwilling weapon of a vicious human trafficker. But then she is rescued from her den of terror and shame by her husband’s best friend, Ethan Bishop, a man Shea feels irrevocably drawn to, despite her having lost all memory of her life before she was captured.

Having saved Shea from a madman, Ethan will do anything to keep her safe, but he can’t allow the feelings he once had for her to resurface. While recovering from her ordeal and regaining her lost memory, Shea begins to fall for Ethan. But the treachery and tragedies of the past won’t leave either of them alone. And from Mexico, a monster has sent his foot soldiers to seize Shea–using a weapon beyond anyone’s worst nightmare.

It’s no secret that we’re not a fan of amnesia story lines here at Book Binge. For me, that doesn’t seem to matter; I still read them. I wouldn’t classify Run to Me as your “textbook” amnesia story. There was no traumatic accident that caused Shea’s amnesia. She’s not purposely repressing anything. So it definitely worked for me.

When Shea goes deep undercover to find the man responsible for killing her husband, she’s subsequently captured and drugged. The drug she’s given takes away her free will. She doesn’t know who she is, all she does know is that she will do anything the master tells her. What she thinks is a daily vitamin injection is actually a drug that completely removes her memory. It also removes her ability to think or make any decisions for herself.

When Shea is kidnapped from her master’s home, she knows it’s a test. The master has tested her before. She’ll do anything to return to the master. It’s basically what she’s programmed to do.

Ethan has loved Shea for years. He purposely pushed her away, into the arms of his best friend. When she disappeared after Cole was killed, like everything else, Ethan thought she went somewhere private to grieve. When he’s given intel that Shea is actually kidnapping women who are later released for ransom, he knows that she’s being held captive.

Going in to get Shea, Ethan figures that she’ll be happy to see him. What he finds instead is that Shea has no idea who he is. More than that, she is doing everything possible to get away from him, including trying to kill him. Getting her out of Mexico is his first priority. After that, he’ll figure out what exactly happened to Shea.

In the weeks after Shea is rescued, she’s only able to bring certain pieces of her disappearance to light. The drug she was given is so new that even LCR’s top doctors don’t exactly know what it is. Getting fractured memories here and there, Shea only knows that Ethan may be the only one she can trust.

Ethan wants to protect Shea and then let her go. He knows as soon as she remembers how they parted, she will never want to see him again. What he doesn’t count on is that the woman he fell in love with doesn’t give up so easily.

Shea was such a great heroine. She was light to Ethan’s darkness. I loved how she just accepted Ethan as he was. When she starts remembering the past, she has to reconcile the Ethan that she has gotten to know with the Ethan she remembers. You can’t help but admire Shea. This may be my favorite of the trilogy.

4.25 out of 5.

This book is available from Ballantine. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

Other books in the series:

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Tagged: Ballantine, Casee's Reviews, Last Chance Rescue Trilogy, Reviews, Romantic Suspense

Review: Rescue Me by Christy Reece

Posted June 19, 2009 by Casee in Reviews | 2 Comments

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Casee‘s review of Rescue Me by Christy Reece.

A covert operative of Last Chance Rescue (LCR) Enterprises, Eden St. Claire has made secrets her life’s work. Seven years ago, an evening of emotional vulnerability and pure pleasure almost destroyed her. Now Eden wears her beauty like a mask, concealing any hint of vulnerability or the demons of her past.

A daring rescue of an innocent girl on a Greek island leads Eden to a new partner. Jordan Montgomery has been looking for Eden–though he knows her by another name, from another time. But his search for her is overshadowed by a case that’s gone international. A powerful, ruthless, organized network is stealing women and children around the world. And a lover, a traitor, and a killer all wait for Eden’s next move.

I was walking through Borders last week when this book just popped out. It was on one of the ‘new release’ displays up front, which is the only reason I even saw it. I read the blurb and it sounded really good. I wasn’t sure if itw as romantic suspense, or just suspense. There were no copies of her books in the Romance or Mystery section. I picked it up anyway b/c I’m game to try new things.

Eden St. Claire aka Devon Winters is one of LCR’s most valuable operatives. When her boss and good friend, Noah, decides that it’s time to face her past, she has no idea what he has planned for her. When she sees Jordan Montgomery in Paris, she almost faints in shock. Well, not really, but she was definitely light headed. While Eden knows that Jordan won’t recognize her, she is still leery of his attentions.

There’s only one reason that Jordan has come to Paris. He hopes that LCR can find Devon Winters. Seven years ago, Jordan said some truly vile things to Devon before he kicked her out of her house. What he doesn’t know is that Devon was brutally attacked only blocks from his home and tortured for hours.

In between all the history, they also have a human trafficking ring to bring down. Noah decides that Jordan is the best person to go undercover with Eden. She’s furious and knows that Noah is playing some sort of game; she just hasn’t figured out what it is.

I admired Eden tremendously. Though she was a victim, she turned herself into survivor, helping other victims like herself. If you enjoy romantic suspense of any kind, I think you’ll like this book.

4.25 out of 5.

This book is available from Ballantine. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

Other books in the series: