Renee’s review of Rescue My Heart (Animal Magnetism, Book 3) by Jill Shalvis

After a tragic stint in the National Guards, Adam Connelly returns to Idaho and to Belle Haven, the animal shelter he owns with his brothers. All Adam wants is to be alone. Then he opens the door to the past—the woman whose heart he once broke. Still gorgeous, still tough-as-nails, but this time, unusually vulnerable.

Holly Reid learned the hard way to never depend on a man for anything. Now, of all men, it’s the last one she wants to see, and the only one she needs. Her father has gone missing in the Bitterroot Mountains and she could use someone with tracking skills to help find him.

For Holly and Adam, each with their ghosts, a trek this desperate, this unpredictable, and this intimate, will have its share of risks—including opening their hearts one more time.

Jill Shalvis is one of my go-to authors when I want fun romance with good character development and smart dialogue. With Rescue My Heart, she really delivered.

Rescue My Heart is the third installment of the Animal Magnetism series. Each book has focused on a Connelly brother, and this is book is Adam’s, who is still healing from a tragic event in Afghanistan.

When Holly, the girl he loved—and then left— comes to him asking for help with locating her father, he is unable to remain unaffected by the feelings that come rushing back to him.

I found Holly to be one of my favorite Shalvis heroine’s. Holly really knows herself and what she wants. She likes who she has become, even though some of who she is is a result of Adam leaving her when she was 18, and of her failed marriage.

Holly doesn’t buy into Adam’s leaving town “for her own good” when they were young, and lets him know she sees it as macho high-handedness (just like her father, brother, and ex-husband behave) and Adam’s fear of his being vulnerable to her. When Holly realizes that she wants more from Adam than a quickie “reunion,” she goes about pursuing a relationship in a way that never comes across as needy. She’s straightforward and honest about it, and also clear-eyed enough about Adam to know that— at least in the beginning— he is not ready for a serious relationship. He still has some healing to do.

Adam has survived tragedy, and is working hard to deal with the PTSD that continues to affect him. I love that as alpha as he is, he is able to accept both professional help, and the support of his family. It was great how his brother, Dell, especially, would find ways to be there for Adam, whether it was to tease him out of a broody mood, or go with him to a mountain top so they could yell out their pent up emotions.

Sometimes when a hero or heroine is resistant to a relationship, and it’s hard for me to understand why — other than that it’s a needed source of conflict between the main characters. But with Adam, it’s clear that he feels damaged by his experience in Afghanistan, and has not yet healed enough to lower the defenses he needed to get himself through his trauma.

As his involvement with Holly progresses, it’s great to see the mini-epiphanies he has about his feelings for her, and how she slowly becomes more and more necessary to him. It’s as if Adam has encased himself in ice, and with each encounter with Holly, he melts a little more.

This was one of those books that (knowing I was reading it for review) I just kept marking passages that revealed Holly and Adam, and showed that as their relationship developed, they grew into a HEA that they couldn’t have had when they were teens.

Another thing I really enjoyed about Rescue My Heart was the relationship between the brothers. Dell, Adam, and Brady all give each other a hard time, but it’s clear that they really care about each other. Dell and Brady don’t hesitate to butt in when they think Adam is being stupid about Holly and needs to fix things with her.

The only thing that felt a little out of place for me was how Holly’s ex-husband kept popping up. She seemed well and truly over him, and his presence in the story felt unnecessary to the development of Adam’s and Holly’s romance, and the conflict the ex brought with him felt like a distraction, more than something that helped advance the story.

However, that was s a minor issue, and was easy to set aside.

In the end, I felt like this was a great read. It hit all of the high points for me: character development, real emotion, and Shalvis’ trademark sense of humor. Now that all three Connelly brothers have found their HEA, I really hope that the series will continue. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Holly’s brother Griffin and her best friend Kate will get the next book. Their chemistry in Rescue My Heart was palpable, and it seems like there’s some yet-to-be-revealed history between them.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Series:

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