Dayum this story just wrung my heart out. Excellent characters with a good plot. That Lee could even crawl back out of the rabbit hole was amazing. This was a beautiful romance story that just played on my emotions. The plot twist was well executer and it had terrific HEA ending. ( )

Most of all I liked the writing style, that capacity of emotional impact without cheesiness .

But it seemed unconvincing to me the handling of reactions and tempos right after the rescue. And I find a bit implausible the drawing of the cast

Anyway, I believe that Ms. Henry is an author worth paying attention to her ( )

I was kind of afraid of this book, but I'm so glad that I picked it up. It was fantastic. Brilliant. Full of heart wrenching moments. I literally devoured it in one day, and couldn't pull away. I really recommend this, but before you start reading, make sure you have some spare time on your hands, because you absolutely won't be able to put it down until you reach the last page.
Now I'm off to tackle L. Henry's other books. ( )

CW: rape, violence, sex slavery, dubcon

This romantic suspense novel starts on page 170-something. Or, well, maybe that's not quite it. Maybe it's that the first thirty pages of the novel are 170-something pages long. In any case, I thought the pacing was all wrong, and more importantly maybe, the story focus was in the wrong place. The story starts with a man named Shaw arriving at a private island owned by a nasty piece of work to whom Shaw hopes to sell a stolen painting. Shortly after arriving, Shaw realizes that Bad News has a kidnapped an American soldier of some sort that he's keeping as a sex slave--and whom he intends to "lend" to Shaw. And then Shaw, who thinks he's not such a great dude but who absolutely draws the line at raping someone, has to figure out how to keep Bad News from getting suspicious while not actually hurting Lee. Okay. Some potential there. But it doesn't take long for the reader (or this reader anyway) to get very impatient with Shaw, who keeps contemplating how he probably could escape with Lee but how that would ruin the deal. Like, screw your black market nonsense, Shaw, SAVE THE DUDE. And then there's a big action scene wherein Shaw (and a surprise ally) kills Bad News and all his henchmen and escapes with Lee and calls in an Australian frigate because--surprise!--Shaw is ASIO and has been undercover for six years and that is what he was wary of blowing by saving Lee. Boy would I have rather known that earlier. That is SO much more compelling than what we got. In the back third, Shaw and Lee figure out how to be together et cetera. But that's where the story is! I would have liked them to get off the island within thirty or fifty pages, possibly with some flashbacks later as well, and had the bulk of the book be about how these two men could get past the trauma and messedupedness of their early relationship to be together, which they clearly both wanted. Oh well. I usually like Lisa Henry, put everyone oughta be allowed one bad pitch, I guess.

Reading this did help me realize that while I like my romances to be kind of dark and edgy, I like the darkness to come from within the characters and get worked through. I don't like darkness on the outside trying to get in. ( )

I tried to read it but... I got really freaked out with the whole 'let's have sex with the prisoner who is brutally raped and drugged'. I just... can't get in the headspace in which I don't get freaked out about it. If it was erotica.. then yeah but in this.. It is a shame though because I am totally wondering how the will get off the island!

Wait, what's stopping me from reading the end?!

Weird, when I DNF a physical copy I do that all the time... But on my ereader... ( )