Nothing to Fear

Karen Rose is one of those seemingly rare authors who has not failed me yet, but probably because her books tend to be longer and harder for me to fit into my reading schedule, I only seem to get around to reading one every couple of years. I really need to rectify that, because her books always impress me with their expert plotting and taut, edge-of-you-seat suspense. But even though the suspense and mystery tend to be more of the focus in her stories, she doesn’t skimp on the romance. Nothing to Fear was no exception to these rules. The characterizations are complex and tightly woven, as is the plot. I was kept guessing as to the villain's motivations for quite a while and there were a few twists that I didn’t see coming. For the show more most part, it all unravels slowly over time, but there were also parts of the story where I was on the edge of my seat, wondering how everything was going to turn out. So overall, this was a great story that kept me engaged throughout.

Dana was introduced in Karen Rose’s first book, Don’t Tell, as the social worker and director of Hanover House, who helped Caroline escape her abusive husband. She’s still working in that capacity in this book and unknowingly ends up harboring a woman who kidnapped a young boy and has murdered multiple people in cold blood. Dana is a kind, caring person, who wants to help women escape their abusive pasts and start over fresh. She’s extremely self-sacrificing and so committed to her work as to be somewhat of a risk-taker, which tends to upset the people closest to her. She has very deep-seated and complex reasons for what she does, but I won’t go into that too much so as to not give away spoilers. It was very enjoyable to peel away the layers and figure out the woman underneath, so I don’t want to take that away from readers. But suffice it to say that she’s been avoiding any relationships, not because she’s afraid of men, but because she feels her work is too demanding to allow her to get involved with someone. When she first meets Ethan and feels the electric connection between them, she thinks it will just be a fling, because she also knows that he’s from out of town. I liked, however, that her heart was open to the possibility of more when faced with the intense emotions she feels for him. While some of the people in Dana’s life feel she places herself in too much danger, I had to admire her for her bravery and keeping a cool head under intense pressure. I also couldn’t help but love her for her big heart and the work she does that has helped so many women and children.

Ethan is a former marine who had every intention of making it a career until he was wounded in Afghanistan. Now he experiences blinding migraines that can temporarily sideline him. He and his friend started up a security firm, where Ethan mostly does the computer work. He’s drawn into the kidnapping by the brother and sister-in-law of his former best friend who was killed in the war. He also happens to be godfather to their son, the boy who was kidnapped, so he’ll do whatever he has to do to get Alec back. Like all of Karen Rose’s heroes to date, Ethan is a great guy. Much like Dana he has a very complicated background that drives him to do the things he does. Even though he wants to involve the police, he’s moved enough by the parents’ fear for their son’s well-being that he’s willing to go it alone with only Clay, his friend and business partner’s help. He becomes so obsessive about getting Alec back that he doesn’t eat or sleep properly for days. Then Dana comes into his life, helping him to slow down just a little. He feels the instant electrifying connection every bit as deeply as Dana does, and knows he’d regret it if he didn’t at least try to get to know her. I loved him for his unwavering trust in Dana and for intuitively knowing there were things in her past that needed to be uncovered. He’s also a kindhearted person and a tender lover.

As with all of Karen Rose’s previous books, the villain here is pretty dastardly. This is the first of her books I’ve read where the villain is a woman. We know from the beginning who she is, at least in the respect of knowing her name, which changed the dynamic for me somewhat. The only one of the author’s books I’ve read so far where this was the case was Don’t Tell, and in all honesty, I felt like Caroline’s husband had more teeth than Sue/Jane, which is rather weird to say considering all the horrific crimes she committed. After analyzing her action, I don’t know that it was so much the character being female, as it was the way in which she commits her crimes. With the previous villains, they were out there terrorizing the town and you didn’t know who they were or in the case of Caroline's husband, he was hunting her down, leaving mayhem and destruction in his wake. With Sue/Jane, she has a detailed plan in mind and even though things don’t always go her way, her motto is “Adopt, adapt, and improve.” This in some ways made her actions seem a bit more impulsive, not in the sense that she doesn’t still have a master plan, but each murder she commits seems to be fairly quick albeit brutal. Granted the grand finale she’s working toward is the stuff nightmares are made of and she leaves a trail of bodies in her wake, some of which were gruesomely killed, but there was just something about her that didn’t seem quite as intense to me. I’m probably not explaining it very well, because I’m not entirely sure what to attribute that feeling to myself. Maybe it was her being a woman, but most of the time, I didn’t feel quite the same sense of fear and loathing toward her that I did with the previous villains. The thing I did like about the Sue/Jane character, though, was the psychology behind what she was doing, which was pretty fascinating. On the one hand, she could probably be considered a bad seed, because there are plenty of people who’ve gone through horrible circumstances not unlike those she endured and don’t turn out the way she did. On the other hand, there was a part of me that while I wouldn’t exactly say I sympathized, I could kind of understand the why of her actions, which to me is a very well-written character.

Additionally, the author utilizes her complex character web with many characters we’ve already met or who will eventually get their own books appearing. Max and Caroline (Don’t Tell) as Dana’s friends, play fairly significant roles, as does Max’s brother, David, who helps Dana out at Hanover House. Also there’s her friend and assistant, Evie, who’s almost more like a sister and who’s still pretty young. We get to see how her experience with Caroline's husband in Don’t Tell has changed her, but at the same time, she’s still pretty sassy and occasionally a bit immature. The things I love about her character, though, are that she loves kids and is very kind to Alec, and despite everything she went though previously, she’s pretty resourceful under pressure. I think she made great strides in this book, and I look forward to her maturing a bit more to become the heroine of I Can See You. When bodies start turning up in Chicago and the cops are finally brought in on the case, we get to see Abe (I’m Watching You) and Mia (who was also in Abe’s book, but becomes the heroine of Count to Ten) again. Their commander, Lieutenant Spinelli, and Julia, the ME, show up too, along with new law enforcement officials from Maryland. There’s also Ethan’s best friend, Clay, who’s always looking out for him like a mother hen and who becomes the hero of Watch Your Back. Last but not least, is Alec, who’s a good kid who doesn’t let his disability get the best of him, and his parents who are harboring some pretty big secrets of their own.

Overall, Nothing to Fear was a tense and enjoyable read. One might think that slight misgivings about the villain would have dropped my star rating, but I decided not to. In the end, I couldn’t deny that the book was every bit as well-plotted as the previous ones and the characterizations are undeniably deep and complex. The tender romance also earned it a few extra points. Despite Dana and Ethan’s relationship developing within a matter of only one week, their connection was strong and heartfelt. I could just tell that they were meant to be together. So I couldn’t not give it the full five. I’m eager to read more of Karen Rose’s books, just so that I can visit with these wonderful characters again. So I’ll have to try not to allow so much time to pass in between next time. show less

Nothing to Fear
4 Stars

A fast past read with a sizzling romantic element, however, the suspense plot is a somewhat contrived and leans toward the far-fetched.

Dana and Ethan's love at first sight romance is engaging if unrealistic. She is a likable heroine although her self-sacrificing martyr deal becomes tiresome after a while, and Ethan is a gorgeous ex-marine with some heavy emotional baggage. There is no real conflict between them and all issues are resolved quite easily, which places most of the focus of the book on the suspense plot.

Rose is a genius at characterization and this is particularly evident in her portrayal of the villain, a manipulative sociopath who comes as close to pure evil as is humanly possible. That said, her show more crimes are inconsistent with her motivations - she wishes to conceal her whereabouts while she gets on with her plans but the corpses just pile up around her. The body count also has the effect of desensitizing the reader to the horror and callousness of the murders - almost trivializing them. Moreover, the fact that her identity is revealed at the outset detracts slightly from the tension and excitement of the story.

The secondary cast is mainly comprised of characters from previous installments in the series and it is nice to catch up on them. That said, Evie's character irritates me no end and I'm not at all interested in reading her book at this point, so it is a good thing that there are several books between now and then. show less

Dana Dupinsky has faced danger most of her life, never more so than after taking over Hanover House, a shelter for battered women, but nothing compares to what she is facing now as some of the most important people in her life start turning up dead. Is the husband of a client after her, or is she being stalked by someone with other motivations? The kidnapping of his godson leads Ethan Buchanan to Dana and their attraction is instantaneous, but neither of them knows just how much their lives are about to become entangled.

Knowing who the killer/kidnapper is at the beginning of Nothing to Fear does not dampen the suspense in the least. The next victim is always just a few pages away, which creates fast pacing. Several characters from show more previous books in this series pop up without warning or much of a reminder of who they are, making the plot tough to follow at times. Also, the development of the romance and the main characters take a back seat to the mystery, but overall, Nothing to Fear is a well written romantic suspense with its share of twists and turns throughout the novel. show less

Author Karen Rose jumped on my favorite authors list with her first release back in 2003, DON'T TELL. With her latest release, NOTHING TO FEAR, she's impressed me so much that I'll be buying her books as long as she keeps writing them. Romantic suspense has always been, and will undoubtedly continue to be, my favorite genre, and no one does it better than Ms. Rose. Heart-pounding action, hard-core suspense, passionate romance, and characters that pull you into the story are her trademarks, and NOTHING TO FEAR has all of that, and more.

In the first chapter of the book, you know what happens, and you know who does it. What you don't know, and don't find out for quite awhile, is why the bad guys go to the length of evil that they do to show more terrorize one particular family. And finding that out is worth the read.

Stan and Randi Vaughn have had their worst nightmares come to life. Their son, twelve-year-old Alex, has been kidnapped. It's bad enough that the boy is probably scared to death, but he's also deaf, so his terror is even more palpable. Having already witnessed the murder of Paul McMillan, the fiance of his speech therapist, Cheryl Rickman, Alex is thrust into running for his life with a mad-woman. Yes, in this story, the villain is a woman, and a truly insane one, at that. Now Cheryl has been murdered in cold blood and dumped by the roadside, and it's up to Alex to keep his wits and stay alive.

Alex's parents have called on Ethan Buchanan, a security expert with a private investigator's license, to find and rescue their son. Ethan stresses to the distraught parents that he's not a policeman, but Stan and Randi are adamant-the ransom note left behind after Alex's disappearance states that the authorities are not to be involved, or their son will end up like Paul McMillan. Taking the kidnappers at their word, Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn convince Ethan to search for Alex-and his investigation takes him to a train station in Chicago in the middle of the night to look at security surveillance tapes.

While there, Ethan takes notice of Dana Dupinsky, a woman who seems to have secrets of her own. Why is she hanging around a train station in the dead of night? Why does she look so nervous, and act as if he's the devil incarnate? And why do sparks fly between him and this woman he's just met?

Dana has secrets of her own, the first and foremost being that she runs Hanover House, a shelter for abused women. Dana's goal in life is to rescue as many needy women and children as possible, and to help them escape the lives of terror that they led. Now, though, there's a murderer within the walls of her sanctuary, and she doesn't even know it.

As Ethan's mission coincides with Dana's, and as bodies start piling up in Chicago, this man and woman learn that trust is earned, that love runs deep, and that rescuing a child from danger is the most important job of all.

NOTHING TO FEAR is an absolute gem. It's definitely earned a place on my keeper shelf, and I look forward to reading it again and again. This is what true romantic suspense is all about, and I thank Ms. Rose for such a wonderful read. show less

Nothing to Fear
4 Stars

A fast past read with a sizzling romantic element, however, the suspense plot is a somewhat contrived and leans toward the far-fetched.

Dana and Ethan's love at first sight romance is engaging if unrealistic. She is a likable heroine although her self-sacrificing martyr deal becomes tiresome after a while, and Ethan is a gorgeous ex-marine with some heavy emotional baggage. There is no real conflict between them and all issues are resolved quite easily, which places most of the focus of the book on the suspense plot.

Rose is a genius at characterization and this is particularly evident in her portrayal of the villain, a manipulative sociopath who comes as close to pure evil as is humanly possible. That said, her show more crimes are inconsistent with her motivations - she wishes to conceal her whereabouts while she gets on with her plans but the corpses just pile up around her. The body count also has the effect of desensitizing the reader to the horror and callousness of the murders - almost trivializing them. Moreover, the fact that her identity is revealed at the outset detracts slightly from the tension and excitement of the story.

The secondary cast is mainly comprised of characters from previous installments in the series and it is nice to catch up on them. That said, Evie's character irritates me no end and I'm not at all interested in reading her book at this point, so it is a good thing that there are several books between now and then. show less

Dana Dupinsky runs a shelter for battered women in Chicago. Protecting and helping victimized women is taking up all her time, money and energy.

Dana often forgets about her own comfort and does everything she can to help as many women as possible. When she runs into a stranger on a bus station, she doesn't know that her life is about to change considerably. She does not yet know that Ethan came to Chicago to look for his kidnapped godson, and that the cruel woman he is looking for is hiding in Dana's shelter. Nothing to Fear is another excellent suspense novel from Karen Rose. It is very fast-paced and extremely hard to put down once you start reading.

From Amazon:
"...Good book, though a bit on the dark and semi-gorey side. I don't think I liked it as much as the other two Karen Rose books that I've read, but I did enjoy reading it. Like "Have You Seen Her" one of the things I liked about this book was the character continuity. Dana was in "Don't Tell" as a secondary character, so it was nice to read her story. And I liked seeing what Caroline and Max (from Don't Tell) were up to. Plus Rose also brings back Evie. (I hope someday she gives Evie her book).

Anyway, the book had a good plot. I think it helps to have read "Don't Tell" first because you have a more clear picture of some of the nuances about what Dana does. But even so, the plot was stand alone. Like Rose's other books, she show more doesn't keep the antagonist a secret. You know from pretty much the first page who the bad guy is going to be. I'm not sure how much I like that. It takes away some of the suspense. Aside from that, I like how the plot was built-up and worked with. The story kept me into the book. And the romance was pretty good. I liked Dana and Ethan. They worked pretty well together.

One of the negatives of the book, in my opinion, was that I think Rose spent too much time on the antagonist. I just felt there were too many pages dedicated to the bad guy's POV. I didn't need that much to have the story work, and I really didn't need some of the gory details that came out in those POV sections. I sometimes ended up skimming through those parts. But it didn't kill that the book, it just made it about longer than it needed to be." show less