AUTHOR: Leanne Karella
PUBLISHER: Cobblestone Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 81k)
GENRE: Romantic suspense
COST: $6.99
Molly Schlofeld is a woman with no past. Dr. Dave Westfield is a man with too much of one. When Molly’s security in the Witness Protection program is threatened, her fragile relationship with Dave is put to the test. She wants to share the truth with him, but keeping him safe is more important. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think any woman would want to be with him, considering his damaged history. Together, they’re going to have to overcome their fears if they want to have any hope of surviving the new threat of Molly’s past.
I shouldn’t have liked this book as much as I did. It has issues that are usually dealbreakers for me – headhopping, a heroine who’s a bit all over the place – and yet, in spite of those, I found myself unable to put this story down. Why that is, I’m still not entirely sure.
Maybe it’s the hero, Dave. Dave is solid, handsome, determined to do the right thing, devoted almost to a fault to ensure the health and well-being of his patients. He also has a disability, crippled from a car accident that tore his life apart as well as his legs. Though he walks with a cane, his mobility is a mask, one he refuses to take off for Molly and one that he continually hides behind. His anxiety over his disability grows wearisome as the story progresses, but there’s a stoic melancholy to Dave that appealed to me anyway. When both he and Molly are too nervous to ask the other out, I believed it. When he showed her the extent of his disability for the first time, I believed it. This is how real people act. Details like this convince me that, for the time I’m taking to read, yes, these people are real.
Or maybe it’s the plot. It’s not anything hugely unique – a woman in the witness protection program gets found – but it’s handled competently, drawing me in to care about the principles before unleashing the worst of the danger. The author does well in switching up POV’s, getting us into the minds of both Molly’s personal contact and those that would do Molly harm, in order to help build suspense. It’s not really edge of your seat stuff until the end, however; Ms. Karella has some odd chapter structuring once she starts to get into the threats, putting bad guy scenes at the top of chapters which only manages to diffuse the feeling of encroaching danger in the scenes that follow. As a reader, I’m going to feel more in Molly’s shoes if I’m not aware of the reality of the danger until as late as possible. That sense of the unknown is taken away from me by exposing the bad guys prior to their actions. But still, in spite of that, it worked well enough to engage me until the end.
In the end, it feels like there’s a lot of “in spite of” in regards to my feelings for this book. I have to admit, I devoured it, coming back to read more when I should have been doing other things. My heart went out to Dave, and I worried along with him for Molly. So I suppose, in the end, that’s all that really matters.
| Readability | 7/10 – In spite of headhopping and minor technical issues, the prose was able to suck me back in every time I got pushed out |
| Hero | 8/10 – Lovely and strong, though the repetition of his anxiety about his disability got a tad tiresome |
| Heroine | 6/10 – Her characterization was a little too all over for me to truly believe, but I definitely empathized with her dilemma |
| Entertainment value | 9/10 – For all its flaws, I was truly invested in both the romance and resolving the problem of her predicament |
| World building | 8/10 – The current reality of |
| TOTAL: | 38/50 |
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