by Lindsay McKenna
Series: Delos #1
Pub. Date: Oct. 13, 2015
Publisher: Blue Turtle Publishing
Pages: 278
Format: eARC
Source: Author
My Rating:
Sultry Scale:
Lia Cassidy left the Army scarred physically and emotionally after a vicious attack by two fellow soldiers. She turns to helping others, working at a Delos Home School Charity in Costa Rica that aids abused women and children. But when the deadly drug lord, La Arana, attacks the school, Lia finds herself on the run for her life. The only person she can trust is the ex-SEAL sent to protect her.
Cav Jordan is strong, honorable and gorgeous…and intrigued by Lia. He knows she has suffered pain in her past, and he is determined to break through her barriers and earn her trust. But as Cav slowly chips away at the walls Lia has built, ghosts from her past threaten to destroy their fragile relationship.
This is the first installment of Lindsay McKenna's new Delos series, which will be centered around Artemis Security, a personal security division of the huge Delos charity conglomerate. You will want to know who the players are with the Delos charity and Artemis alike, so I encourage you to at least read the Author's Note, but you can get more background by reading the prequel, Last Chance.
Lia Cassidy is a tortured heroine, self-conscious about being disfigured after a brutal attack that occurred when she was in the Army. Lia has just been through another harrowing attack ordered by the local drug lord, and Delos arranges for her to have personal security in the form of Cav Jordan. Cav is also a tortured hero, having grown up with an abusive drug-addicted father. This couple is drawn to one another from the first meeting, and there's nothing like danger to bring a couple closer together. Dilara and Robert, founders of Delos, fancy themselves matchmakers and have handpicked Cav to take care of Lia and bring her out of her shell. Their romance was very much a slow burn as both had to get over past hurts and learn to trust another person in a romantic situation.
I thought the suspense in this book (and in Last Chance) was done quite well. The situation with the drug lord didn't require you to suspend your belief, and all of the events seemed within the realm of possibility. I would have actually liked for the suspense/action to continue longer than it did because the story became much more slow-paced for the last quarter and I missed the adrenaline spikes.
The book was very dialogue-driven so I felt there was more telling than showing, if that makes sense. I think it would have been a good candidate for an alternating first-person POV instead of the third-person POV that we have. But that is a personal preference for me - I love to get in the characters heads. I did like reading about the spelunking - it has me wanting to go find some caves around me. But being as we are below sea-level here, that might not be the smartest idea.
I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
View all my reviews
Because she went into the military,
this experience became the backbone of her writing—she is credited with writing
the first military romance novel (Captive of Fate, 1983, Silhouette Special
Edition) and has created a thriving sub-genre within the romance field! As a
New York Times Best Selling author, she has sold 23 million books and in 32
foreign languages in her career thus far. Her many experiences in the U.S. Navy
are backdrop for her understanding of the military in general, and also her
very successful Morgan’s Mercenaries, which is an ongoing series in Silhouette
to this day! Forty-five books strong!
Lindsay has gone Indie in 2015 and has
created a new family saga on par with Morgan’s Mercenaries It is known as the
DELOS SERIES. There will be paperback and eBooks created under Blue Turtle
Publishing, her company for her fans. Readers who love Morgan and his family
are bound to fall in love with the Culver family. Delos is romantic suspense,
which Lindsay is well known for. It took her five years to create and bring
DELOS to her readers. It was worth the wait, but we’ll let you decide that.
Lindsay loves to hear from her readers
and loves to know what they’d like to see her write next. Stay up with the
latest on the Delos Series here. Please visit her Web site at
www.lindsaymckenna.com. And be sure to sign up for her free quarterly
newsletter. It contains exclusive content found nowhere else on the Net. Plus,
giveaways and other surprises, to her loyal and faithful subscribers!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
When Dilara placed Lia’s hand on the
yet-to-be-introduced man with the thoughtful hazel eyes, she felt her heart
beat a little faster. She knew he was military, even though he wore civilian
clothes. His training almost dripped off him; she could see it in his sharp
glance and his effort to appear casual, but she wasn’t fooled—she could feel the
tension radiating from him.
“This
is Cavanaugh Jordan,” Dilara said,
patting his broad shoulder. “Because
Robert and I want you safe, we called in a security contractor who’s already worked
for Robert—several times, in
fact, on different missions. We hired Cav to be your bodyguard for now, Lia.
Neither of us feels you’re safe at La Fortuna right now, and
until we can figure out what’s going on and know you’ll be safe again,
Cav will be at your side like a shadow.”
Lia lifted her head and met Cal’s flat, emotionless
stare. “Oh,” was all she
managed. Then, turning to Dilara, “But
I’ve
never had a security detail before.”
“You
will now,” Robert said. “We’re not losing you, too.”
Lia felt her heart speed up. The man
sitting across from her gave nothing away, and yet she could sense his reaction
to her. Automatically, she touched her scar on her cheek, then looked away from
him and forced herself to focus on Robert, who was looking grim.
“The
police said they sent you their investigation reports, sir?” Cav spoke up now.
“Yes,” Robert said,
pointing at the Major’s laptop. “We have everything
on their ongoing investigation. But we want boots on the ground Intel, which,” looking now at Lia,
“only you can
provide us.”
Lia knew she would be driving down to
San José to give them an eyewitness report. But
why five days after it happened? She still felt like ground meat exposed to
air, and could barely check her own emotions.
“Where
do you want me to start?” she asked the
general.
“Most
important is why did it happen,” Robert
said. “Do you have any
ideas?”
“I
think I do, sir, but I can’t prove it. I’ve already told my
suspicions to the Costa Rican police detectives.” She opened her hands. “Dante Medina, La Araña, is the regional drug lord in the
northern highlands. He has a villa near La Fortuna, up in the jungle. ‘The Spider’ is
a regional drug lord. He and his men grow marijuana and cocaine in the jungle.
He’s
married to a woman named Suelo, who’s about twenty-eight. They have three
sons—two, four, and
eight, and he keeps two mistresses at a villa in La Fortuna, Pilar, seventeen,
and Marta, fifteen. These girls are sex slaves, closely guarded by his soldiers
at the La Fortuna villa.” Lia’s voice dropped
into a painful whisper. “His third mistress,
Lupe Zavala, eighteen, escaped and ran to us for help, which we gave her. She
flew out of the country and back to her country, Guatemala.”
Lia forced herself to look at the
General. “Lupe came to us
five days earlier than the attack. She begged Maria Gonzalez and Sophia
Casales, the teachers, to take her in. I wasn’t there at the
time, but when I returned from my errands the teachers had taken Lupe in. She
was a mess, terribly beaten up, and the teachers cared for her in their homes.
I went and got the doctor from Tabacon Resort, who was kind enough to come and
care for Lupe.”
“Had
this happened before?” Robert asked.
Lia shook her head, keeping her hand
covering her left cheek. She could feel the security contractor’s gaze, like heat,
on her face and inwardly, she cringed, knowing that he must be disgusted, like
every other stranger who first saw her face. “No. Oh, we’d
run into Lupe and the other two mistresses at the grocery store in La Fortuna,
but they always had a guard with them, so we never really stopped to talk to
them.” Grimacing, Lia
added, “All three of us
knew that these women were prisoners at Medina’s villa. I mean, it
was local common knowledge.”
“Why
weren’t
the police called long before this happened?” Dilara
asked.
Lia looked up at her. “Because everyone is
deathly afraid of Medina, Dilara. You don’t know how
dangerous he is. He’s killed before, and he won’t hesitate to get
his revenge if someone crosses him. People live in absolute fear of him.”
Delos Series
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