Author Kate SeRine talked about keeping the Dawson brothers separate in her head while writing this series–check it out here!
Title: Safe from Harm
Series: Protect & Serve, #2
Author: Kate SeRine
Pub Date: October 4, 2016a
ISBN: 9781492639169
It’s All Harmless Flirting Until Someone Gets Shot…
Deputy Gabe Dawson has had his eye on prosecuting attorney Elle McCoy for years. But the smart, sassy redhead is immune to his legendary charm and good looks–until Gabe is shot on the courthouse steps protecting Elle from a vengeful domestic extremist.
Elle has been protecting her heart from the cocky playboy cop. But it’s hard not to notice a guy when he takes a bullet for you and seems determined to turn his life around. With terrorists still at large and Elle a target, Gabe and his law enforcement brothers kick into high gear to take down the threat. And as they work together, Elle realizes she’s losing her heart to a man who will risk it all to keep her safe from harm.
Review:
Great romantic suspense!
This one had me turning the pages (when I had other things I was supposed to do!), desperate to find out what was going to happen to Gabe and Elle. The antagonist, a scarily wily and influential domestic terrorist, seriously creeped me out. He had zero boundaries, especially as he got more and more desperate…
(shudder)
Fortunately, Gabe comes from a family of lawmen, so he’s in the perfect position to step up and keep Elle safe from the family that’s bent on vengeance–he’s got built-in backup. Though I (unlike Elle, who wasn’t willing to give him an inch for a good third of the book) completely bought into his supposed conversion into a one-woman man (I think Elle’s aunt was right, he just wasn’t finding what he was looking for with all those others), I did find his “secret” history of loving Elle since she moved into their neighborhood as a teenager rather suspect. Maybe he thought she was cute, in a younger-than-him kind of way, and yeah, the flowers were a nice touch. But pining the whole time? I don’t know…
Her crushing on him, though, I totally buy–hot older guy and all, unattainable for so many years and then an apparent player (when of course her ‘tude turns to one of disdain, as it should, as a cover up)–though her being so quick to think the worst of him when a case was on the line? That was…Not. Cool. She did have me giving her the squinty-eye more than a few times in the course of the novel. Fortunately she came around in the end, to make sure the “romantic” part of the romantic suspense would be fulfilled 🙂
Safe From Harm worked okay as a standalone–the younger two brothers, heroes of the intro novella (“Torn” in Way of the Warrior ) and book one ( Stop at Nothing ) of course play a part, but you don’t have to have read their stories before this one. (Shhh–I still have to read Stop at Nothing. And I totally plan to before Tom’s book comes out :))
Can’t wait!
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A-
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
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Kate SeRine writes award-winning romantic suspense and paranormal romance. A past recipient of an Emily Award and the National Readers Choice Award, she has also been a finalist in the Fire and Ice Contest, Finally a Bride Contest, and the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. She lives with her husband and two sons outside Indianapolis, Indiana. Connect with Kate at www.kateserine.com.