New Release Review: FALLEN by Leslie Tentler

 In the mood for a romantic suspense? I have yet to be disappointed by a Leslie Tentler book!

 

Fallen
by Leslie Tentler
Publisher: Left Field Press
Pages: 396
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Format: Paperback/Kindle

 

“If it wasn’t an armed robbery, it was a hit. An execution.”

Amid a sultry Atlanta summer, someone is targeting police…

The investigation becomes personal for APD Detective Ryan Winter when a colleague and friend is shot dead, the second victim in just weeks. But even as he finds himself being drawn into the tense hunt for a serial cop killer, he is forced to re-examine his own shattering personal tragedy.

An ER physician at Atlanta’s busy Mercy Hospital, Dr. Lydia Costa is no stranger to suffering. Still, the recent police slayings reopen barely healed wounds—and bring her face-to-face with her ex-husband, Ryan Winter.

As the body count rises and paranoia tightens its grip on the police force, Lydia and Ryan are pulled together by circumstances and fate…causing old passions to reignite despite their painful shared past. But as Ryan moves closer to discovering the killer’s identity, someone is watching, placing both him and Lydia in mortal danger.

 

Review:

Fallen is a second-chance romance/romantic suspense book, and its antagonist is a serial cop killer. Seriously, I was practically drooling when I read the book’s blurb…and I’m happy to say the story lived up to its promise!

Homicide Detective Ryan Winters and ER doctor Lydia Costa were once deeply in love–until a shared tragedy tore them apart. Ryan’s still living in the home they once shared, practically punishing himself on a daily basis. Lydia’s moved on–or has she?

Now members of the Atlanta PD are being killed–executed, really–and Ryan and Lydia are thrown together on an almost daily basis. Both are feeling the pull toward the other, and both are just as determined to ignore it. Lydia can’t ignore the fact that Ryan could be targeted by the killer, though, and when Ryan finds out that someone has hurting Lydia on their mind as well? Watch out…

Watching Ryan and Lydia deny their feelings for each other–mostly in order to do what was “best” for the other one–was heartbreaking. I just wanted to give both of them big hugs–and then force them to sit down in a locked room together until they worked everything out. Fortunately they managed to do so on their own by the end of the book (work everything out, not lock themselves in a room–though that could have been fun too ;)) but man, they were killing me before they got to that point.

The suspense plots were very well done. I honestly gasped out loud when the identity of the killer was revealed–I’d had NO idea who it was. (And I promptly got yelled at for nearly scaring Mini Moe #2 to death, thankyouverymuch. It probably didn’t help that just minutes before I’d been moaning, “Oh no, no, no, no!” because something bad was going to happen to someone I really liked, and she was immediately concerned that there was something wrong with me. Something more than usual, I mean. Honestly, after fifteen years you’d think she’d be used to this sort of thing…)

Leslie Tentler does a great job of keeping the reader engaged and on the edge of their seat. I had a really hard time putting this book down to go to sleep last night, and I sure as heck wasn’t getting up and being productive this morning until I was finished with it. The bad guy had to be stopped, and the hero and heroine had to get to their HEA–it was my sworn duty to make it all happen as soon as possible. Thank goodness for holiday weekends!

Sign me up for Ms. Tentler’s next release–I’m ready!

Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A-

I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

Excerpt:

“GSW, two minutes out!” Jamaal Reeves made the booming announcement from behind the ER admittance desk at Mercy Hospital. His words put medical personnel on alert, including Dr. Lydia Costa, who stood in the jaundiced glow of the light box, reviewing chest films for an eighty-two-year-old with suspected pneumonia.
“It’s a ten-double-zero, people,” he added, using police code that over time had slipped into the level one trauma center’s vernacular.

Officer down.

A momentary hush fell over the staff before the beehive of activity resumed, leaving only Lydia frozen. Gunshot wounds were always nasty injuries, but it was the ten-double-zero that caused anxiety to pool in her stomach. There were hundreds of police inside the city, she reminded herself. Still, leaving the X-ray hanging, she shouldered her way through the scrubs-clad crowd. Reaching Jamaal’s desk, she asked, “What else do you know about the incoming?”

He slurped from a Varsity cup. “Multiple bullets to the chest and abdomen, intubated by paramedics on scene—”

“Do you have a name? A precinct?”

“What? Uh, uh—didn’t ask.” Jamaal shrugged, his eyes returning to the stack of paperwork in front of him, information forms for the three dozen or so coughing, vomiting or otherwise miserable-looking people who waited in rows of vinyl-covered chairs for treatment.

“Plainclothes, though,” he murmured as an afterthought, scribbling directives onto one of the forms.

Lydia felt her knees weaken. Still, her inner voice spoke to her, pointing out that she was one of the attendings on a busy Friday night. She moved briskly toward the automated, sliding glass doors that led inside from the ambulance bay, joining the assembling team and preparing to take charge of whatever faced her with the paramedics’ arrival.

“Get trauma room three set up,” she ordered, raising her voice to be heard above the din. “We’re going to need an echocardiogram. Have a crash cart and thoracotomy set ready.”

All the while, a mantra repeated inside her head. It was more like a prayer, if she believed in such things. She used to, but didn’t anymore.

Please don’t let it be him.

 

(See? She totally still loves him! Told ya! 😉 )

• Purchase at AMAZON

• Discuss this book at PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.

 

 

 

About the Author:

Leslie Tentler is best known as the author of the Chasing Evil Trilogy (MIDNIGHT CALLER, MIDNIGHT FEAR and EDGE OF MIDNIGHT). She was named as a finalist for Best First Novel at ThrillerFest 2012 for Midnight Caller, and as a finalist in the 2013 Daphne du Maurier Awards for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense for Edge of Midnight. She is also the recipient of the prestigious Maggie Award of Excellence. Her newest romantic suspense novel is titled FALLEN.

Leslie is a member of Romance Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, The Authors Guild and Novelists, Inc. A native of East Tennessee, she currently resides in Atlanta.

Her latest book is the romantic suspense, Fallen.

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