Crazy. Dangerous. Monster.
Shane Trevisano knows what the town of Steam Valley, California thinks of him, and he’s happy being their bogeyman in the woods. After suffering horrific burns that left him disfigured, all the former SEAL wants is to be left alone in his remote cabin with his demons. But the outside world keeps encroaching, and when a woman shows up on his doorstep with two bullet holes and no memory of how she got there, Shane’s already tenuous hold on sanity starts to slip.
In a town full of secrets, he’s the one they blame.
Alexis Summers wakes up in a strange cabin, held captive by a man who both terrifies and intrigues her, with no memory of how she got there. As they navigate the dangerous dance between captor and captive, she realizes there’s more to Shane than meets the eye. Beneath the scars and gruff exterior, there’s a man in pain, a man who desperately needs help.
But redemption comes with a price.
The townspeople are convinced Shane is the notorious serial killer known as the Shadow Stalker, and they’re out for blood. Alexis doesn’t believe he’s capable of the atrocities she faced while in the killer’s clutches, but her instincts have steered her wrong in the past. Can she prove his innocence before the town enacts some backwoods justice? Or is she blinded by her growing attraction to the damaged, bad-tempered man?
If you want a sexy Beauty and the Beast retelling with a modern romantic suspense twist , you won’t want to miss Searching for Redemption, the thrilling fourth installment of the Redwood Coast Rescue series by Tonya Burrows!
Review:
Ohmygoodnessthisbook.
We left book 3 of the series ( Searching for Justice ) knowing that Alexis, the podcaster who was becoming a real thorn in sheriff Ash’s side, was in serious danger. So of course we dove right into her story here, right?
Nope–Ms Burrows made us wait. Until chapter freaking two. But that ended up being OK, because our hero, Shane, had a very important rescue to take care of first. Plus, we really needed to see how (badly. Very, VERY badly) Shane interacted with others before we see him and Alexis together in the same space.
But yikes, y’all–it was rough, both seeing himself and his life through Shane’s eyes and then seeing him through Alexis’s. He’s in so much pain, I have no idea how the author could spend hours writing him and then go function in society (or at least her usual life) like normal. I just spent a few hours reading his story, and OMG it hurt. But of course as he began to open up–first to Lexi, then to Clue, Ash, Zak, and the rest of RWCR–it made the changes in him so much more impactful.
And the romance, when they let themselves go there? Hooo boy. So delicious.
Even if you missed the fact that this is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, if you’ve watched either of the Disney versions even once (or seen it on stage) it’s hard to miss the parallels. (I’m sure at least some of them are in the original as well, but I’m less familiar with that version so I can’t say for sure.) I kept forgetting that it was a BatB retelling, and each time one of the references popped up in the narrative I was surprised once again about how cleverly Ms Burrows managed to take an aspect of the fairy tale and work it into to her modern romantic suspense, making me completely believe that it all could have happened IRL exactly like that.
Searching for Redemption is the 4th book in Ms Burrows’s Redwood Coast Rescue series, and it could *probably* be read as a standalone. All of the series characters play roles in each book, though, and the events of each tend to flow into the next as we clearly build up to what’s promising to be one heck of a showdown with a big bad guy. So you could read just this book–but knowing that each one is full of some of the bestest fictional doggos out there doing some very good work, why would you?
(And oh, yes–there are also strong heroes and heroines, swoony love stories, and heart-pounding suspense in each too, if that’s your kind of thing 😉 )
And now…the waiting begins for the next book. After that epilogue, Searching for Shadows cannot be available soon enough for me…
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.