Last updated on 07/29/2025
Harlow Dawson went through something terrible while working a case in Los Angeles. She fell in love. To be fair, the love part wasn’t so bad, but the betrayal left her devastated and in police custody. She returned home to decide how to move forward. One thing was for certain. Her life wouldn’t include Jensen Wiley. Two years later she’s back on her feet, working with her best friend, and building her business. She’s been falling for a new guy at The Hideout. Niall Griffen makes her feel safe. Until she learns his secret at the worst possible time.
Jensen Wiley has spent years working his way up in the criminal organization that took his brother’s life. The only thing that ever threatened to break his need for revenge was meeting Harlow Dawson. She became his partner until he realized she was being drawn into the darkest part of the organization. He had very little time to get her out and didn’t think she would go quietly. He knows his betrayal saved her life, but he hasn’t stopped loving her. Now they’re in the same city and he needs someone watching over her. He means to keep his distance until she walks right into the middle of his mission.
Niall Griffen has worried about his best friend, Jensen, for years. When Jensen asks him to watch over the woman he loves, Niall reluctantly agrees. The trouble is he falls for her too. If nothing happens, he doesn’t feel there’s any reason to talk to his friend about their unrequited love triangle. But after one night together changes everything, Niall knows he needs a new plan to make sure no one gets their heart broken. The good news? Harlow comes from a family with an interesting dynamic. He just might be able to make this work for all of them.
Things begin to unravel when Jensen’s past comes back to haunt him and the man he’s been hunting threatens to turn the tables on him. Protecting Harlow is now the only priority and might just send them all right into the relationship they all need.
Review:
I’m not sure how Ms Blake manages to balance out the edge of your seat suspense, all the genuine LOL moments, the smoking hot chemistry, and the even hotter s3x scenes in these books (witchcraft, maybe?) but OMG does she ever…
…and then she throws in some really deeply emotional and touching scenes as well. Honestly, this book in particular will take you on such a journey, it shouldn’t even be possible, but here we are.
The Reluctant Siren is Harlow, Jensen, and Niall’s book, and it’s connected to so many others written by the author (you’ll see characters from the OG Texas Sirens, Nights in Bliss, Masters & Mercenaries and pretty much all its spin-off series…) but really the one you should read just before this one–if you only have the patience to read one, because who would want to delay reading this one?–would be Daisy’s novella ( The Bodyguard and the Bombshell ), because otherwise it might seem like Harlow is overreacting at the start of this one.
Trust me, she isn’t. 😉
Having spent the first third or so of this book just waiting for everything to blow up in the characters faces–we know how the three are connected and can see the implosion coming well before it happens–getting them across the HEA finish line at the end at times feels like an impossible task, even though it’s clear to pretty much everyone (yes, even Harlow’s “deranged dad” eventually) that they really deserve to find happiness together. I love that Ms Blake’s characters put such stock in mental health and putting in the hard work to make their lives better through therapy–I don’t know if places like The Club, Sanctum, and The Hideout actually exist IRL, but I really, really hope they do because they sound absolutely fabulous from every angle.
Overall, I really liked this one–as a story, it was much more similar to the ones in the author’s Masters and Mercenaries: New Recruits books than it was to the first book in this series ( The Accidental Siren ), and that undoubtedly factors into it. I’m looking forward to several of the characters in here getting their own book ([cough, cough] ROSE AND JACK [cough, cough]), whichever series they end up in.
Rating: 4 stars / A-
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.