Sometimes happily ever after just needs a nudge.  Zane and Tessa are best friends but there’s a lot to unpack in their story. Tessa is an overcomer who has learned to trust the Lord with her future.  Zane is sweet and funny, strong and trustworthy. Theirs is a story of hope. Both work for the US Secret Service and when greed, politics, and crazy people all get wound up, the Secret Service is there to unravel the ugly details. The story, crafted with care, starts with a literary bomb shell that gets the story going full tilt from the beginning. With a good mix of romance, intrigue, and a dash of disaster, there’s a lot on the line for this team to overcome.

However, when deep secrets are revealed, friendships are tested, and it’s clear who has each other’s back.  The main characters are the kind of friends and coworkers that most of us would love to have. Many of the characters in this series are deep and detailed yet humorous and endearing. It was great to see a team of men and women who each has a strong personality and the men appreciate women who are strong and very capable of doing their jobs. Although it’s clear that this story is fictional, it’s a great peek behind the curtain into the dedication and professionalism of the Secret Service.  They are well represented and honored in this story.

This high stakes, nail-biting suspense story has easy pacing.  It’s is easy to keep up with and kept me coming back until the last page was read.  The layers of the mystery were great to watch unfold.

This is book 3 in the series and although it could easily stand alone, it’s a great continuation of the first two books.  Lynn Blackburn is a gifted writer who includes suspense, romance, faith, and family into a series that is a lot of fun to read and will have you cheering when the bad guys are caught. This is the second series by Lynn that I have read and each of her books has been captivating.

Review of an Advance Reading Copy Provided by Revell Publishing

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  None

Violence/Gore: A woman wakes up in a strange place with a hangover and no shirt on; a character was previously shot, no death; a woman is threatened because she is a woman on a protective team; a high profile character has many threats against his life; a character with a gun in a threatening posture; a woman is going to be attacked by a man but she defends herself, harm to the attacker; a few people die of poisoning; a man breaks into a woman’s apartment and tries to kill her; 2 mentions of a child who died from a snake bite; drones are deployed in a nefarious manner in order to hurt people; people were planning to use ammonia and bleach to hurt people; a character is found bleeding to death, not much mention of blood; a character in injected with a drug but survives; a man tries to punch a woman.

Sex/Nudity: A man gives a woman a shoulder rub then realizes the potential romance in them being alone; a man and woman have an almost romance, flirting; a man constantly sexually harasses a woman in the work place with his looks and words, she threatens to kick him if he doesn’t stop; a man and women proclaim their love on multiple occasions, kissing, hugging, hand holding.

Mature Subject Matter:

Mental illness, homelessness, poisoning, attempted murder, murder, Secret Service, FBI, Police, weapons, sexual harassment, alcoholism, snakes.  

Drug and Alcohol Use:

A woman is a recovering alcoholic, many mentions; a man’s mother is an alcoholic; mention of a man who gets women drunk then leaves the bar with them, implied he drugs them; a character in injected with a drug.