Review: Fantastically creepy romantic suspense from KA
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 8, 2014
So . . . here's the thing about KA . . .KA write stories about people that live in small towns. Even if they don't actually live in a small town, her books still have that small town feel--everyone grew up together, everyone knows everyone else's business, people look out for each other, no one gets lost in the crush of life, etc.I absolutely adore her books, and since I first discovered them a couple of years ago, they've become my failsafe for book hangovers.The 'Burg series in particular is one of my favorites. They're romantic suspense, but they read more like an episode of Criminal Minds . . . one of the episodes of Criminal Minds with a really creepy serial killer. Maybe that's normal for romantic suspense, and I haven't read enough to know it, but most of the romantic suspense that I've read is more of the amateur sleuthing variety. KA has books like that too, but The 'Burg . . . is an altogether different animal.An altogether different and CREEPTASTIC animal.February Owens and Alec Colton were part of a love story that had it continued uninterrupted, would have been the stuff of legends. But when they were in there early 20s, something happened, and Feb walked away. She spent the next 15 years traveling from small town to small town, settling only temporarily, until it was time for her to move on again. Then two years ago, her parent's retired from the family business, and she moved back home to help her brother.The book begins with February finding a dead body in the alley behind the family BAR<-----how fun is that? The family bar, not the dead body.And not just any dead body . . . the hacked-up (like, literally, with a hatchet) body of one of her childhood friends. And she's not doing too great when Colt shows-up, who is, of course, a detective, which is how they get thrown back into each other's path after years of avoidance.Not the best of circumstances . . . and trust me . . . it gets WORSE.But it's obvious that Feb and Colt are supposed to be together. They just have to figure out who thinks they're doing Feb a favor by killing off people from her past.Like I said--CREEPTASTIC.This is the third time I've read this, but it's the first time I've reviewed it, and while I was reading, I was thinking about what I could say about it, and I was struck by how . . . completely improbable the plot was.And if I hadn't been deliberately thinking about what was happening/had happened, it still wouldn't have occurred to me.B/c that is the thing about KA. Her books have a way of sneaking past all your red flags, causing you to make allowances for her books that you would NEVER make under any other circumstances. And half of the time you don't even realize you're doing it.She's like a ninja.You become so completely immersed in her storytelling that you never stop to consider how unlikely whatever it is she's selling is. It did happen, by golly.And it. Was. A-W-E-S-O-M-E.Her alphas are alpha, her quirky heroines are quirky, her secondaries are fantastic, and her HEAs are all that HEAs should be.B/c really . . . what's the point otherwise? You don't read KA b/c you want to brag to your pompous literary friends about the next nobel prize winning novel you just read (and if you read anything with that goal in mind, go away, I don't like you). You read KA b/c for once, you want a sure thing. You want to swoon over the kind of alpha that doesn't hesitate in slamming you against a wall b/c he knows you'll like it. Just like he knows how to handle a firearm, and has a motorcycle, and hasn't starting losing his hair or going to seed, even if he IS close to 40.Just roll with it. It will make you happy, and isn't that what books are supposed to do?I think so.