Review: If you love romantic suspense, this is a must read!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 16, 2014
Warning, I liked this book a lot and when that happens, I tend to want to add everything I possibly can to the review to make others love it too. The consequence is a long review, I tried to edit myself but alas, sorry.Into the Shadows is book three in The Associates series, would reading book one and two enhance your reading experience of this one, yes. However, as someone who didn't read the previous ones, I never got grumpy over feeling lost; the author does a great job of giving you the facts and backstory without info dumping. If you followed my reading updates, you know the first three chapters had me giddy with how great the writing and story was.Nadia was a mob party princess but a little over a year ago her father died, she became a mother, and found out the mother she was lead to believe was dead is in fact alive…. working in a sweat shop….that Nadia's father had sold her too. Yep, Nadia's world has been turned upside down. Oh, and hey also, Nadia's baby daddy used to work for her father but is now the number two for another gang, the Hangman, and doesn't know he is the father to Nadia's son. Thorne, the baby daddy, may be the number two for the Hangman but he is also undercover and has been for years. He was recruited by the super secret group The Associates, Thorne was on a revenge mission to kill all the men involved with the death of his sister and The Associates had the name of the last remaining man Thorne wanted. The identity of the remaining man turned out to be Jerrod, the new leader of the Hangman, so in exchange The Associates reveal Jerrod to Thorne, he kills Jerrod, takes over Hangman, and works from inside gathering information about dirty cops or government officials working for Hangman, and gives the intel to The Associates.Intermission as you process that ;)Ok, so back to Nadia, she has recruited her bodyguard and a group of mercenaries to hit sweatshops in hopes of finding her mother, after her father's death she discovered a CD that had all this information on it. Turns out every time they hit one of these sweatshops, Thorne has no alibi. This now leads us back to Thorne. Jerrod has been getting some bad vibes from Thorne and decides to frame him for the sweatshop robberies. Thorne thinks the only way to clear his name is to go to Nadia's father’s house and search it for information on the sweatshops to try and determine when and where the next sweatshop may be hit so he can catch the actual people committing the robberies in the act. Thus, this brings us to Nadia and Thorne.As soon as Thorne bursts into Nadia's home saying "Honey, I'm home!" you know the sparks are going to fly and they do. Thorne basically had no family life to speak of, so he doesn't know how to express or understand normal human emotions, trust is as foreign to him as Mars. I was highly impressed with how beautifully and steadily the author portrayed this. He constantly is questioning other people's good intentions toward him and thankfully realistically, never makes a miraculous recovery. The author kept him true to his character and because of this, you just may cry a little on the inside for him (and you may think back to a certain character named Zsadists). Nadia is overshadowed by him a bit but her transformation from a carefree party princess to strong and steady mother and woman on a mission will have you firmly on her side. You'll want to speed read to finally see these two together, have Thorne discover he is a father, and have them get over their Big Misunderstanding (hey it's suspense but it's still romance).There was never a dull moment in this book for me; really I couldn't have asked for more from a romantic suspense story. As you've read, there is a lot to the suspense arc, not overwhelming though, but the romance side also holds it own with steamy sex scenes that have a dash of dirty talk. There were moments when this story was intensely deep and dark and then the dialogue would have a sense of quirkiness to it. At first, it threw me a little off but I ultimately liked it. The only thing I have a mini complaint about was how awesomely suspenseful the ending was to only have it rap up so quickly and it felt like it ended so abruptly. Honestly, this could have been a personal problem because I liked the story so much and wanted it to keep going. This is the only Carolyn Crane book I have ever read, so I can't quite add her to the small list of authors I constantly recommend to people but I'm definitely going back and reading the rest of this series. If you love romantic suspense, this book is a must for you.I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.