Review: Painfully Learned Lessons
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 20, 2014
<blockquote>Sometimes the right choice can be the deadliest.When Ellie Watt made the ultimate sacrifice for Camden McQueen, she never thought it would be easy. But walking away with her ex-lover, Javier Bernal, in order to ensure Camden’s safety has brought a whole new set of dangers. With Javier’s plans for Ellie growing more secretive by the moment, Ellie must find a way to stay ahead of the game before her past swallows her whole.Meanwhile, Camden’s new life is short-lived. Fueled by revenge and pursued by authorities, he teams up with an unlikely partner in order to save Ellie. But as Camden toes the line between love and retribution, he realizes that in order to get back the woman he loves, he may have to lose himself in the process. He might just turn into the very man he’s hunting.Told in dual POV from Camden and Ellie.</blockquote>Ellie traded her life and freedom for that of Camden's ex-wife Sophia, and their young son, Ben. She hoped that Javier freeing Camden from the debt owed to Sophia's brothers and giving them the $50,000 bounty he'd place on her would give Camden a second chance with his family. Too bad she's so trusting for such a bad girl. Or maybe she simply didn't know enough about Camden's ex to know what the bitch was capable of. So now Ellie is being held prisoner by her ex-lover Javier, and unbeknownst to her, Camden is on the run from the police.But Camden is determined to get his Ellie back, to save her from Javier. To do that he's gonna need some serious help. Good think Ellie had given him Gus' contact information before they connected with Javier to trade Ellie for Sophia & Ben. Once Camden convinces Gus to help him rescue Ellie things start getting crazy.After some sort of frantic phone call Javier hustles Ellie out of their old house and onto his boat. This one is much, much larger than the boat he'd owned six years earlier, back when Ellie was still his 'Angel.' They're taking the boat to Mexico. Javier is using Ellie as the bait to get him close enough to Travis Raines to kill him, but that is just as likely to be a fake story as anything else that comes out of Javier's mouth.While Ellie is being brought to Mexico in a posh, floating prison. Gus and Camden are racing overland to locate and rescue Ellie. Along the way Camden finds himself in situations where he can usefully release the black rage that he has been smothering for all these years, and in doing so seems to finally earn some of Gus' trust.Javier has changed in the six years he and Ellie have been apart. He lost the gentle side he once has, and now he's even more powerful than before, but also closer to the edge of sanity. And it is becoming clear that he is losing his grip over at least a few key players in his organization. But he still wants Ellie, wants to dominate and control her, though he calls that love.Will Ellie slip back into her old ways? Will she be able to stay good when she's surrounded by bad, and still carries feelings of some sort for Javier? Will Javier's plan for revenge work? Is his plan actually the same as he told Ellie, or is she his sacrificial lamb? And can Camden and Gus reach her before it is too late? If they do will she choose Javier or Camden? All these questions and more to be answered in this book, showing just how fragile the human psyche really is. The story demonstrates how much battering a soul can take before the owner believes themselves beyond redemption. Yet as long as there is even one person to believe in the other redemption is always within reach, isn't it? But will Ellie have enough trust left to take a chance and find out? Will Camden be able to let the past remain in the past? Though I think it's fairly safe to hazard a guess at this point, what exactly is Gus's real relationship with Ellie?