Review: Hot cover, abuse theme turned me off
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 28, 2012
This story was okay but the theme was a bit of a turn off for me. I love a good rags to riches theme. I go nuts over an opposites attracts theme and nothing is more magical than a diamond in the rough theme but, the one theme that makes me cringe and take a step back is the physical abuse of a child theme. Perhaps it's because it's too raw, too real, and yes I know there are children going through it every day but; I just don't enjoy reading about it.Haven and Niall were a former couple. She left him because he refused to take her desire for a career seriously. Haven gets information on a politician who buys young girls from their families and keeps them as his wives. He impregnates them and basically holds them hostage for his pleasure. Haven is ready to break this story wide open but the person backing this politician is very powerful. Once he gets wind of it, she is on the run for her very life. Her informant is killed and she does the only thing she can think to do, she runs back to Niall who steps in as her protector. Niall and his best friend help smuggle the women out of the safe house they have been stashed in and it's a race against time as the assassin closes in on them. In the midst of this, Haven is forced to confront her own history of sexual abuse at the hands of someone close to her. (I won't totally give it away.) Niall is very loving and wants to help Haven work through her past but she is not really ready to confront it.There was a lot going on in this story. In some ways it was like a mix of several other stories  by Dahlia all in one. As if she took elements from say, her Army Beast books, with their chase scenes and people hiding out in remote areas and some of her earlier works and put them into this story. I can't say that I have ever read a story by her which featured the heroine as a abuse survivor so that was rather new.All in all, the story was sound if not a bit formulaic but the heroine's past was just to much for me. If you don't have an issue with reading about that sort of topic, you should be able to enjoy this book. I was just unable too.I did like the cover. It was really very well done.