Review: 5 out of 5 Stars
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2014
Con-artist Ellie Watt was blackmailed into serving as an instrument to her ex-lover and drug cartel leader Javier Bernal, but was rescued by her present flame, Camden McQueen.However, Camden was not alone and had the help of Ellie's long-term connection and mentor Gus, who got kidnapped along the way by Javier's archenemy, drug lord Travis Raine. Javier, Ellie and Camden make a pact: Javier leads them to Travis, so Ellie can rescue Gus and Javier can take over Travis' empire. But will the love triangle stay true to its pact?Bold Tricks is the third installment of the Artists Trilogy and the perfect mix of action, crime, suspense and steam. It also happens to be the perfect ending to Ellie, Camden and Javier's story, and better than the second instalment, which was good, but which annoyed me for various reasons.On the Amazon book page it says something along the lines of "if you liked 50 Shades of Grey and Crossfire, then you will love Artists Trilogy by Karina Halle". However, the three series do not compare at all: the Artist Trilogy is much darker, much more intense and with actual broken characters with stained and heavy pasts. And you won't find some fancy billionaire and his virgin submissive: what you'll find is a strong heroin that has a nipple piercing, outside and inside scars and no fear at all, and a gorgeous tattooed guy with geek-glasses. Now I'd take Camden over Christian Grey any day!I was actually a bit disappointed to find out that Bold Tricks would be from Ellie's POV only, as I really loved having insight into Camden's head. However, I guess that story wise that was the only way to roll and to introduce the suspense.At some point I was really a bit set back by the number of characters that I had to come across in this book: there's someone new at every chapter and you sometimes get lost as to who is manipulating who and who is on whose side. But then I guess that's the goal and honestly, the story rolls out in a way that will not leave you confused in the end, so that's fine by me.All in all, the writing was fantastic, as it is always with any Karina Halle book. It is the perfect conclusion to Camden and Ellie and doesn't feel rushed at all - on the contrary it is surprisingly well thought-trough, which great twists and turns that will make you want to read the book in one single sitting.I highly recommend the series and will look forward to any other Karina Halle book. There will be a spin off series of this trilogy released soon - I'll probably read it too but for now I've had my fair share of drug cartels :)