GRR Reviews Love and Protect by Lori Ryan

Love and Protect is a great romantic suspense, with bonding over animals, properly evil but not superhuman bad guy, two adorable but not really evil henchmen, an FMC that's persecuted by so many different things, and an alpha that readers can swoon over, with all the motivations that made sense and not petty. It's such a rare combination where everything fits well together.

Laura married a rich and powerful man, but he abused her behind closed doors and raped her repeatedly. She became pregnant, even as she planned her escape by buying a new identity. When news came that her husband died of a sudden heart attack, she was relieved, then her husband's power family tried to force her back into their control... Until the kind ER doctor sent her to the Bishop Ranch in Evers Texas. a small town where the Bishop family is well respected. // Cade Bishop dedicated his life to save animals, from racehorses to dogs and cats. His heart was broken by a woman and he thought he can never love again, but Laura is in desperate need of a second chance, and they fell for each other. But Laura is in mortal danger: her husband's business partner Alex is desperately searching for the material that will ruin Alex, and he thought killing the guy would stop it. But when the material was nowhere to be found, and the wife just disappeared off the face of the earth, it must be the wife that executed a bug-out plan. Alex will run down every lead with two charming private investigators and perhaps, do the dirty work himself if Laura can be found. And he will take no chances...

Now that's how a romantic suspense *should* be written. The way Cade and Laura bonded over animals was cute, and the enemies are scary enough yet nobody made too-stupid-to-live errors. The plot intersected properly and wrapped around by the end to a proper resolution. Everybody, even the villain, took logical steps based on what they knew. Excellent work.

Category: Contemporary / Romantic suspense

Primary Plot: Abused wife took steps to escape when her husband died, but someone is out there hunting her... can the new man save her?

Overall Rating: 5/5

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