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

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Her SEALed Fate (Sutton Capital Book 7) by Lori Ryan

Her SEALed Fate is a contemporary office romance featuring an ex-SEAL financial exec and ex-Hacker IT woman, both of whom were marked for death by a crime family wanting payback. I have slight problem with a PTSD'ed SEAL turning into a financial exec, but other than that, the story was nicely paced with both FMC and MMC managed to solve their problems... mostly, with good twists and turns.

To recap, Logan Stone is a retired SEAL working as a new executive in Sutton Capital, but he's battling PTSD, and can't afford distractions, like the way-too-distracting Samantha Page, head of IT. Neither knew the other's secrets... Logan was temporarily assigned to a blacker-than-black ops to capture head of a crime family. It sent so-sideways, entire team was wounded, one dead, and the crime family (including son, wife, and smaller children) was wiped out except for two members who were not there at the time. And Sam... was a renowned but anonymous hacker who helped the team tracked down the crime family, among other deeds helping the FBI and other agencies. And now the survivors of the family decided to come after them for revenge... Now Logan must fight through his own issues, in order to save Sam and himself, esp. when Sam disappeared for two weeks... where was she hiding and what was she doing?

The book's hacking was a bit cavalier but sufficient to get the point across without technically inaccurate (merely glossed over). Same with ex-SEAL references. Why SEALs are deployed against a crime family (that's a law enforcement function, not military) was never explained. How the crime family managed to track down the good guys was left vague, but that's again, glossed over. But some of the twists are actually pretty good. All in all, above average romantic suspense.

Category: Romantic suspense

Primary Plot: PTSD'ed ex-SEAL starting new job as exec falls for the IT head woman; then his enemies came after them both...

Tropes: SEAL, revenge, evil enemies, co-worker, disguise

Overall Rating:  4/5 (rounded up)

GRR Review: Legal Ease by Lori Ryan

Legal Ease by Lori Ryan started as a standard "fake marriage to real love" story, with an odd kidnapping scene as a prologue.  While the build-up to the romance was pretty good, the complete lack of reality near the end to resolve the situation made the book, sadly, below average.

Kelly Bradley needed a way to pay for her dream: going to law school. When she heard that the powerful Jack Sutton needed a wife to retain his position as CEO of Sutton Capital, she walked into his office posing as his girlfriend.  All she wanted is 145K, enough to pay for going to law school and she'll stay married to Jack for a year.  Jack was surprised, then mad, then delighted, when he realized Kelly really is honest, and they fell for each other. But Jack's aunt is determined to expose their marriage as a fraud through any means necessary... 

This book was good right up to about midpoint. Then the climax basically came out of nowhere. While the prologue did hint at what happens, it really made no sense.  Aunt's opposition to Jack also made no sense either.

Let me give the summary before I spoil everything.

Category: Contemporary Romance

Primary Plot: Marriage of convenience

TL;DR: Kelly, needing money for law school, got fake-married to Jack Sutton, who needed a wife to access his mother's shares to retain his CEO position, but there are problems...

Overall rating: 2/5

Anyway... It's not really a spoiler that the book involves a kidnapping when the prologue featured the FMC, Kelly, bound and gagged in a room she didn't recognize, but how the story ends is a spoiler.

SPOILER

COMING UP

I TOLD YOU SO