Blurb:
Dead to their
pasts. Ghosts. No family ties. No connections. Six men with a top-secret
mission move to a small town where they have to navigate local life, protect
their secret, and, above all, stay single.
Ethan
"Dragon" Snow has spent five years trying to forget the woman who got
away. When Paisley Allen walks into Sutton's Creek as the new head librarian,
he's stunned—and even more shocked when he meets her four-year-old daughter. He
could be wrong, but does the little girl have his eyes?
Paisley fled
Florida to escape her abusive husband, a disgraced former Hostile Operations
Team soldier with a dangerous obsession. She’s found the perfect place to start
a new life far from her ex—until she runs into a ghost from her past.
The last thing
she wants is help from Ethan, the man who walked away without a word when she
needed him most. But when her ex tracks them to Sutton's Creek, she has no
choice.
Ethan isn't
supposed to get involved. His cover, his team, his mission—everything depends
on staying away from Paisley. But how can he walk away from the woman he never
forgot and the daughter who might be his?
First, he'll have
to convince Paisley to trust him—and prove he won't abandon her ever again.
Because he finally has a chance to be the man he’s always wanted to be—and to
claim the family that should have been his.
Themes: Contemporary
Rating: 4.25 stars
Heat Rating: 
Review:
Who
doesn’t love a good second chance love story, especially one where the villain that
caused the separation of the lovers finally gets defeated? Well Lynn Raye
Harris gives that too us in a big way in her fifth installment of the Ghost Ops
series as Ethan learns the truth of his past and is reunited with the love of his
life. I have been looking forward to this story, getting to learn what happened
between Ethan and Paisley and hoping they would find their way back to love. As
always these lovers have to go through a love of drama, both in their present
and digging through their past hurts, in order to earn their HEA, but that only
makes it so much richer when the eventually have their family, happiness, and
safety. The series continues to amaze us as each of these solitary operators
finds themselves learning more about their need for love and losing their
hearts to women that not only keep butt, they offer the safe space they need to
land when their jobs get crazy. I am dying for the finale of this series where
Alex “Ghost” Bishop will be brought down by a woman, and I like so many others
have a suspicion which woman it will be, and the team will finally finish their
mission and decide what their futures will look like. Harris knows how to drag
you right into the lives of her characters and leave you instead and rooting
for the love and happiness of her heroes, but really she’s reminding us that we
all just need to find that perfect match and sometimes fate puts them right
into our path.
Ethan
“Dragon” Snow never imagined that he would look across the room in small town Alabama
and see the woman that shattered his heart years ago, but when Paisely Allen walks
in with his friends’ women his life is immediately turned upside down—again.
Paisely is just as stunned to see Ethan, but when he pretends they’ve never met
she lies as well, even though he is the one that broke her heart which led to
the darkest years of her life. She and her daughter are just finding some semblance
of normality and safety and she fears that adding Ethan into the mix will just
upend all of that. But the more time they spend in one another orbit, the more
truths of their past come to light and soon both Ethan and Paisely are unable
to deny their chemistry and connection has never lessened. When Paisley and her daughter are suddenly
facing danger, Ethan is determined to keep them safe and in his life, because
the new life he is building with his girls is the most important thing to him,
and no one will take his family away from him.
This
story was a difficult one, learning all that Paisely was put through and the
trauma of her past was painful to read for sure. Paisely has a strength that
has been forged in the fires of hell, the years since she lost Ethan, trapped
with a narcissistic, possibly sociopathic, now ex-husband that has more than
once caused physical and emotional harm. She kept her inner light, even if it
was dimmed by her ex, and when she is with her friends, her daughter Violet, or
Ethan she is able to shine her light. She is smart and sassy and will stand up to
a bully and refuses to continue to be a victim, but my favorite characteristic was
that Paisely was forgiving. Ethan was such an idiot in the beginning, pretending that Paisely was a stranger and
being rude to her without even giving her a chance to speak, making me want to
kick his butt. It wasn’t until he finally manned up and opened his ears to
learn about their shared past, so they could both learn the truth of the end of
their relationship that I started to like him again. He is brave, sweet,
protective, and caring, especially with Violet—even before he learns the truth
of her parentage. He is sexy and playful, reminding Paisely that there is more
to a relationship that just work and danger, and of course his passions were
easy to appreciate as he made up for lost time with the woman he lost.
Ethan’s
story is one of miscommunication, second chances, and deceptions that remind us
that some of the most dangerous people hide behind a perfectly unassuming mask.
Paisely and Ethan trusted the wrong person and it changed the course of their
lives, leaving them both suffering and picking up their lives instead of happy
together. Now they have a chance to rewrite their story and together they will
succeed only if they decide to have faith in one another. Paisely is a woman
determined to turn the chapter on her story and start over for herself and her daughter,
but offering her heart again was not in her plan, until she ran into Ethan
again; now she has to decide if letting him back into her heart is the only way
to go forward and have that happy next path in life or if it will be another
mistake. Ethan has no intention of
settling down in Podunk Alabama like his buddies have, but is plans are FUBAR
when Paisely walks into the bar one night and changes everything, bringing not
just his heart back to life but giving him a chance at a family he never knew
he’d lost and he will do whatever it takes to keep it. The passion between
these two was a roller coaster ride, obviously they never stopped wanting one
another so as soon as they got over their past fears and pain, it was unleashed
in a big way. I cannot wait for Alex and once that series finale is done I know
that whatever Ms. Harris send out into the world it’ll be just as amazing as
this series spin-off has been. I never fail to enjoy myself when reading a Harris
story and you can’t go wrong with a hot special ops alpha male losing his heart
in a big way.
*eARC provided by author for the
purpose of an honest and unbiased review. No compensation was provided.
