ARC Review: HOT SEAL Hero (HOT SEAL Team #7)

HOT SEAL Hero (HOT SEAL Team #7)

by Lynn Raye Harris 

Blurb:

She fears for her life.

He’ll risk his to protect her.

Falling in love? Not part of the plan…

Chloe Cooper is on the run from an abusive ex. Living in a new state, with a new name, she’s ready to focus on rebuilding her life. She’s got a job she loves, a new home—and a sexy Navy SEAL neighbor who makes her pulse flutter in spite of her determination not to get involved. But when a threatening message arrives, her dread about what her ex will do if he finds her forces her to make a choice.

Ryan “Dirty Harry” Callahan is protective by nature. When he meets Chloe, it’s clear she’s skittish about something. When he learns why she ran from her old life, his first objective is to keep her safe. His second is to make sure she knows she can trust him—and that she’ll have a posse of Navy SEALs at her back if she ever needs them.

When the attraction between Ryan and Chloe explodes, they’re helpless to resist its seductive heat. Everything is finally going right for Chloe—until her worst fears come true. With Chloe missing and her life on the line, Ryan will stop at nothing to get her back. Before he loses the woman he loves forever.

Themes:  Contemporary

Rating: 4.5 stars

Heat Rating: 

Review:

Wow, the HOT guys never cease to amaze me with the challenges they are willing to overcome in order to keep their women safe—even the wrath of Mendez doesn’t scare these men when their ladies' lives on are on the line! I have been dying for this story since the teaser in the last story and Dirty Harry didn’t let me down.  While his woman might have seemed sweet and innocent in the beginning her sass and sensuality soon shined through, like any good southern lady. The mix of danger, passion, friendship and love in Ryan and Chloe’s story was so perfectly rounded that I barely realized the story was almost over until BAM it was, which makes it the best type of story in my opinion.  The action was just enough to keep everything from being too mundane for lovers of the HOT series and Ryan found his perfect match in the down-to-earth Chloe, making their love story, while fraught with drama, truly a story of two people finding their way from neighbors to friends to lovers.  I am dying to see what comes next, and of course long-time readers know that Harris tortures us with a hint of it at the very end of Ryan’s book and now we just have to (IMPATIENTLY) wait for the next book to finally fulfill our dreams and give us Neo and Kayla’s HEA.  I am a huge fan of this series and cannot get enough of Lynn Raye Harris, but Ryan and Chloe’s story will definitely be one that holds a special place for me reminding me that even the smoothest of operators can fall like a ton of bricks when a woman finally earns his trust and love.

Chloe has finally escaped a past that left her with serious trust issues and she is determined to make something special of her life in her new home.  When she is forced to confront a naked, and extremely sexy, but befuddled man on her first day in her new home, she has mixed reactions to say the least, but soon she is finding that her new neighbor is way more than meets the eye.  Ryan “Dirty Harry” Callahan is reeling from a serious hangover when he is confronted by a sexy woman banging on his door way too early and demanding he move his truck. After some clumsiness and idiot moves, he finally gets his shit together and is able to put his hero skills to good use in getting to know his pretty new neighbor.  Way more attracted to him than any other man she has ever encountered, Chloe finds that resistance is pointless and soon she can’t resist his charms or his body, but when danger begins to peek around every corner she knows they need to cool off their new affair.  Pulling away was the smartest thing she could do to keep  Ryan and herself safe, but sometimes smart isn’t the best thing for the heart, and only by trusting in the relationship they have built and the love that is blossoming between them can they truly find a way to overcome the enemies surrounding them and be together.

Chloe and Ryan were interesting characters, having been broken emotionally in both small and large ways that would make a relationship rocky ground.  Chloe obviously has issues with her self-confidence, and in trust in her instincts and in others after the disaster of her last relationship.  Seeing her growing from that, especially as she got to know and believe in Ryan and his friends was amazing.  Any woman that has gone through that type of trauma needs a hero in big and small ways, but the most important is showing her that not all men are bastards that fly off the handle at the smallest provocation, giving her back the space she needed to be herself.  I loved Ryan for the way he always seemed to know when she needed that subtle assurance and push to be herself. In the end I love Chloe’s character for all the little parts that made her unique, but the combination of everything, her sassiness, sweetness, inner strength, vulnerability, and kickass protectiveness, were what really made me love her—and of course she had the proper combination for a perfect fried chicken like a good Southern girl should. Oddly we barely got to brush on the issue Ryan had, but it was an important one that could easily have come between him and Chloe had he not so easily exposed himself to her, so they could work through the problem together.  That strength through his fear made me love him almost as much as his willingness to do anything to keep his woman safe, but that is an expected trait in a HOT operator, while his willingness to confront his personal fear made him special. Of course he is sexy as hell, beyond HOTT, and a badass warrior, but his playful and sweet side were kind of unexpected and something that seemed to only come out to play when he was with Chloe.  These two really seemed to even each other out nicely.

HOT SEAL Hero is definitely a story about a man coming to the rescue of the woman he is and then has fallen for, but I think it safe to say that just as important is the story of a woman becoming her own hero.  Chloe slowly finds her way out of the shell she was forced into for her own mental safety during her disastrous last relationship; with the help of Ryan and his friends, she is finding her way back to the woman she was before and that she was always mean to be.  She is a woman that will stand up for herself, even when she is close to death, and protect not only her own life but the lives of the man she loves and their friends when she knows they are in danger. Her intelligence and wit, along with her wholesomeness and light make her the perfect addition to the HOT family and I can see her being one of the reasons that the whole team fights like hell to get home, not just Ryan himself. Ryan has to work through some issues to find that his attraction to Chloe is more than just intense lust, his fears and hang-ups not immediately allowing him to risk his heart, but she steals it right out from under his watchful eye anyway.   His intensity and laughter are used in equal measure to show Chloe that he is the type of guy that she can trust with her body, life, and ultimately her heart, even though she has been burned in the past.  The passion between these two burns as hot as a twelve-alarm fire from the very beginning, even when they are forced to push the physical side of their relationship to the back-burner, and there is no way anyone can miss the heat between them the second they clap eyes on each other. I loved seeing Chloe and Ryan find their way together and to an HEA, with all their enemies brought low, of course, and I enjoyed seeing the HOT guys in action, even if it was only very briefly.  I am dying for the next book already and cannot wait for the chance to snap it up.  Lynn Raye Harris has a way of pulling readers in and making you forget that you are not a member of this amazing team, until the very last two words on the page, making us all dread… “THE END”.

*eARC provided by author for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review.  No compensation was provided.