TLC Book Tours Book Review: Tough Justice Countdown

TOUGH JUSTICE COUNTDOWN

This action-packed thriller unfolds in eight gripping installments, each written by top authors including Carla Cassidy, Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch.

About Tough Justice Countdown (Part 1 of 8)

• Print Length: 85 pages
• Publisher: Harlequin Special Releases (February 1, 2017)

Tick. Tock. BOOM.

FBI Special Agent Lara Grant had thought that she’d put her past behind her—finally—with her last case. But now a serial bomber is targeting Manhattan’s elite power players, offering them a choice between saving hundreds of lives or seeing their darkest secrets exposed. Lara is working with the Crisis Management Unit to stop the bomber, but how will she react when she’s the one who has to choose between truth…or death?

Part 1 of 8: an explosive new installment in the thrilling FBI serial from New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy and Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch.

Purchase Links

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Review: I don't usually read a lot of romantic suspense, but this series of short novellas really attracted my attention. Its the first book in a 8 series set, and wow! This story will get you going.

The prologue will pull you in with hints of a political scandal and blackmail. The rest is just amazing, especially for a story of this length. Its only about 85 pages long

Lara is really a tough as nails woman. Not what you'd expect from a Harlequin novel. She had a bit of a thing with her partner, Nick, so you have some tension there as they work to solve the case of the bombings, but there's really no hearts and flowers romance in this story.

Carla Cassidy is an awesome writer. She gets the story moving along, as the team work to figure out who is setting off random bombs in NYC. It gives you a good introduction to all the key players, besides Lara, and Nick (Lara does have secrets that may remind you of a certain female character in the TV series Castle) James, Xander, Victoria etc.

The cliffhanger ending will leave you clamoring for more.

If you are looking for a fast paced quick read. This is definitely it.

Rating: 5 flowers

Book Review: Swamp Secrets

Author: Carla Cassidy
Title: Swamp Secrets
Publisher: Silhouette Shadows
Publish Date: March 93
Rating: 3 Stars
Book Blurb: There are none so blind . .
...as those who will not see. And Lindsey Witherspoon, used to capturing the world with her camera, to controlling the images that met her eyes, refused to see that the swamp was beyond her control.

The swamp that spread so tantalizingly beyond her door, beckoning with promises of beauty never yet captured on film, was in truth a place of darkness, a place where a woman had no business to walk alone, unprotected. Where the paths themselves seemed to shift and shiver. Where a woman who wasn't careful might find herself alone with... a man like Royce Blanchard. A man who once had warned her that his last woman had come into the swamp... and died.

Review: I was really disappointed in this book, but not because the story was poorly written or anything like that, but more for the fact it was marketed as a Silhouette Shadows. Yes, this showed "the dark side of love" but it really felt more like a gothic novel or a suspense than something that borders on paranormal.

Lindsey and Royce are an interesting twosome. I loved the madness that Royce had, and how he pushed her away because of it.

The best parts of the story center on the fear that Lindsey is made to feel, whether it be from a fortune teller, a voodoo doll left in a room or even Royce.

I would have loved it more if the "things that went bump in the night" were real and not so easily explained at the end of the book by Royce's mother. It all worked out so easily; the explanation about the woman who disappeared in the swamp, the child she heard crying and the reasons Royce retreated into himself.

I also didn't like that Royce didn't take Lindsey to the hospital after being hit by a falling tree branch. Even if they couldn't have made it there the day of the accident he should have insisted she see a doctor when the weather cleared.

Again, I think if this book had been marketed under a different line, I probably would have liked it better.

Rating: 3 flowers