{ arc } review || CRAZED by Edie Harris

Carina Press | January 11, 2016 | Romantic Suspense
Blood Money, book 3
★★★★★

SOURCE: NETGALLEY

Casey Faraday was a soldier before he was a spy, but family always came first, no matter what.

When a member of the Faraday clan is snatched off the streets and dragged halfway across the world, it’s Casey who follows the kidnappers’ trail to South America. Thrust into the heart of the cartel he barely escaped during an undercover assignment four years earlier, he’s unprepared for the shock awaiting him on Colombian soil.

Ilda Almeida—the only woman to ever tempt Casey into madness, the beautiful wife he’d mourned for years—is very much alive. And keeping a secret that will forever change life as he knows it.

Casey can’t control his hands—or his heart—around Ilda, but neither can he abandon his rescue mission. When cartel violence turns the jungle into a bloodbath, he can only protect one family: his.

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MAY 18 || release day • review

Ripped by Edie Harris

Publisher: Carina Press (5/18/2015)
Series: Blood Money, book 2
Genre: Romantic Suspence
Source: NetGalley
Purchase links || amazon | bn || add to goodreads

Rating: ★★★★★

Attorney and political heavyweight Tobias Faraday is the Ice King, a man alone in the eye of a deadly storm. And in the wake of his sister's torture, he's out for blood.

The key to Tobias's revenge is the disavowed British spy he's kept imprisoned for weeks. Chandler McCallister can get him behind enemy lines in Russia, but the clever double-agent has a demand of her own before she puts her life on the line in the name of redemption.

Posing as Chandler's boyfriend at an aristocratic wedding in the English countryside won't kill Tobias. Not in theory.

As the threat of Moscow looms larger and the enemy reveals himself to be crueler than any human can imagine, Tobias reluctantly partners with his prisoner to derail the immediate threat—to their families, to Faraday Industries, and to their lives. What he finds in the process is a feverish, relentless need already melting the ice from his veins.

{ review } .

When I read BLAMED, what drew me in was the prologue. Edie does such a terrific job with her descriptions, you can't help but be drawn in. With the spy life that Vick and Beth lead, at times I felt a little lost, but I found that I still liked their story.

In BLAMED, we learned a bit about the Faraday family and how Beth felt the furthest removed from her brother, Tobias.

...we also learned why Tobias held himself apart.

Well, this is his book, so we get to learn just a little bit more.

Tobias is a protector, but his way of doing that is to keep everyone at an arm's length away. He wants nothing more than to take completely over their father's empire so his siblings can live a life away from the spy world, the world of the deceit, and the world of harm. When Beth was tortured, we saw Tobias's carefully structured world fall apart -- and because a certain British agent had a hand in Beth's torture, we learned that Tobias wasn't going to be a pushover by any means.

It was easy to leave BLAMED and feel some hatred toward Chandler, but quickly, very quickly, you get a new opinion of her in RIPPED.

Chandler has seen her fair share of dark days. She knew what she was signing on to when she took this career path, but it didn't make the torture and rape any easier to bare. She successfully keeps Tobias on his toes by being snarky, short, and labeling him with a dreaded moniker -- Toby.

He's always been Tobias, never had a nickname, and it irritates him to no end.

Chandler will do as Toby asks -- go to Moscow on a revenge plot -- even though she knows that by going back there, she will likely not come home alive. There is just one thing she asks of Tobias, then, and it's to go to her twin's home for Pippa's wedding week.

...however, to pull it off without her sister knowing what is going on in Chandler's world, she asks him to go under the disguise as her boyfriend. Tobias has never had a girlfriend -- it's that keeping people at arms' length thing again -- so he calls the one person he knows who's in a healthy relationship.

Beth.

...Oh, God, he was taking notes on how to be a good boyfriend. Beth's heart melted a little.

I loved that Beth and Tobias's relationship grew in the weeks that BLAMED and RIPPED take place. I even love that we get to know another Faraday -- Adam. Where Tobias is serious and hard, Adam is very much not. Adam is the epitome of a playboy.

A playboy who can hack into computers, but he's loose and easy and all that -- which Tobias is not.

I loved watching Tobias crack when it came to Chandler. Never had he cared for a woman -- I can't even add "as much as he does her" because that's just it... there hasn't been anyone for him. He's never cared to let a woman close, but Chandler slips under his skin. He wasn't looking for it, she wasn't looking for it... it just happened. As a reader, you were certainly feeling it when he would calmly scold her for putting herself down; when he would correct Pinney in his head with 'Mary Chandler' whenever he'd refer to her as 'Mary something'; when he tried to calm her after her nightmares.

"...Jesus, Toby, don't make me like you."

For someone who didn't have a lick of experience, he certainly did well where Chandler was concerned. Did he make his mistakes? A few, sure. But the big elephant in the room between the two of them -- Beth -- needed to be talked about, and with two individuals who's career involved evading the truth...

I learned that I enjoyed Edie's writing style in BLAMED.

I learned that I loved Edie's characters in RIPPED. I enjoyed seeing new glimpses into Vick and Beth's relationship. I loved learning about the twenty-six year old Faraday (and I'm excited to read his story next!). I want Pippa to get a HEA. I want the cousins to have HEAs, too.

But above all else, I learned how much I really loved Tobias and Chandler. I had a sense that he could be warm with the right incentive...

"Do I matter, sweetheart?" Oh, God, the earnest entreaty in his lust-roughened whisper. "Even for one moment, have I mattered? Do I matter?"

Those weren't tears knotting her throat. They just weren't. "Yes."

{ previous reviews of series }

Blamed { review here }

review || BLAMED

My system for NetGalley books is rather easy -- sort them by publish date and read in that order. However, the books I've received from authors or directly from publishers? My system needs help.

I requested BLAMED weeks ago.... And while it sat in my carousel, it kept getting pushed further and further back until bam -- Edie posted it was release day.

Oh no...!

So I put aside the book I was reading (FOR HIS PROTECTION -- which I don't know ever got it's blog review finished...) and dove into BLAMED -- while the review wouldn't be out by publication date, it would be darn close (or so I naively thought).

This helped me realize, though, that I need to truly perfect my system as a whole. My next Erin Condren life planner will be further utilized -- I will make a point to write every book, every pub date, every tour date, and so forth.

However... I don't think I've done too bad this first few months. It's been a learning process, by I'm getting there :)

Blamed by Edie Harris

Publisher: Carina Press (11/3/2014)

Series: Blood Money, book 1
Genre: Romantic Thriller
Source: Author
Buy it from Amazon | BN || Goodreads

My Rating: ★★★★

Born into a long line of spies, sanctioned killers and covert weapons developers, Beth Faraday carried out her first hit-for-hire when she was still a teenager.

That part of her life—the American spy royalty part—ended one year ago, with a job gone wrong in Afghanistan. The collateral damage she caused with a single shot was unfathomable and, for Beth, unforgivable. She's worked hard to build a new life for herself, far away from the family business.

But someone, somewhere, hasn't forgotten what Beth did in Kabul. And they want revenge.

As the Faraday clan bands together to defend Beth and protect their legacy, Beth is forced to flee her new home with the unlikeliest of allies-MI6 agent Raleigh Vick, the only man she's ever loved. And the one she thought she'd killed in the desert.

- - -

This book starts out intense -- great descriptions, makes you want to read more. I mean, how could you not when you read:

The blood in her mouth tasted like hot pennies.

 Flinching as a secondary arterial spray lashed her face, she kept her fingers clenched in her tormentor's hair, holding his head aloft for the slice of the blade she'd stolen from his tool kit when his back was turned.

The mistake had just cost him his life.

Her stomach lurched, and she shoved the dead man away, wishing he'd deafened her when he boxed her ears on the second--third?--day, so she couldn't hear the back of his skull hit the concrete floor with a sickening thwack. Her hand shook, the knife threatening to slip from her mangled fingers, but once it fell, she knew she wouldn't be able to pick it back up, and she couldn't afford to be weaponless. Injured knuckles white around the slick rubber grip, she staggered back until her shoulders hit the far wall of her prison.

Her torture chamber.

...

The sounds of footsteps, heavy and booted, broke through the encroaching deafness, and then there he stood in front of her, limned in the faint glow of the bunker lights, a tall man with ice for eyes and a nasty-looking gun.

"Beth." 

I mean, c'mon... How can you read that and not want to read more??

I like when movies take the epilogue and put it in the prologue -- keeps the viewer on their toes and whatnot. And for the most part, I appreciated it with this book. However, you know me and my need to know the end... so it irked me a bit because I wanted needed to know more.

It also irked me, just a tad, that the entire book goes from present to tense, to memory, to present tense -- present tense, of course, being before that prologue scene.

I really enjoyed how Edie wrote Beth -- she's a former spy who can't quite get past her fears. She has a system to coming home, to as far as taking off her shoes. She has her little alarm systems, not to mention the big alarm systems her family installed, and knows if and when someone's been messing with her.

You don't become a trained killer as a teen and think the world of big bad men will leave you alone once you retire.

Beth is a bit estranged from her family. Not quite, but most definitely from her brother, Tobias. And their little heart-to-heart? Oh my, I rather loved it.

Then there's the man across the street.

Turns out, the man across the street is the man she's been in love with for years, another spy who's a chameleon to the extreme. And when he lets her in on that little secret (because he has more), she's ecstatic (not so much with some of the other little secrets).

The book goes through Vick and Beth finding their way as a monster is out to take Beth down. Beth is a strong heroine, has to be with her past, and Vick is a man who has a mission that is tearing him in two.

I enjoyed the book. It's a 4-star for reasons such as the back-and-forth, and there were parts I couldn't connect with/wanted to skim, but regardless, I really enjoyed this family. And because of earlier-stated-heart-to-heart... I'm pretty excited to read Tobias's book. I find him to be extremely interesting, and super hard on himself... and I'm only too happy to watch him fall.