Ron Redwine is an up-and-coming author, a man whose lifelong dream of achieving celebrity status in the literary world is finally becoming a reality. But Ron isn’t only a writer. He’s also a sadistic serial killer who kidnaps, tortures, and murders women in his basement.Nicole Lee is a beloved wife and mother. She’s also the only woman who has ever escaped Ron’s clutches. After being held in … held in captivity for nearly a year, she found a way out, a way to be free once again and go back to her life. Only she can’t. The life she knew before her abduction is gone. Separated from her husband and son, Nicole is psychologically broken. She spends months in a mental health facility trying to put the past behind her so she can return to her family.
Upon her release, Nicole hides herself away in a fleabag motel where she wrestles with her demons alone. When an interview on the local news advertises the last two stops on Ron’s latest book tour, she becomes enraged. Furious that he’s able to live his life happily while she’s reduced to an existence filled with guilt and despair, she decides to take matters into her own hands.
Pushed too far, Nicole seeks her revenge, using Ron’s own devices against him.
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I had literally just posted my review of HELD, Book 1 and hit publish when I went back up to my nest (aka my bed with a thousand blankets and pillows), downloaded PUSHED and started it.
It’s now two hours later and I’m finished and ready to review.
I want to start by saying FUCK YEAH! What an amazing sequel.
So. Many. Feels.
I wanted this poor woman to somehow get a little revenge before the series ended, one way or another.
I’d been thinking about her since the end of HELD.
I needed her to either kick some ass and walk away a new person or go down swinging and hurt him in the process.
But I wasn’t ready for this.
NICOLE – I really wanted to read that after she escaped, Nicole managed to see Ron arrested and sent to prison.
I wanted to see her back with her family, recovering and healthy, if not all the way back to settled yet.
I wanted it so bad and was heart-broken when I found out what had become of her.
Ron fucked her over in that house and even after she escaped he fucked her life up some more.
She is no longer with her husband and son. In fact, she’s in a mental hospital (as I know I would be too).
She was so strong during HELD but something like that changes you for life, I would imagine, and it certainly did Nicole’s.
The police didn’t give a shit, and it’s almost two years later.
Nicole, who is now struggling with alcohol addiction and a slew of emotional problems it would seem, decides to do her own form of therapy.
What happens in that basement is nothing short of barbaric but I NEEDED it to happen. However, she should never have taken her eyes off him! And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
RON – I am so glad that we got to see things from his POV in PUSHED.
I desperately wanted to know how he thinks. Maybe get an idea as to why he’s, well, him. But nope! I’m utterly floored at his thought process and angry and sick and…well all kinds of things.
Yeah, I know he’s a fictional character but that’s how good Kimberly A Bettes is at writing.
You feel things you can’t explain and see things that haven’t happened.
Ron hasn’t changed.
He’s still at it, and on top of that, he’s a freakin’ successful author now! He’s got everything that he wanted.
Everything that Nicole had but lost. Peace and joy.
Something needed to happen but Ron is an extremely talented manipulator and I really had no idea how this was going to go.
Right down to the last page.
FINAL THOUGHTS on PUSHED by Kimberly A Bettes
The story made me queasy in parts and anxious throughout but I inhaled that sucker like it was a cookie and I’d been dieting for a month.
It left me feeling raw and a little shaky and I loved it!
I have already downloaded the next book and will start that in the morning.
5 Stars