Nowadays Kendra Schmitt puts most of her time into the new clinic in Cedar Tree. Always the responsible one in her family, she has avoided any kind of entanglement. In particular with a persistent young investigator. With her schedule a bit more predictable, she is ready to explore a personal life and concedes to what turns out to be a disastrous blind date. Junior member of the GFI team, Neil … team, Neil James, has seen and experienced more than most at his age. When his team becomes part of a task force investigating a series of murders in the area, his protective instincts kick into high gear. The victims’ profiles closely match that of a certain physical therapist.
Neil has been trying unsuccessfully for over a year to get closer to Kendra. Now that she might be in danger, he’s determined to break through her resistance and goes all out to win her trust.
Especially now that the killer’s focus appears to have zeroed in on Kendra.
more
I’ve been waiting on Neil’s book since I first began reading Freya Barker’s Cedar Tree series, and as I kept reading further and further into this wonderful story, the reality sunk in that this was the final installment.
Neil may be the youngest of the GFI team, but he has lived quite a bit for his 32 years. He has also fallen hard for Kendra who is against his pursuit because she is 8 years older. But when a serial killer from an online dating website targets Kendra, Neil refuses to remain on the sidelines.
I found the suspense in this book to be quite elevated compared to Freya’s previous books. I’m not usually a huge fan of serial killers, or reading of the damage they inflicted to their victims, but Freya’s descriptions are tasteful and successfully get the point across without too much graphic content.
I admire how she started the Prologue from one of the victims’ POV, throwing us right into the action from the start.
Freya has created a beautiful series with Cedar Tree. The growth and progression of all these characters throughout each book has been amazing to witness. I almost feel like I’ve lost a part of my family with the conclusion.
I read that she’s working on a possible spinoff. I certainly hope this is true and look forward to reading her upcoming endeavors.
This author is amazing! Head Start is only the second book I’ve read of Freya Barker but she has blown me away with both books. There is so much feeling in her stories and she does such an amazing job of writing the perspective a person who has suffered trauma. The Heros she writes are everything you can dream up. They are strong, protective and reliable men who take care of the people they love. The heroines are strong, independent women who have suffered a trauma and rise above it all. The emotions you get in these stories are intense. I love the way she writes her supporting characters as just that, supporting the H and h and becoming the non traditional family. And let me tell you, the dedication the author writes to her son in this book almost made me cry! You have to read it when you pick up this book.
Head Start by Freya Barker is the seventh and final book in her Cedar Tree series and it’s just plain fantastic.
Kendra Schmitt has put Neil James aside not only because of his being younger but because she needs to concentrate on the new clinic and getting moved from Durango to Cedar Tree. She’s always been the responsible one to her younger sister and mom even though it’s been trying. But when women start disappearing and bodies are being found. When she decides to try a dating app little does she know that a killer will be stalking her but who is it? When her sister goes missing will she be able to escape a killer and Neil find her in time?
When GFI is called in to help by Durango’s FBI agent Damien its all hand on deck to find out who’s killing the missing women and why. I loved how Neil and Kendra finally let the walls down to discover that they were the perfect couple and how the folks in Cedar Tree take care of each other especially Emma and Arlene. Just a fantastic action packed from the beginning to the last page with wonderful characters that we’ve all come to love.
5 stars. 5 stars 5 stars!!!!
Holy Tater Tits! (Kendra-ism)
I don’t give out a five star review lightly. To earn a five star review, it has to be goooood. This one is soooo good!
This book is number 7 in the Cedar Tree Novel series. I have not read the other six, so my tbr pile is about to get markedly larger. The writing is so superb, the characters are so well developed and likable, and real, and omg, it was so good to read a great book! I also added a few new cuss/swear words to my seemingly ever expanding vocabulary…lol
This is the story of Neil and Kendra (aka Kenny) as they try to nail down a serial killer in their town. It is action packed and their love story I so well written. I felt like I could identify with Kendra on so many levels because I too am a forty year old woman with scars (literal and mental) that keep me from being as confident as I want to be.
I also appreciate the fact that Kendra is a mature woman having a hot relationship with a slightly younger man. It cracked me up when Kendra thinks “My mind drifts to last night when, for the second night in a row, what started as a pleasant night on the couch watching Game of Thrones, ended up a hot sweaty tangled mess in bed. I’m discovering a whole new appreciation for the merits of youth. Stamina, regeneration, endurance, and the agility of lips and fingers that should be patented. The boy’s got serious skills.” I need a 30 something year old boy in my life too!
I shed a few tears when she talks about her surgical scars because I have a few of those myself… And his final reaction to them made me weep. She tries to let her age keep her from having the relationship she really wants but lucky for her Neil is a persistent Alpha man who will do anything to protect her and have her. I love their flirty banter and the buildup to their relationship. It was realistic and not over the top.
Neil has some issues of his own and his PTSD tries to keep him from living the life he wants with Kendra. They work through their problems together and come to their own version of a HEA.
There is no cliffhanger to this book and I cannot wait for the next book… Maybe Kendra’s sister? Oh please say so!
Amanda – Alphas Do It Better Book Blog
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5 Stars
I have loved every single book of this series and Head Start is no exception. For me, Freya writes “real” characters and “real” everyday goings on. I love how all of her characters tend to be older, not the usual early to mid twenties. She writes characters with maturity and wisdom and definitely ones I can relate to. I really hate to see this series end and it will definitely be one that I revisit and reread often.
Angela – Alphas Do It Better BookBlog
Audiobook: Narrators – Tanya Eby and Noel Harrison
Now that I’ve reached the end of this series, I’m going to definitely be missing not only all the amazing characters, but these narrators as well. They do such a great job of pulling me into the world this author has created. I feel like I’m a part of the community and I could reach out and touch each character they’ve brought to life.
I’ve been waiting for Neil’s story and I wasn’t disappointed. I’m not a fan of older woman/younger man, but the age difference didn’t have a huge impact on this couple or their story so I was able to move on. Neil was all I wanted him to be and everything that Kendra needed. I did miss a bit of his humor but then again, he’s caught up in a lot of drama that has Kendra at its center for a good portion of the book.
This was a tad darker with a pretty rough villain which had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. As all of the books in this series, this was filled with action, friendship, family and most of all romance. The total loyalty and protectiveness all of these heroes have had are what I look for in my books and Neil was right up there with the rest.
Last summer I bought a book by Freya Barker at a signing, little did I know that from the first page she would become one of my favorite authors. Her Cedar Tree series was like an addiction, I went through the published ones like water until I had to wait for the next one to be written. I was heartbroken to learn that Head Start would be the last book in the series, but damn, what a way to end.
Neil has been somewhat of an enigma in the series: young, quiet, and technical, with a knack for walking in on couples getting hot and heavy. He’s made no bones about the fact that he wants Kendra, the local physical therapist. She on the other hand thinks he’s far too young for her and too much of a player; she constantly puts him off. When she finds herself in the middle a GFI and FBI investigation, which could end her life, Neil vows to not only protect her but also win her heart. The struggle between the couple is real, as is the passion.
Both Neil and Kendra are affected by the past. Kendra’s man-hungry mother and sister have colored her view on relationships. After finally deciding to put herself out there and actually date, her online choice is more than dangerous. Neil’s past is the complete antithesis of the sweet, shy, passionate IT tech everyone knows him as. His past reoccurs without warning and makes him leery of a true relationship, though he wants exactly that with Kendra. The pull between the couple is real, and the sex scenes are smoking hot, both common themes in the Cedar Tree series.
The suspense element is not so much a who done it but why the hell would someone do that. Ms. Barker is a master at creating suspenseful plots and weaving the romantic storyline through it. While the reader is introduced early in the story to the suspect, half the fun is following the trail of clues to find out if you followed all of the breadcrumbs to resolve the crime. Hell hath no fury like a man kept from the woman he loves, and Neil proves that to be true. When I read I love the layers: who did what, how do you know, and how is it resolved?
I love Ms. Barker’s character development. Each of the residents of Cedar Tree have become like old friends. Her men and women are real, with real problems and many have either physical or emotional limitations. Some have been damaged by their past, and they have more life experience than most fictional characters. All of her characters are strong, loving, and witty. The population of her fictional town may be an unconventional in many ways, but they form the strongest of bonds. They are family, a fact that Neil points out to Kendra in Head Start.
While I’m sad to see my Cedar Tree family end, I know that Ms. Barker will invent a new location and carry on her tradition of romantic suspense. I, for one, can hardly wait.
Favorite Quotes:
“No Karly, I’m not going on a singles’ cruise with you… Because those things are like a floating sausage fests.”
“I accept, because really – when a young guy built like a tank offers to help you move, especially after your family ditched you for an aquatic meat market, you don’t pass it up.”
“That twatwaffle has a potty-mouth and a temper. Think I’ll pass on a second date, and change my phone number.”
“Dare to be happy Kenny. There’s no payoff without a little risk, and regrets are so much harder to carry to your grave than mistakes are.”
“Mr. Henderson is no more than five foot six, if he even makes that, and so thin, a stiff wind would blow him off. To hear her talk about him you’d think she was married to a big strapping lumberjack type, but I guess it really is all in the eye of the beholder and Mrs. Henderson adores her husband. I’m sure to her he is all that and more.”
“You know, those scars, just like this whole experience, will become part of who you are. Claim them. Make them yours. He may have put you through hell, put those marks on you, but it’s in your control how much more of you you’ll let him have.”
My Review:
I am totally enamored with Freya Barker, Cedar Tree, and all its residents. I have three more books in this series to read so I can look forward to three more adventuresome trips. I have relished reading each and every Freya Barker book I’ve picked up and find her writing style to consistently be of high quality while also intriguing, engrossing, well-paced, self-contained, and simply delicious. Her love stories are always sweet, sexy, supportive, and sensual, with frequent hits of humor to go along with the intrigue and suspense. Head Start involves a twisted and cruel serial killer who commits insidious and heinous crimes. The crimes were gruesome and had me cringing, yet I could not put my kindle down and appreciated how the aftermath was handled. I was also quite pleased to see a humorous cougar character incorporated in the story, as I always like seeing my own species being well represented. I hope this is really not the end of the Cedar Tree series, as I would never tire of following their adventures and want to remind Ms. Barker that there is still a town full of residents, and I am sure a cougar to two, yet to explore.
We have gotten to know and love Neil throughout the series. He is GFI’s resident computer geek who is loyal and always there. But we really don’t get to see what he is really like until this book. He comes completely out of his hidden shield. He may be the younger of the bunch be he has seen enough over the years to make him older and wiser than one would expect. Now if he can just convince Kendra, he will be headed in the right direction.
Kendra has swept into town with her partnership with Naomi at the Clinic. She is a super hard working woman who has a special softness for her clients. She was welcomed into the little family of Cedar Tree with open arms. She keeps herself busy and doesn’t put her focus on her personal life. Not sure that she needs the headaches that dating and love tend to bring. Or at least that is what she has watched while growing up with a single mom raising her and her little sister.
When things start to get a little crazy once again in Cedar Tree, Kendra finds herself in the thick of things this time. But GFI is quick to get involved and do what they can to help. The more time that Neil and Kendra spend together the harder she find it to keep her guard up. Neil slowly slips behind the shield. But can they both open up and share the whys of who they are? Will Kendra be able to completely let him in? Can Neil keep he safe while finding the madman who is still trying to get her?
Freya has a special way of weaving her characters into your heart. She keeps you guessing and flipping pages with the intrigue and suspense of the story but finds a way to mix love and happiness in there somewhere. The family of friends that she has created in Cedar Tree is one of acceptance, pride, encouragement, love and loyalty. We could only hope that in our lives we find these kind of people.
I am so very sad to see the end of a great series but I can see that it is time to move forward. I can’t wait to see what Freya will come up with next for us. I know that she will bring us more real, strong people that we can relate to while reading.
Great Job once again, I can’t recommend the Cedar Tree Series enough. Give it a try.