April Hunt “will keep you on the edge of your seat” (Lori Foster, New York Times bestselling author) in this heart-pounding new romantic suspense.Top FBI profiler Grace Steele was just a girl when she escaped the Order of the New Dawn, and she’s spent the last seventeen years trying to forget her time there. But when private security firm Steele Ops needs her help extracting a young woman from … extracting a young woman from the secretive cult’s clutches, she’s all in. Even though the mission requires posing as the fiancée of the only man who’s ever broken her heart.
It’s been nine years since Cade Wright turned his back on his childhood sweetheart, and he’s never stopped regretting it. Now that they’re forced to work together, he knows this is his opportunity to show Grace how much he’s changed. But the deeper they get pulled into New Dawn, the clearer it becomes that the demons still haunting Grace are very real, and Cade will have to risk everything to keep her safe . . . including his own life.
Includes the bonus novel Extreme Honor by Piper J. Drake!
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Steele Ops #2, Another stellar book from April Hunt. This can be read as a standalone the first book has no connection to this other than characters and a few mentions but you miss nothing by not reading it except skipping a really good book. After Grace’s father died when she was five her mother moved them into a commune the older Grace got the more she realized it was a cult. When she was thirteen something drastic happened and she ended up with her aunt and three cousins. Cade Wright and his sister were part of the Steele family by choice, Cade was there when Grace showed up at their doorstep. Grace and Cade started as friends but soon became more they fell in love, they even had their future all planned out but then Cade changed the plan without a word and left Grace heartbroken. It’s been almost a decade and not a day goes by that Cade regrets his decision but Grace still hurts they can’t even be in the same room together without verbally sparring.
Steele Ops the private security firm run by her cousins get hired to do a job she gets pulled in for her expertise on the subject, the subject of the Order of the New Dawn, the cult where she spent her childhood. Unfortunately the only way in is to play the prodigal daughter and there is no way her cousins it Cade is letting her go in alone so Cade poses as her fiance. Now Grace has to face all the terrors of her past while dealing with this mission and her and Cade’s relationship. What they find out about OND goes deep and gets very personal for Grace. But Grace has Cade he’s always been there for her in the past and he wants to be there for her now he just has to convince her he’s not going to run away this time.
Overall, this was such a great book, the characters were so likeable Grace is smart quick with an insult, Cade is sexy, strong, and over protective but he knows Grace can handle herself; the plot is engaging and if life had let me I probably would have finished in one sitting, the romance was emotional and hot I love them together, it was all so good. I can’t wait for the Steele brother’s to get their stories.
Lethal Redemption is the second book in April Hunt’s Steele Ops series and it’s also the first time I’ve read one of her novels, and this one worked just fine for me as a standalone, although it did take a bit of time before I understood the familial relationships between Grace, the heroine, and her cousins, who own and operate Steele Ops, and who took her in when she escaped from a cult at age 13, Sanctuary is the location and home to The Order of the New Dawn, a cult to which her mother brought her at age five. All I can say is, how have I not read April Hunt before now? Because this is one heck of a well-written, well-plotted, sexy, suspenseful, romantic suspense novel, and it gets 4.5 stars from this reader.
Grace Steele is one tough, strong, FBI agent, and a talented FBI criminal profiler. When the daughter of the U.S. Vice President, Pierce Brandt, is either taken in by, or voluntarily joined The Order of the New Dawn, the Vice President wants Grace to go and retrieve his daughter, already knowing that Grace was raised there, her mother is still there, and hoping that her foreknowledge of the cult will be quite an advantage in getting his daughter, Sarah, away from the cult that Grace still has nightmares about. Helping in the effort to infiltrate the Order, Grace, who was living and working in New York, heads back to Washington, D.C. and her cousins at Steele Ops, and see the one person she least expected to see, the man who broke her heart 9 years earlier, Cade Wright, when he deviated from their long-held plan to marry and raise a family, and instead, without mentioning it to or discussing it with Grace, Cade re-upped in the Army for four more years
The plan to get back inside the cult is to have Cade and Grace pose as a loving, engaged couple of likely new recruits, and faking their relationship to gain entry to Sanctuary, which is so off the grid that no one has the first clue exactly where it is located. To say that emotions run high between Cade and Grace during this process is putting it mildly, but it’s clear to see that neither of them has gotten over their previous relationship, and the two still strike sparks off one another. Cade may be willing to get involved with Grace again, but she no longer trusts her heart to him, and fears getting close to him again, expecting him to walk away from her yet again when the op is over–and what an op it is.
I love a good second chance romance, and this is a very good one, but combine it with page-turning, edge of your seat danger and suspense, the discovery that the goings-on inside Sanctuary are markedly different, more frightening, and more militaristic, when compared to the cult Grace left 9 years earlier, not to mention the fact that Grace’s troubled relationship with her mother, who has now risen high in the ranks of cult members and that she no longer seem to feel anything but animosity for her daughter, and this novel was virtually impossible to put down.
All in all, this was one very good read, with memorable characters, and an excellent, gritty plot. I’ll be backtracking to read the first novel in this series, as well as any future novels in this series by this very talented, new-to-me, author.
I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.
I liked everything about Lethal Redemption. This is a moderately paced romantic suspense thriller with a second chance romance aspect. Both leads have personal issues that did affect their relationship when they first started out. When they had to work together they also had an opportunity to work thru their own romantic relationship. The romantic aspect wasn’t center stage as much as the mystery aspect but it work really well with the overall storyline. There is great dialogue, great and appropriately placed sex and of course lead characters that have depth and basically the female lead really kicks ass! Lethal Redemption is the second book in the series featuring the Steele siblings and its looking like this is one of those series to watch out for.
Grace is a FBI profiler but she was raised in a cult. She ran away at the age of thirteen and lived with her father’s family. Now she’s being asked to get a high ranking man’s daughter out of The Order of the New Dawn. Cade was former Ranger and now works for Steele Brothers. Cade left Grace nine years ago and she’s never forgiven him. Now they must go undercover as a couple back into the place that she ran from.
Awesome story with action and suspense. This is the second book in the series but can be read as a standalone. Grace is a ball buster and she does what must be done.
* Voluntarily read and reviewed this for NetGalley *