Can a Texas lawman capture an escaped serial killer after a witness’s location is breached? The serial killer Gemma Hanson narrowly escaped just discovered her WITSEC location, and he’s coming after her to finish what he started. That’s the message Sheriff Kellan Slater personally delivers. Although Gemma and Kellan share an intense past, escaping the violence surrounding them is all that … them is all that matters. Especially once Gemma realizes there is no safe place–not even protective custody…
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The story drew me in and I had to keep reading to find out what is going on and happening with Gemma and Kellan. This story has suspense, drama, mystery and love. I recommend this book and look forward to the next book in this series!!!!!
Good start to the new series, with a good combination of suspense and second chance romance. Gemma is in Witness Protection after surviving a serial killer’s attack. That protection disappears when the killer discovers Gemma’s location. The book opens with a bang as Gemma arrives home to find that her house was broken into. Just as she’s ready to call for help, Sheriff Kellan Slater comes to deliver the news of her compromised location. Gemma and Kellan have a troubled past, but she knows she can trust him to keep her safe.
A year earlier, Gemma was a profiler working to identify a serial killer. A confrontation with the killer resulted in the deaths of a sheriff and deputy, and Gemma’s wounding. She blames herself for the deaths, as the serial killer turned out to be an intern working with her, and she never connected him with the killer. To make matters worse, the sheriff who died was Kellan’s father. Gemma and Kellan were involved at the time, and Kellan is torn between blaming her and blaming himself for not arriving in time to protect his father or her.
I enjoyed the rekindling of the relationship between Gemma and Kellan. They are wary around each other at first, as the past isn’t far from their minds, but it’s also clear that the feelings between them are as strong as ever. Kellan is determined to keep things professional since getting distracted by Gemma could get them both killed. However, good intentions didn’t last long in the face of intense chemistry. The attraction between them built even in the midst of the danger, with a few pretty steamy moments in the rare downtimes. Both of them needed to overcome the events of the past before they could look to a future, and facing down those who wished them harm gave them the chance to do so. The ending was great as both admitted their feelings and put the past behind them.
The suspense and action were intense and almost nonstop. The opening pages had Gemma discovering her safe house was compromised, Kellan arriving to tell her that the serial killer knew where she was, and the two of them surviving being shot at and her house being blown up behind them. The serial killer, Eric, spent a good part of the book taunting them with his nearness and ability to attack them at will. There were also hints that the deaths of Kellan’s father and the deputy were not all that they seemed. Add in a couple of Federal Marshals whose ethics were in doubt, and Kellan had trouble knowing who he could trust. There were several situations when Kellan and Gemma were in danger that could have been avoided if Kellan had listened to the instincts that told him that he shouldn’t do what he did. The resolution came at the end of several twists and turns that kept them guessing. While most questions were resolved, there is one thread that was left hanging. Presumably, it will be answered either in the next book or will carry through the series and be resolved at the end of it.
SAFETY BREACH by Delores Fossen is the first book of the Longview Ridge Ranch series. It’s packed with lurking dangers, accusations, and too many suspects for Sheriff Kellan Slater. He trusts no one and vows to protect Gemma Hanson after her WITSEC location is breached. Her job as a profile has nearly killed Gemma on a serial killer case that left Kellan’s father and a deputy dead. Danger is everywhere. Gemma realizes there is no safe place, not even in Kellan’s protective custody, especially with the attraction between them intensifying.
The serial killer’s taunting them creates suspense in this quick action-packed plot and a steamy romance between Kellan and Gemma. The twists and turns in their adventure captivate me page by page to find out what happens next. There is a subplot of the murder of Kellan’s father that leads into the upcoming books in the series. Delores Fossen creates masterful of intriguing plots, usual suspects, and sexual attraction between the hero and the heroine. Safety Breach is as explosive as all of Delores Fossen’s Harlequin Intrigues books.
Who are Kellan, Eric, and Gemma? What do they each do for a living? Why is Kellan at Gemma’s home? Who are Caroline, Rory, Amanda, and Maylene? Why does Kellan call Owen? Oh my gosh!! This suspenseful mystery was as much a thriller as anything else. Even a touch of a second-chance romance came into play for possibly more than one set of people. Who is behind everything that is going on and why? Or are there multiple people? When corruption starts to be a possibility, does it get confirmed? Read and see!
RECEIVED THIS BOOK from Netgalley AS A GIFT FOR A FAIR/HONEST REVIEW and REVIEWER FOR Bloggin’ With M. Brennan.
Safety Breach was a page-turner in the beginning. You were thrown into the action with Gemma finding her safe house compromised (A forward or prologue would have been great to explain why. The author fills it in but it still caused confusion in the beginning). Her knight in shining arrives just in time to save her, again. Kellan doesn’t want to still have feelings for Gemma, his teenage love, but he does and it complicates matters when they’re trying to find a serial killer.
I had a few problems with this one which is why I docked a star from it. First, if you read a lot of police procedurals, prepare to suspend reality because a lot of what the sheriff does, doesn’t make any sense, especially if you know a cop. He moved Gemma around at times when he KNEW that the killer would probably be waiting but he’d do it anyway. He’d say, “It’s not safe here, we have to move” and then they’d get caught in a trap and he’d take her back to where he had just said it wasn’t safe. You will have to suspend reality here, trust me.
I can say the action never stops, even if some of it is created by their own hand. Once the web of lies starts to unravel you start to see why there was a web in the first place. The book culminates at the end with an unexpected resolution of the mystery with a twist.
I wanted to feel bad for Gemma but I couldn’t. She was the type who did, not the type to cower, which was good. However, her job was as a profiler and she worked with the guy for years and never figured out he was a serial killer??? Again, suspend reality. I liked Kellen but I didn’t understand why he had to ‘huff’ or ‘mumble some profanity’ every time he had to show emotion.
In the end, Gemma and Kellan do agree to try again, even if their HEA happens in the last paragraph of the book. I have to assume since this is the first in the series, and there are more to come with his brother’s, that we will see more of Gemma and Kellan in the future.
Since I love the romantic suspense genre, and am a fan of this author, I was eager to get in at the beginning of Delores Fossen’s new Longview Ridge Ranch series for Harlequin Intrigue, but even with a cast of characters listed at the beginning, when I started reading the very first chapter, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d possibly missed a precursor novella or novel leading into this one because the beginning of this novel seems to start somewhere in the middle of the action, as if we already knew more than we could possibly know. This problem could have easily been corrected with a preliminary chapter or even a foreword, set one year earlier, explaining the situation and clarifying a timeline of events for this story. It’s for that reason, as well as a couple of other minor issues, that it gets a 4-star rather than a 5-star rating from this reader–a very good read with a few flaws.
Once you begin to pick up the story line, the suspense in this novel hits you like a runaway train. Gemma Hanson, the heroine and a profiler, has been in the Witness Protection Program for the past nine months, and in the hospital for the 3 months prior to that, having being kidnapped, rescued, and recovering from the 3 bullet wounds to her torso, put there by a former student and intern in her class on profiling, serial killer, Eric Lang. The ironic fact that Gemma didn’t know she was instructing, and sometimes relying on a serial killer was not lost on this reader, but Eric’s rationale for wanting Gemma dead is never stated, and I believe it should have been.
Eric disappeared after abducting and shooting Gemma, but as the novel opens, Gemma is returning home to her safe house, not far from where last year’s events occurred, another choice I questioned, since generally, the Witness Protection Program sets victims up in safe houses far from where the danger is. With her groceries in hand, and as soon as she opens the door, Gemma realizes that her security system has been breached. She drops her groceries, backs away from the door, and calls 911, and, of course, Sheriff Kellan Slater, the hero, with whom Gemma once shared a romantic and sexual history, shows up and comes to her rescue after a shootout with a hired gunman stationed across the street, and just as they think they’re safe, Gemma’s safe house explodes. With all signs pointing to Eric, and a possible leak or mole at WITSEC giving away her location, Kellan, once again becomes Gemma’s protector, and that’s just for starters.
Obviously, Gemma needs ’round the clock protection, she trusts Kellan, and since he feels responsible for her safety, he’s the obvious choice. But he’s got other responsibilities, and, as the body count rises, other abductions and murders abound, the FBI gets involved, and Gemma’s WITSEC handler and her aide show up. Neither Kellan nor Gemma know who to trust, and through it all, Eric manages to wreak havoc and elude capture time and again, while making sure that Gemma knows he still plans to finish what he started and kill her. The suspense in this romantic suspense novel occurs at a breakneck pace, but, of course, the romance side of things between Kellan and Gemma ends up taking a back seat until nearly the end of the novel, and while their previous relationship ended, Ms. Fossen makes sure we know that it just wasn’t their time when it all began, but it might just be that their time is now, if, and only if, Kellan can manage to keep Gemma alive and capture or kill Eric.
As romantic suspense novels go, this one is quite a page-turner, loaded with danger, action, and more twists and turns than a roller coaster, and just like a roller coaster, it keeps you going full-tilt until the expected HEA ending, which, in this reader’s opinion, was a tad too abrupt. All in all, it’s a very good start to Ms. Fossen’s new series, and I’m eager to learn which of the many characters introduced in this novel, will be featured in the next.
I voluntarily read an advanced reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.
Gemma Hanson is in the Witness Protection Program (WITSEC). She was a profiler who sometimes assisted the FBI. One year ago she had been shot by a serial killer. The serial killer kidnapped her and shot her three times. Then he escaped when the authorities showed up. Thus Gemma was placed into witness protection. But there’s a leak at WITSEC and the serial killer has found Gemma once again. Sheriff Kellan Slater rushes to Gemma’s location to warn her. The serial killer now has hired accomplices. One of them starts firing at Gemma and Kellan from the second story window of the house across the street from Gemma’s house. They were basically sitting ducks pinned down just outside of Gemma’s house. Kellan returns fire and the shooter leaves. Then BAM! Gemma’s house explodes and goes up in flames. Gemma and Kellan have a history with each other, but Kellan knows he needs to keep himself in professional mode and do all he can to keep Gemma safe. That means finding and apprehending the serial killer. Oh! Did I mention that the serial killer had been Gemma’s intern murdering people right under profiler Gemma’s nose? There’s lots more danger and action after this initial scene.
Safety Break is the first book in author Delores Fossen’s new series, Longview Ridge Ranch. This story is a great beginning to the series. There’s lots of action and twists and turns as events occur that seem to make for more questions than answers. There’s lots of suspnse to keep the reader turning the page to see what is going to happen next. Also there are fascinating characters and a mystery for the slater family to solve as the series continues. Romantic Suspense fans are going to love this book.