Scan barcode
A review by bananatricky
Edge of Surrender by Laura Griffin
3.0
I received a free copy of this novella from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
At the end of the first part of this two-part story Ryan and Emma had spent the night at a safe house after Emma had survived several attempts to kill her. After they had shared a steamy night Ryan had done the standard alpha-male-in-a-novel move and told Emma it must never happen again, with an added twist of humiliation and Emma had escaped from the safe house only to disappear.
This second part of the story was all action-packed as Emma tries to escape her kidnappers and Ryan and his team search desperately to find her. Laura Griffin knows how to write a chase scene that has you gripping your Kindle as though you are on a white knuckle ride.
Sadly though, that's where the good news ends for me. I really don't understand why the story was released in a two-part format, the second part 'felt' much shorter, perhaps because it was action-filled rather than build up, and the plot appeared to be an after-thought. I have a rather dismal suspicion that the story was released in two parts simply so that the prologue to the first book acts as a teaser.
Anyway, two days after reading the second part whilst I recall who was trying to kill Emma I still don't really understand why - this is a common bug-bear with these type of books, the villains go to great lengths to kill someone for something that they actually had no suspicions about. Also, I thought that the villains went to extraordinary lengths to silence Emma, it was disproportionate. There was a lot of set up surrounding Emma's father which ultimately just petered out and seemed like a waste of storyline.
The lure for me with this genre of fiction is the plot and unfortunately I didn't find the plot to be more than an afterthought to the romance between Ryan and Emma, indeed everything was wrapped up very quickly off-stage as a bit of an afterthought.
I think this would have worked better for me as a single novella, cut out some of the romance and tighten the suspense.
Overall, a disappointing start to a new series. I will probably read the second in the series to see whether it is the genre that doesn't work for me or whether it was my dislike of the main character, Ryan, which soured my view of the story as a whole. But I will definitely be continuing with Laura Griffin's Tracers series which is much grittier and centres loosely around a high-tech crime lab.
At the end of the first part of this two-part story Ryan and Emma had spent the night at a safe house after Emma had survived several attempts to kill her. After they had shared a steamy night Ryan had done the standard alpha-male-in-a-novel move and told Emma it must never happen again, with an added twist of humiliation and Emma had escaped from the safe house only to disappear.
This second part of the story was all action-packed as Emma tries to escape her kidnappers and Ryan and his team search desperately to find her. Laura Griffin knows how to write a chase scene that has you gripping your Kindle as though you are on a white knuckle ride.
Sadly though, that's where the good news ends for me. I really don't understand why the story was released in a two-part format, the second part 'felt' much shorter, perhaps because it was action-filled rather than build up, and the plot appeared to be an after-thought. I have a rather dismal suspicion that the story was released in two parts simply so that the prologue to the first book acts as a teaser.
Anyway, two days after reading the second part whilst I recall who was trying to kill Emma I still don't really understand why - this is a common bug-bear with these type of books, the villains go to great lengths to kill someone for something that they actually had no suspicions about. Also, I thought that the villains went to extraordinary lengths to silence Emma, it was disproportionate. There was a lot of set up surrounding Emma's father which ultimately just petered out and seemed like a waste of storyline.
The lure for me with this genre of fiction is the plot and unfortunately I didn't find the plot to be more than an afterthought to the romance between Ryan and Emma, indeed everything was wrapped up very quickly off-stage as a bit of an afterthought.
I think this would have worked better for me as a single novella, cut out some of the romance and tighten the suspense.
Overall, a disappointing start to a new series. I will probably read the second in the series to see whether it is the genre that doesn't work for me or whether it was my dislike of the main character, Ryan, which soured my view of the story as a whole. But I will definitely be continuing with Laura Griffin's Tracers series which is much grittier and centres loosely around a high-tech crime lab.