Darlene's Book Nook: #Book #Review: 5 out of 5 stars for Beg for Mercy by Jami Alden @jamialden @ForeverRomance

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

#Book #Review: 5 out of 5 stars for Beg for Mercy by Jami Alden @jamialden @ForeverRomance

TITLE: Beg for Mercy
SERIES: Dead Wrong, Book #1
AUTHOR: Jami Alden
PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publishing
PUBLICATION DATE: June 1, 2011
FORMAT: Paperback
LENGTH: 413 pages
GENRE: Romance/Romantic Suspense
ISBN: 9780446572804

He lurks in the shadows, waiting and watching . . . And once he has you, all you can do is. . .

Beg For Mercy

Megan Flynn thought she was falling in love. Cole Williams wasn't just handsome and passionate, he was one of the good guys. Or so she thought, until he arrested her brother - the only family she has left - for a murder she knows he couldn't have possibly committed. Now, with her heart broken and her brother's life hanging in the balance, Megan will risk everything to prove his innocence. Even if that means throwing herself into the path of a sadistic killer with a hauntingly familiar MO.

Seattle Detective Cole Williams had given up on making Megan see reason where her brother is concerned. But when she insinuates herself into the most shockingly brutal case Cole has ever worked, he can't stand idly by. Plunged into a secret world where the city's elite indulge their darkest desires, Cole will do whatever it takes to bring down a madman who has made Megan his most coveted prey.

MY REVIEW:

Damn, that was hot!!!

The protagonist is Megan Flynn, who is 29 years old and in love with her boyfriend, Seattle Homicide Detective Cole Williams. As they are getting hot and heavy on the couch, Cole gets a call on his day off from his partner, Nick Jorgensen, who gives him the address of a crime scene. Megan apparently has super-sonic hearing and can hear Nick's voice through the phone and recognizes that the address belongs to her brother, Sean. Megan questions Cole about the address, but he can’t say anything so Megan tries to reach her brother by phone but there is no answer. She drives over to Sean’s house, and she arrives just as Sean is being led out of the house in handcuffs by none other than Cole! Her brother is blood-spattered and in a daze. He is charged with raping and murdering a young woman named Evangeline Gordon, who he had met at a bar, but he has no recollection of the evening. Evangeline was last seen leaving the bar with Sean, and her body was found the next day in Sean’s house. With Sean facing the death penalty and Cole's role in putting him behind bars, the relationship between Megan and Cole falls apart. The story then follows two years after Sean’s conviction, and the Supreme Court has just denied his second appeal and Sean is tired of fighting. He is losing hope. If he fails to file another appeal, the date of his execution will be scheduled.

Megan’s and Sean’s parents were both killed in a car accident. She was 13 years old at the time, and Sean was 15 years old. After that, they lived with their grandmother. Sean is the only immediate family that Megan has left, and she won’t give up trying to save her brother.

Megan is a volunteer court-appointed advocate for minors. One of her clients is a 14 year-old girl named Devany Sinclair, who lives with her aunt in a trailer park. Devany’s mom is due to be released from court-ordered rehabilitation in a few weeks. When Dev’s dog escapes from the trailer, Dev chases it down to an abandoned trailer where it is barking at the door that has been left ajar. The dog manages to nose its way into the trailer, and Dev follows it inside. She finds a naked woman lying face-down in a pool of her own blood on the bed. Dev grabs her dog and high-tails it back to her aunt’s trailer and phones Megan, who tells her to phone the police and that she will be right over. When Megan arrives at Dev’s, the police are already there to question Dev, and guess who is on the scene? Yup, it’s Cole. Even though two years have passed since they have seen each other, the tension is still there between them as well as unresolved feelings. Megan does her own digging into the murder, and she is convinced that there are similarities between this victim and Evangeline Gordon. With Sean's execution now only 1.5 weeks away, Megan needs to work fast to find the connection between the murders. The body count rises, and Megan puts herself in danger to try to save her brother. Cole cannot stand idly by, so he agrees to help her…not because he thinks Sean is innocent but because he knows that Megan will not give up trying until the bitter end and that she needs to do it. In his mind, he feels that the least he can do is support her and help to pick up the pieces afterwards.

I have never read a romantic suspense novel that was so steamy! The chemistry between Megan and Cole is so damn hot, and my pulse definitely quickened reading their naughty scenes and my fingers couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!!

Alden is a new-to-me author, and she totally blew me away! I absolutely loved everything about this book, which received the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense. Aside from the red-hot passion between Megan and Cole, I loved Megan’s commitment to her brother. She remained steadfast in her trust that her brother was innocent, despite the overwhelming evidence against him. Even when he tried to push her away, her loyalty to him did not falter. Sean could see the toll that this drama was taking on Megan’s life, and he couldn’t let her go through the turmoil any longer. For him, it was better that the battle end quickly so that Megan could move on with her life and try to find some happiness. Each one felt that they were doing the right thing and, in their own way, they were! I have already bought the next two books in the series, and I can’t wait to read them!

If you enjoy romantic suspense and like your novels steamy, I highly recommend it!

MY RATING: