Collision Point
Brute Force, Book #1
By Lora Leigh
ISBN# 9781250110329
Author’s Website: http://www.loraleigh.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
Amara is the daughter of an alleged former crime lord. She was abducted and severely beaten by her captors six months ago. Her bodyguard, Riordan Malone, and his men rescued her. She hasn’t seen Riordan since then, except in her nightmares of her ordeal and in the erotic dreams of them together.
Amara knows that someone is trying to kill her. There have been three incidents since her rescue, but her father thinks it’s just a coincidence and she’s being paranoid. Her fear sends her to Texas to find Riordan and beg him to help her.
It’s been hell for Riordan trying to stay away from Amara the last six months, but she refused to see him. He’s called to check on her often, but he was told she was fine. However, he knows that for the lie that it is when she shows up at his grandpop’s house looking for him, scared for her life. Amara has forgotten everything that has happened in the last year. She has forgotten that they were lovers. Nobody knew of their relationship because she didn’t want her father to know. But now that she’s come looking for him he’s ready to go back and claim her as his lover and to protect her from the danger she’s in. He won’t rest until the ones responsible for what happened to her pay with their lives. But to find out who hurt her, she must remember what happened during the abduction. He has to find a way to force her to remember, but he can’t push her too hard or he could lose her forever. She’s the woman who owns his soul and he’d walk into the fires of hell for her. He has died for her already, and he’d do it again in a heartbeat to keep her safe. But will she recover her memories before their time runs out?
I enjoyed this book, but I really struggled with it as well. It was the first of the series, but it read like it wasn’t and I knew I was missing something. Turns out this new series is a spin-off of Leah’s Elite Ops series, one of the few of her series that I haven’t read. If I had known that, I’d have read that series first! I still may go back and read it so that I can understand the relationship between Riordan and Nathan/Noah better. And, to also get a better understanding of the soul bonding these men share with their women! You can read this book without reading the Elite Ops series, like I did, but I do feel it would be easier to follow if you’re familiar with Elite Ops.
There was also a lot of grammatical errors that drove me a little crazy in this story, but I did read an uncorrected proof so hopefully those will be fixed in the finished release.
Riordan can be a bit of a domineering jerk at times, but he loves Amara and will do anything to see her safe and happy. He will stand up to her father and stand between her and those who want to do her harm. It has to be hard to love someone who doesn’t remember they were in a relationship with you so I feel for him in that regard. I think he handles his reclaiming of her wrong at times, but I know he means well.
I do love Riordan’s family. Noah and his grandpops are great, and both men are determined to help Riordan get back what is his and making sure he doesn’t mess it all up pushing too hard. I’m much more interested in the relationships between different characters than a lot of other things that happened in this book, and I want to see more of those relationships!
I found the first half of this book to be kind of a repetitive. Riordan pushing Amara sexually, to have to retreat once Amara starts to get into it or when she realizes what’s happening and puts a stop to it. He also tries to use sex to control her, which gets obnoxious. However, by the end of the book, I couldn’t put it down! I thought I had figured out who was behind Amara’s abduction, but there was a nice couple of twists at the end that I never saw coming.
I felt this book left a lot of unanswered questions and there was no clear conclusion. They found the bad guys, but the danger didn’t seem to be completely over yet. There was never any confrontation on the fact that Ivan had somehow setup their relationship even though he acted to be against them throughout the book. I was also surprised that Amara never apologized for nearly having a certain character killed!
I was expecting there to be a big romantic happily ever after scene, but it never came. I feel there is still a lot of story to tell with this couple and I can’t wait to see what happens next in the series!
