Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

*Beware of possible spoilers!*

Book three of the Callahan’s series is FINALLY here!  I can’t tell you how much I’ve been dying to get back into this series!  Leigh has weaved a riveting storyline about the Callahan cousins that were shunned by the whole town for greed.  Somebody wanted their land so badly that they decided to kill for it again and again becoming a serial killer known as the slasher; killing every female the three men got involved with to ensure that no Callahan heir would ever be born to claim their inheritance.

In this installment, we take a break from the three cousins and focus in on Sheriff Archer Tobias, who is desperately trying to discover who is killing these innocent women.  He knows the Callahans are innocent and he can’t bear to find another dead woman that he couldn’t save.

Anna Corbin has been forced out of town by her family again and again since the tender age of ten.  All she ever wanted was to feel loved, but her family constantly pushes her away.  Now she’s back in town and refuses to leave.  Unfortunately her stand against her family may cost her as she is kicked out of her home with nothing, but a few items she snuck back in the house to retrieve.

When Archer hears the news of what has transpired between Anna and her family he is outraged.  He has always had a soft spot for the beautiful Anna and sees no other option, but to have her stay with him.  But when it’s clear the killer has her in his sights, will Archer’s protection be enough to save her?

Like I previously stated I couldn’t wait to delve into this book!  But I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with Archer’s character as a whole.  We’ve seen glimpses of him in the previous two books of the series and I was starting to like him.  The Callahans are the town bad boys that are pretty rough around the edges and a bit hard in general as a result of the life they have been forced to live.  But Archer seemed a bit gentler up to this point in the series and I was expecting him to be a protective teddy bear in this novel, but that just wasn’t the case.  I felt he was rougher than the cousins and by far the horniest!  I hated the way he treated Anna in this book, like a $1 hooker he picked up off the street corner.  Which OK, I guess technically he did pick her up off the street … but still …  Everything was about sex with him and he’s a definite commitment-phobic.  Which all of that I could get past, but there was just no tenderness from him between his dirty thoughts of what he wants to do with her to him pulling out during sex to spew all over her….a little reminiscent of a porno to me and definitely not how you treat someone you care about.  Him telling her that she was beautiful just wasn’t enough to negate his actions, as far as I’m concerned.

I really didn’t like Anna either.  She came off as week and just couldn’t fight her arousal with Archer no matter how angry she was.  Any confrontation was fixed with Archer pushing her to have sex with him.  The whole thing reminded me of the first book of Leigh’s Breeds series, Tempting the Beast, where the lead characters were in heat.

And, speaking of the sex scenes I found them to be pretty repetitive.  They were always doing the same things, worded the same way, and even the things they said were the same scene to scene.  I swear if I read, “Oh, God, it’s so good” one more time I’m going to scream!

Reading this review up to this point, you may think that I didn’t like the book, but that isn’t the case at all.  I felt the story was compelling.  But in my opinion, it felt like a short novella that was padded with tons of sex scenes to make the book  full novel length.  The sex scenes kind of droned on after awhile, but when you take them out of the mix what’s left is one awesome novella!

The big mystery in this book was to find out why the killer was targeting Anna when she has never been intimate with a Callahan.  I absolutely loved this storyline and had stopped reading for a few moments to absorb all the information Leigh had given us.  I figured out Anna’s connection to Crowe moments before it was revealed in the book.  It wasn’t something really obvious, but with enough thinking you can figure it out, which is something I love in a good book.  It definitely makes you think!

Despite this book’s flaws I did really enjoy it and can’t wait for the next installment, I can only assume it will be Crowe’s book (finally!) or at least I hope so!  I’m more than ready to see him and Amelia find their way back to one another!