Close friends and partners at FireWorks Security, Joel Weston and Kieran Ross know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They have each other’s backs, make a formidable team, and carefully ignore their volatile chemistry.When Kieran struggles with the aftermath of an assignment gone wrong, Joel is there to help. When Joel is caught in an explosion, Kieran jumps into a burning marina to rescue the man who means so much to him. But they never discuss what’s closest to their hearts, not prepared to risk their friendship for the mere possibility of something more.
Faced with bombs, assassins and old ghosts, Joel and Kieran must find out why they’re targets, who is after them and—most of all—how each would feel if he lost the other. Can they continue as best friends, or is it time to take a leap of faith?
Buy links: Dreamspinner | Amazon
Cat gives this one 4 Meows with a 3 Purr heat index...
First off, I want to start with a huge pet peeve of mine. On the Publisher Page or Amazon, this is not marked as a series on the book or in the description. However, on Goodreads it is. If a book is part of a series, please make it clear to the buyer. Leap of Faith is a book one, so it sets up the series. We meet
Joseph, the owner of Fireworks security, Dale is his brother and the forensics guy for the team. We get a glimpse of a few others as well. The main characters in the story are Joel and Kieran. Joel is Joseph's son and ex-military. Kieran has been with them for four years, is Joel's partner and ex-FBI.
After a mission gone wrong, Joel and Kieran are out with the gang for lunch. On the way home there is an attempted kidnapping. Joel and Kieran jump into action. The kidnapping turns into much more dragging them into danger and a mystery of who is after them and why.
I loved the dynamics of this story. There was great action, the detail is good. I loved the characters and how the romance was blended with the storyline and why they waited so long. And then the story just ended.I was left with too many questions. I can't wait for the next book though to see if it answers my questions and who the next couple is.
If you like mystery/suspense, security men, lots of action, friends to lovers, and some hot man-sex this is for you.
Excerpt...
“THIS ISN’T a suicide watch. It’s not.” The bells of the nearby church chimed midnight. Joel had turned off the lights, drawn the blinds, and left only two wall sconces to illuminate the far end of his loft apartment.
The soft light didn’t reach far. It lit a path to the bathroom door and picked out the antique nail-studded chest that served as Joel’s bedside table. An alarm clock and Joel’s phone charger sat on the ancient wood, beside two heavy-bottomed old-fashioned crystal tumblers and the bottle of Jack Daniel’s Joel had bought earlier that day.
Joel had settled himself cross-legged on his bed. He leaned against a stack of pillows, the taste of peat and malt on his lips, and repeated the words like a prayer someone, somewhere, might hear. “This isn’t a suicide watch.”
Beside him Kieran had finally succumbed to sleep with the help of the whiskey. Joel counted it a small victory. He didn’t like to solve problems with alcohol, but they’d tried everything short of sleeping pills or a knockout punch. After a week of little rest, Kieran’s cheeks were drawn. The dull gray cast to his deep tan proclaimed exhaustion, and purple smudges ringed Kieran’s eyes, dark enough to make strangers think he’d lost a fight.
The tension hadn’t left him even as he slept. He lay curled on his side on top of the sunset-patterned quilt, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Both hands were clenched in fists and a deep furrow creased the skin between his brows. He hadn’t drunk enough of the whiskey to wake with a hangover, but given the tense coil he’d settled in, he wouldn’t wake at all refreshed.
Joel watched over his partner as he slept and wished he could help. He racked his brain for something he could say or do even as he fought not to card his fingers through the ink-dark mess of choppy strands Kieran called a hairstyle.
The previous week had been harrowing for the whole team. It was never a laugh fest when they lost a client, and was worse when innocent bystanders were caught in the crossfire. The man they’d hunted had broken free mid arrest and had taken a hostage. Cornered on the roof of an apartment building and maybe hoping to slip away in the resulting chaos, he’d not hesitated to push the woman over the edge of the parapet. Kieran, who’d stood nearest when Lillian Carter died and had yet been unable to prevent her death, took it the hardest. He had barely slept since the incident, and his responses were so far outside his normal parameters that Joel’s father, FireWorks Security’s president, had ordered Joel to keep a close eye on his partner.
“This isn’t a suicide watch.”
Jackie Keswick was born behind the Iron Curtain with itchy feet, a bent for rocks and a recurrent dream of stepping off a bus in the middle of nowhere to go home. She's worked in a hospital and as the only girl with 52 men on an oil rig, spent a winter in Moscow and a summer in Iceland and finally settled in the country of her dreams with her dream team: a husband, a cat, a tandem, a hammer and a laptop.
Jackie loves stories about unexpected reunions and second chances, and men who don't follow the rules when those rules are stupid. She has a thing for green eyes and tight cyclist's butts and is a great believer in making up soundtracks for everything, including her characters and the cat.
And she still hasn't found the place where the bus stops.
Website: http://www.jackiekeswick.co.uk
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Thanks for your review & the excerpt!
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