Disclaimer- This is the very first "romance suspense" novel I've EVER finished. I've started quite a few contemporary romance/suspense novels before, but I have never finished one. As a general rule, I find contemporary books very frustrating since the books seem very unrealistic (the hero seems too perfect, and the storyline is always ridiculous). Thus, this is my first, and I don't have alot of other books read in this genre to compare to. SO, please remember that when reading my review. Also note that the fact that I was able to finish this novel knowing my dislike of these types of books, tells you how much I did actually like the book!What I liked-Megan and Cole! Both characters were completely realistic. The author realistically portrayed their faults as well as their strong points.The story. This is a tough one. With my background in criminal law, I figured I'd find flaws in this book and I did. However, they were very minor. I've worked with life term inmates (all convicted of 1st degree murder & serving 20 years to life) and the prison scenes in this book were overall very realistic (until the very end of the book that is and then it was slightly unrealistic but oh well). The actual mystery element wasn't really a mystery. The bad guy is revealed early on. In fact, I thought the author would throw in a twist since the bad guy was so obvious. But she didn't. That is why I'd call this book a suspense novel rather than a mystery novel. The book definitely had suspense. There were numerous times I literally felt my heart racing. I liked that part!What I didn't like-The prostitution sub-plot. It seemed like the author was setting up book 2 by putting the sub-plot in there. In fact, towards the end, you can figure out which characters will star in book 2 by the author's focus on those characters. I really dislike when authors use part of their actual book to setup their next book in the series (that involve different characters).Overall-I really enjoyed this book and I loved the suspense. The romance was real and the sex scenes were hot. The bad guy was very creepy and the good guys were pretty damn realistic.
