Tuesday, August 4, 2015

ARC Review: Strong Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #1) by M. Leighton

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Bad Boys novels comes the first in a dark, sexy contemporary trilogy. 

Is she strong enough to trust the most dangerous man she’s ever met? And is he strong enough to let her? 

How would I describe myself? Well, I’m Muse Harper. I’m a twenty-something painter who loves red wine, quirky movies, and men with a fatal flaw. But that was before I met Jasper King. He became my fatal flaw. Eight months ago, I had a choice to make—abandon everything I’ve ever known to protect my family, or stay and risk someone getting hurt. I chose the former. My plan was working just fine until I found out my father had gone missing.

That’s when I met Jasper. A bounty hunter with the eyes of a tiger and the nose of a bloodhound, he was supposed to help me find my father. What I didn’t know was that meeting him was no accident. Hunting people isn’t all that Jasper does. And helping me was only part of his plan. I just wish I’d found out sooner, before my heart got involved. But even then, I don’t know if I’d have done things differently.

Now, I have another choice to make—trust the man that I’m falling in love with and hope that he’ll do the right thing, or run as far away from him as I can get.


Purchase on Amazon!




4 Hot, Mysterious Stars

Jasper King is truly tall, dark, and dangerous. Where do I sign up for this bounty hunter? Strong Enough starts out heartbreaking and then moves onto why Jasper does what he does. Or we think--this story is full of secrets and mystery!

Muse Harper loves her father and in order to protect him she's went into hiding. Most of Muse's life has been a big secret. Her father's lifestyle is a mystery, but tends to believe every word.  She's sassy, stubborn and when her dad goes missing, she hires Jasper, the bounty hunter to help her. But she didn't know how hot and moody Jasper can be. The attraction between these two is off the chart, but Jasper knows he needs to stay away from her. Because there are plenty of secrets, lies and damage that will happen and cause her to hate him.

Muse and Jasper dance around their attraction while trying to find her father. But giving in just once isn't enough for these two. As the secrets starts to unfold for Muse, she must figure out who is telling the truth and who she needs to believe in to protect her from danger.  

Strong Enough takes you through a roller coaster of mystery and lies. You don't who to believe till the very end. And as a nice little bonus, we get a little Cash Davenport in this read! Ready for the next installment in this new series!





I’m comfortable in the quiet. In fact, I prefer it. I thought I’d made the rules of this road trip clear to Muse in advance.


Evidently I didn’t make them clear enough.

“So, how did you get started in this kind of work?” Muse asks after less than an hour in.
I shrug. “Just sort of fell into it, I guess.”

“How does one fall into bounty hunting?”

“If you have the right skill set . . .”

“And how did you come by the ‘right skill set’?”

I sigh. Loud enough for her to hear. “I thought you weren’t going to ask questions.”
“I thought you said not to ask questions about your methods. You didn’t say anything about asking questions about you.”

“I like the quiet,” I tell her. She takes the hint.

Two hours later, I can tell she’s about to bust. She has filed her nails, organized some sort of list on her phone, cleaned out her purse and turned the radio on at least twice. Each time, I’ve turned it off.

Muse reaches down to pull off her shoes and tuck her feet up under her on the seat. “This is a nice car. Not quite what I pictured you driving.”

“It’s a long trip. I thought you’d appreciate a comfortable ride.”
I see her head jerk toward me. “You did this for me?”

I glance in her direction. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m not completely heartless.”
“I—I didn’t say you were heartless.”

“No, but you were thinking it.”

She doesn’t argue.

Just after a quick and silent lunch of burgers and fries right outside Tucson, she tries again. “Where’d you get that watch? It looks like something a sniper would wear.”
I glance at the black square on my wrist. Not a sniper’s watch, but . . .
When I don’t answer, she asks more directly, “Were you in the military?”
“Yes,” I answer grudgingly.

Encouraged by my answer, she turns in her seat to face me. “Really? What branch?”
“The Army.”

“My father served in the Army. He went in because his father and both his brothers served. Did you have family in the military, too? Father? Brothers or sisters?”

I grit my teeth. These are not things that I want to think about, much less talk about. “I really need you to find something else to do with your time. I’m not the talkative, sharing type.” I twitch my head to the right and see the wounded slant to her big green eyes. I sigh again and turn back to the road. “Look, I’m not trying to be rude. I’m just being honest.”

After a few seconds of silence, I glance back over at her. The twin emeralds are flashing. “Well then let me be honest with you. It’s been a really shitty year for me and now my father is missing. I can’t stand sitting here with nothing but time to think about what I might find back home. I’m sorry if polite conversation isn’t in your repertoire, but maybe, just maybe, you could make an exception just this once.” Her voice is louder, punchier at the end and I know her temper is on the rise.
Fire.

Damn, I’m liking that!

“I’m doing you a favor, Muse. You don’t want to get to know me.”

“Maybe I do. You can’t possibly know that.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to,” I confess quietly.

I hear her huff of frustration before she flounces back in her seat, crossing her arms stiffly over her chest and turning to stare out the window.

She’s better off not knowing me. She just doesn’t know it.
 




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