ARC REVIEW Surrender by Joan Johnston

King's Brats #3, Bitter Creek #11. Three years! That's how long I've been waiting for this book to come out; waiting to find out what happened up on that mountain between Taylor and Brian. Oh, but this book was so much more than I thought it would be, so worth the wait. This is probably one of the few drama based almost soap opera like Contemporary Romances I like. But unlike soap operas this series has HEAs it just has the endless drama with different people and not the same poor people over and over again, and if it does it doesn't completely ruin their HEA except for maybe Cricket and Jarrett, they were my favorite couple and that was just mean even if it did turn into some really good books down the line. Anyways I digress. I have missed maybe four books in the entire series and having read most of the books I don't know if this would be good for a stand alone, for this the first two books in the King's Brats part of the series should be read; they are all connected with an overall story arc.

The Greyhawks and the Flynn's and been feuding for years, but for a brief couple of months Taylor Greyhawk and Brain Flynn were happy. They were secretly dating until Taylor's insecurity broke them up after that it was prank war between the King's Brats and those Flynn Boys. Years have past Brian is a firefighter and smoke jumper and Taylor has become a pilot. In the latest wildfire Brain is filling in for Taylor's spotter before he jumped when the fire flares up and damages both engines on the plane. Brian and Taylor have no choice but to jump together. Only nothing goes right once they land Brain is attacked by a bear fleeing the fire and the cave the plan to seek refuge in gets closed off by a fallen tree before they can bring in all the smoke jumper equipment Brian pushed out the plane before they jumped. They are trapped in the cave for a few days, in that time Brian and Tag, as Brian calls her, have plenty of time to talk about the past and what happened and what went wrong.

In the meantime Aiden and Leah aren't giving up on their siblings and continue to search even after everyone else has given up. In their search you discover they have a secret of their own and since they are alone Aiden feels it's the right time to sort it all out, in other words apologize and beg forgiveness. Tag and Brian after the fire has finally passed discover another way out of the cave and start to walk, unfortunately the wound Brian got from the bear has become septic and they in a race against time to find help before he dies. While Brian is sick with fever he admits everything to Tag and she reciprocates. But getting out of the woods is only the start of their problems they have a whole new batch of different problems once they get rescued.

Overall, the first part of this book was so intense and edge of your seat. People who are about to die always find it easy to communicate and finally reveal feelings they couldn't otherwise express, that's exactly what Tag and Brian did only when they got rescued they became shut off again, one because of families and another because they're silly, well they have reasons and it does lead to some good drama, heartbreak and steamy make-up sex. I can't wait for the next one. I've been a fan of Joan Johnston for almost two decades and I never get tired of her writing.