ARC REVIEW The Third to Die by Allison Brennan

The first book in a new series by Alison Brennan, the Mobile Response Team is a new team not even fully formed yet that's lead by SAC Mathias Costa. Mathias is still trying to get his profiler and friends to not quit profiling and join the team and the cast that landed on his desk is just the one to do it, The Triple Killer. Kara Quinn is an undercover LAPD detective and due the the events of her last case she's on administrative leave. Her boss and friend recommended she get out of town, so she went home to Liberty Lake, Oregon. It turned out to not be quite the vacation she needed when she finds the body of a nurse by the lake the first victim of the Triple Killer.


Mathias and a few others go to Liberty Lake, the point of MRT is to help aid rural area PDs that aren't otherwise capable of handling situations like this. Ever three years this killer strikes they haven't yet determined victimology but it's the same way all three time and every crime scene is clean not evidence and what they have found isn't in the system. Mathias is determined to catch the guy this time. Kara having several good friends on the local PD force and being the one who found the first victim has a few idea she' not afraid to share. Mathias' initially thought she's could be trouble or she could be helpful and she is a little bit of both. Kara gives some helpful insight and the profiler digs deep enough to discover just who this person is and why he's killing. But, will they be able to stop him before he kills again?

This is mostly a mystery/thriller but there is a romantic element between Kara and Mathias. It's not a full on romance as there is no HEA. Like with the Lucy Kincaid series, I believe, the ongoing story of Mathias and Kara romance will go through the series. Overall, this was a great read. I enjoy Allison Brennan but I haven't read one of her books since before Luck Kincaid got her own series. I loved the flawed characters, Kara has a lot going on for her with her upbringing and her current career path. Their profiler Dr. Catherine Jones lost her sister to a serial killer recently and had a crisis of faith in her job. Mathias, well not much is said about him yet but I'm hopeful and Brennan doesn't disappoint. This was a fantastic first for the new series and I'm already looking forward to the next to see where she lead the MRT next.

ARC REVIEW Say No To The Duke by Eloisa James

The Wildes of Lidow Castle #4, A fun Historical Romance by Eloisa James. Boadicea "Betsy" Wilde has spent the last few years trying not to give anyone the impression that she takes after her mother, a mother who abandoned her children when she ran off with another man. Betsy's first year at a school taught her the rumors and whispers that were about her mother, her sister, and herself. Betsy was determined that not only was she nothing like her mother but she would prove the other girls wrong at school by getting more offers for marriage then any of them, and she did but she accepted no one.

Lord Jeremy Roden is a hero, but he doesn't feel like one. He charged his men into battle and lost every single one of his men. It was the fault of another cowardly man but Jeremy is blaming himself. To society, because he was the lone survivor, he's the coward but all the important people know the truth and he has the Wildes on his side. He's had a hard time coming home he thinks of himself as a failure. The only bright spot in his self inflicted misery is Betsy. He enjoys arguing with her and refusing to play billiards with her it isn't until the son of a Duke offers for her that Jeremy realizes he doesn't want to lose her.

Betsy decides she wants and adventure before she finally accepts this last marriage proposal but she needs someone's help,  she convinces Jeremy to finally play a game of billiards with her and if she wins he has to escort her, while she's dressed as a man, to some place where only men are allowed to go. After she wins he manages to talk her down from a five day drive to London to go to Whites to go to the nearby town to an auction but only with a chaperone. A whole group ends up going along with Betsy and Jeremy, and surprisingly enough not only does her aunt want to join her in dressing like a man so does her maybe future mother-in-law.

I loved the relationship between Betsy and Jeremy how they started as friends bickering back and forth and Betsy who never realized how much he likes her kept brushing off certain comments that is until he kissed her to prove he desired her. But because her feeling about her mother she never wanted to feel desire like that, that would prove she was just like her mother. Once Jeremy realizes just how deep his own feelings go he keeps asking Betsy to say no to the duke.

Overall, it was a fun and enjoyable read with minimal drama and angst and what little there is is dealt with easily. I loved that Jeremy nicknamed Betsy, Queen Bess, saying it was far more appropriate for her than Betsy. Eloisa James is one of my absolute favorite historical romance writers, her characters are so real and the situations they find themselves in are always wonderful to read she's brilliant at what she does. I really can't wait for more Wildes to find their HEAs.