Rating: 3.75 stars out of 5

“How much is a kiss worth? Or a hopeless relationship?”

Nick shook his head. “With the right person, it would be worth everything.”

Life for Maxwell Thomas has not been easy. As a child, he had some light in the form of his father, Momma D, and the man who took them in and created a family with them, Detective Nathaniel Wraithe. But even those lights were put out by a tragic incident, and now Maxwell lives with blood on his hands.

He’s become a wanderer, one of the many homeless in the city who blends into the brick walls and fire escapes. One night, while on one of those fire escapes, he witnesses a young boy being attacked. Torn, he makes a move to save the boy, but gets a whole lot more than he bargained on and the one choice to step in brings a devil from his past back.

On top of it all, beat cop Nick Kenna has taken an interest in Maxwell, putting him right in the middle of the mess unfolding right before them.

Nick had never been so confused about what he wanted. Everything had been so straightforward before, black and white as the Ford Crown Victoria model police cruisers at the station. Maxwell existed in the gray so completely that Nick didn’t know how to relate to him. Everything was measured on a sliding scale in Maxwell’s mind. The world wasn’t static, it moved and breathed and Maxwell had become more than adept at rolling with the motion of it.

Though it took me a while to actually get into this book, I ended up enjoying myself. It wasn’t necessarily a mystery, as we pretty much knew who was doing what, but it definitely had some elements of suspense that I really appreciate in my books. It also had parts that verged on dark, but never really quite crossed the mark for me, but still, it was a nice read.

Nick was a very lovable character. It was strange for me to read about a kind of clumsy cop who really isn’t cut out to be a detective. Usually in books with a cop as the main character, they are really good at their job, but Nick was more of just a really good guy who wanted to help people and did that through being a beat cop. It was different and a bit refreshing.

Maxwell, on the other hand, was entirely self-destructive and I felt for him. Unfortunately, for some reason, his thoughts in my ebook were not italicized, which was quite jarring for me at first. It felt like the perspective was switching on me super quickly, but I eventually garnered that those parts were meant to be thoughts, but for a while it was quite difficult for me to get used to.

They made an interesting pair, and while I felt their connection, I almost wish I felt it just a bit more. The tension could’ve been written with a bit more thickness, but in general, the story was nice.

One of the parts that I am pretty dissatisfied is the ending. I really wanted to know the resolution of all the dirty cops and see them meet up with the agent one more time. It just felt there needed to be some closure for that element of the story. Still, I’d definitely be on the lookout for more by this author. I feel like she has a lot of great potential.

The cover art by Les Byerley is, unfortunately, not a good indication of the story within. It makes it look like there may be some kind of sci-fi element, but there’s not, and in general, the cover is just not appealing.

Sales Links:  Resplendence Publishing – All Romance (ARe) – Amazon / Buy It Here

Book Details:

ebook, 225 pages
Published June 22nd 2011 by Resplendence Publishing
original titleIn the Shadow of a Hero
ISBN139781607353430
edition languageEnglish