TITLE:
BALL & CHAIN
AUTHOR:
ABIGAIL ROUX
Pages:
306
Date:
17/03/2014
Grade: 5+
Details:
no. 8 Cut & Run
Own
/ Kindle
The
blurb:
“Home from their unexpected deployment, the
former members of Marine Force Recon team Sidewinder rejoin their loved ones
and try to pick up the pieces of the lives they were forced to leave behind. Ty
Grady comes home to Zane Garrett, only to find that everything around him has
changed—even the men he went to war with. He barely has time to adjust before
his brother, Deuce, asks Ty to be his best man. But that isn’t all Deuce asks
Ty to do, and Ty must call for backup to deal with the business issues of
Deuce’s future father-in-law.
Nick O’Flaherty and Kelly Abbott join Ty and Zane at the wedding on an island in Scotland, thinking they’re there to assuage Deuce’s paranoia. But when bodies start dropping and boats start sinking, the four men get more involved with the festivities than they’d ever planned to.
With the clock ticking and the killer just as stuck on the isolated island as they are, Ty and Zane must navigate a veritable minefield of family, friends, and foes to stop the whole island from being destroyed.”
Nick O’Flaherty and Kelly Abbott join Ty and Zane at the wedding on an island in Scotland, thinking they’re there to assuage Deuce’s paranoia. But when bodies start dropping and boats start sinking, the four men get more involved with the festivities than they’d ever planned to.
With the clock ticking and the killer just as stuck on the isolated island as they are, Ty and Zane must navigate a veritable minefield of family, friends, and foes to stop the whole island from being destroyed.”
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My thoughts:
The official release date for this book is
today which makes me disinclined to talk about the story. It would be too easy
to spoil the story for those who haven’t gotten around to reading the book yet
and since I would never forgive a reviewer for doing that to me, I won’t take
the risk of doing so now. I’ll limit myself to listing a few things I loved
about this book and will hopefully manage to do so without revealing things
that I shouldn’t. Of course, the only way to make sure you don’t encounter any
spoilers is to do what I did, and stay away from reviews all together until you’ve
read the book.
Let me start by saying that I loved this book.
For me this book had everything I love about the ‘Cut & Run’ series.
There was the mystery and all the high thrills action needed to solve it, not
to mention some twists and turns that took my breath away. The fact that it was
set in a Scottish mansion with secret passage-ways and located on a remote and
private island only added to the sense of danger. I have always loved the
interactions between the characters in these books and the addition of Kelly
and Nick to Ty and Zane’s double act meant a lot more quick fire dialogue.
The start of the book had me reading with a
huge grin on my face, a grin that was semi permanent and only interrupted by
moments of laughter. In fact, the grin was stuck on my face for a long time.
But on those occasions when the grin did fall of my face it was because there
was real pain in the story.
I’m not entirely sure what I expected when I
started this book. I was ready for residue of Ty and Zane’s last fight,
especially since it was followed almost immediately by their separation.
Conflict between Nick and Kelly wouldn’t have surprised me either since their
intimate relationship was so very new and almost nipped in the bud by their
separation. What I was completely unprepared for were the issues between Ty and
Nick I was confronted with; deep seated issue without any easy answers. Reading
about those was as painful as it was fascinating and kept me glued to the page.
I
loved Ty’s struggles when he finds out about Nick and Kelly and his difficulty
in determining what exactly is causing him to feel so off about it.
“Stop.
The deal is I don’t freak out, and you don’t share sex stories.”
– Ty to Kelly.
And
I have to admit that I’m falling deeper in love with Kelly and Nick as I read
more about them. Kelly’s support for Nick when he’s facing one of the toughest
decisions he’ll ever have to make was beautiful.
““The
decision you make, you make it for you. Not him.” Kelly whispered in his ear. “You
make it for you. And I’ll be here.” – Kelly to Nick
But
the Kelly’s words towards the end of this book took my breath away.
“What
words do I use for this feeling if ‘I love you’ has already been used.”
Followed
by:
““I
love you, Nick,” Kelly whispered. “No matter what those words meant before, we
know what they mean now. They’re ours now. Just ours.””
Well,
those two quotes all but melted me.
Now
that I’ve finished the book I should say that I wouldn’t have minded a bit more
sexual action on these pages. It wasn’t something I was missing or actively
waiting for while reading the book though. The story with all its twists and
turns, action and clever dialogue had me in such a tight hold that I didn’t
even realise how little sex there’d been until the story had ended.
It
sort of breaks my heart that we appear to be nearing the end of Ty and Zane’s
story. Of course there still is the ‘mole issue’ to resolve but, as things
stand now, it looks like that might be the end of their adventures. Having said
that, the ‘Sidewinder’ stories have only started and this book set us up for
what promises to be one hell of a storyline in that series. And since Ty is
very much a member of the Sidewinder team, the future might not be quite as
bleak as I fear. One thing is sure though; no matter where Abigail Roux decides
to take her characters next, I will be following them closely, making very sure
not to miss a single word in the process.
