Persephone “Penny” Sapphire Kipos is a young woman with secrets. She is an executive at the family business Kipos International, but she is also a woman who runs her own business as well, but not too many people know she is the person behind the popular whiskey of PSK Distilleries. While she wants to keep Kipos International going, it is not her passion. She is a resourceful woman who is stronger than she lets on, and only a small handful of people know that she is attracted to a man that she grew up with but has been forbidden to associate with, Hagen Lykaios.

Hagan Lykaios is a dark man who has a past but is a powerful business man. He is obsessed with Sapphire, his name for her. He has been for years, but he feels that he is not good enough for her and that he should stay away from her, but he can’t. Hagan wants Sapphire and he wants to corrupt her, little does he know that she is not as innocent as he thinks she is. She is innocent in some ways, but her secrets show that she is more than a beautiful business woman. She is also very smart and resourceful.

I loved this story. It has a wonderful group of characters and the heroine is a sexy, smart, beautiful, rich woman who knows how to take care of herself, and hates to have someone take care of her. She also has a hard time giving that job to anyone other than her group of women that she travels with. Hagan is a sexy, alpha who believes that he is better off alone, but he learns that once he has had Penny he can’t let her go. The chemistry between these two is off the charts hot and so sexy.

I give this story a 5-star review and recommend it to readers who like to read about sexy business women who know how to make a man kneel at their feet and be their everything. I look forward to more about the Lykaios brothers and Penny’s brother Adrian. I have a feeling these men are going to fall hard, just like Hagan did.

Eleanor Laing finds herself in a situation where she needs to find a place to stay. She needs to leave her live in boyfriend or she will not be around any longer to be able to live a happy healthy life. Her best friend and boss, Zak has suggested that she go to stay with her best friend in the United States for a while to recover and get back on her feet. Eleanor’s family lived in the Kansas for a few years where she met Sandy and her family. They became best friends and still keep in touch regularly. Eleanor’s family moved back to England when she was a teen, but the connection between Eleanor and Sandy was too strong to end. Eleanor always looked at Sandy’s family as her second family and felt that she would be able to heal being surrounded by them. Not only does tragedy strike Eleanor at home, but her best friend Sandy goes through a tragic time as well, and Eleanor goes back to Kansas to be there for Sandy.

Ben, Sandy’s older brother was always around when the girls were younger and they both always looked up to him. He is a kindhearted man who even now that he is in a famous country band, is still kind and down to earth. Eleanor and Ben will put in a situation where their friendship starts to change. Ben has his own relationship issues, and is not in the market for a new relationship.

This was a story of two people who have to overcome issues to find their true future and happily ever after. Their paths will cross multiple times before they figure out that they are meant to be. Even with the rough parts of relationships that they encounter, this is a sweet story of two people who move from friendship to love.

I liked the book. This was my first book by Maxine Morrey. I found the story to be a wordy and hard to keep interested at times. It seemed to have a long stretch of time before the couple found themselves together. They spent years away from each other but there didn’t seem to be much about what they were doing during that time. I give the book a 3.5-star review and would recommend it to readers who enjoy sweet contemporary romance, although there is a little darkness in the beginning.

Kelly Roth, a profiler for the FBI Behavioral Science Unit. She is called in on a case in her home state of NY in the same area she grew up. She left NY after she was attacked just before going to college. She lives a solitaire life in Virginia working for the FBI. She likes her life where she keeps to herself and does her job. She hasn’t been in the field much and this case will give her that experience as well as bring her back home.  Kelly meets up with the area police that are working the cases in the three different counties where women were murdered and left to be found by whomever might stumble upon them in local parks near their homes.

As Kelly begins to create her profile and meet with the investigators on the cases, she has to prove her theories to the investigators. She is the only FBI agent on the case after three deaths and the media tagging the murders as the Park Killer victims. When a fourth victim is found still breathing, Kelly calls her boss and asks for help and a larger team to find the killer.

The only way these cases seem to be connected are due to the way the victims have been killed, the victims are women and one child. One of the women is pregnant, but the women or families are not known to each other. Kelly has to figure out how the victims are selected.

The was the first book I’ve read by T. J. Brearton. It was full of suspense and a twist at the end. I really liked it and was surprised at who the killer was and how he acted. I give this story a 4.5-star review and recommend it to any reader who likes police procedural, suspense, crime, or detective stories, and stories with a twist at the end. It was a great story and sucked me in from the first page and wouldn’t let go until I finished the final chapter. I love a story that will pull in so quickly and keep me there.