Review: Final Siege

Final Siege by Scarlett Cole
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two and a half stars.

So I quite liked the first book in this new series, the heroine had a brain and was unusual, I didn't really warm to the hero and heroine but the first book in a new series can often be a bit 'off' as the author finds their feet so I was looking forward to the second book.

Delaney Shapiro was madly in love with her older brother Brock's best friend Malachi 'Mac' MacCarrick until the day her brother died, being goaded to jump off a cliff by Mac. Her father died shortly afterwards and her mother became an alcoholic.

Fourteen years later and she has not seen or spoken to Mac since her brother's funeral. Mac is now a former Navy SEAL who has set up Eagle Securities with Brock's other friends. As usual, these are all military and do super secret security stuff. One day Mac gets a call from a military hospital in Germany, Delaney is a journalist and had been kidnapped, drugged and tortured in Tajikistan following a story about US companies being complicit in arming the Taliban. In her delirium Delaney asks for Mac and he comes to her aid.

Reunited after fourteen years Mac is still just as much in love with Delaney as he ever was, but she can never forgive him for causing the deaths of her beloved brother and father.

Delaney comes back to San Diego but soon believes that she is being followed and a man tries to break into her apartment whilst she is in there. Obviously she is on to something with her investigation but irritatingly she doesn't know what.

I didn't really enjoy this book, although I read it through to the end. Delaney (as many others have said) acts like a petulant teenager, refusing to listen to Mac's explanation of what really happened that day and insisting on hating him, whilst also relying upon Mac to keep her safe from the men following her. I didn't really understand why Mac loved her still, and if he called her Buttons once he called her it 49 times (okay all 49 instances in the book might not all be the annoying nickname) - it's a stupid nickname.

This book sat uneasily in that grey area between true romantic suspense and light-weight romance with a bit of a mystery. The plot was all over the place (and had to stop for frequent bouts of bonking as Delaney and Mac had sex on every available surface), I still don't have a grasp on WHY the men were chasing Delaney, because frankly until a source gives the team A REALLY BIG CLUE they are totally in the dark. So there was too much sex and feelings for a romantic suspense but too much plot for a mystery romance.

I don't think it helped that I have also confused the arc in the first book with another book (which I now have to try and find) where there are mysterious goings on in the town where the good guys have created their compound - I was looking for that arc!

I still love Scarlett Cole as an author, her recent book Nikan Rebuilt was a rollercoaster of emotions, but I'm afraid this book didn't do it for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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