Friday, August 26, 2022

Review: Crossfire by Lynette Eason

Series: Extreme Measures #2
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Revell
Released: August 2, 2022
308 pages
About the Book:

FBI special agent Julianna James is a top-notch negotiator who has never lost a hostage. Surely, she can manage to take care of her much younger sister, Dottie, who showed up unannounced to live with Julianna while she finished her senior year of high school.

A former sniper with the 75th Ranger Regiment, Clay Snyder left the army after a tragic incident that he can't get past. Now he's working as a high school resource officer until he can figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

Their paths cross when Julianna is called in to negotiate a courtroom hostage situation involving Clay's sister. Impressed and a bit intimidated by the calm, capable woman with the dark hair and blue eyes, Clay invites her to speak at his school. Dottie's school.

But as the anniversary of a school shooting from Julianna's past approaches, it becomes clear that her perfect record is about to be tested and that Dottie is at risk. If Julianna and Clay can't figure out who's behind the attacks, more innocent people will die--and Julianna just might be one of them.

My Rating & Thoughts:    ⭐⭐⭐⭐


Julianna has honed the ability to stay calm under pressure and has become a top-rated hostage negotiator for the FBI. She is called to a hostage situation and ends up meeting School Resource Officer Clay who has arrived on scene after learning his younger sister, Reese, is one of hostages. Clay is intrigued by Julianna and her job. Once the hostage situation is resolved he explains an event that he is putting on at the school and asks if she will speak at it about her job. She agrees and a friendship between them begins to develop. Clay & Julianna both have younger siblings who they are very close to and protective of, Reese and Dottie. These two girls end up forming a friendship themselves which was fun to see. Then an incident happens while they are together leading Clay and Julianna to ask if it was random or were the girls targeted? Meanwhile Julianna keeps getting personally requested to hostage situations by the hostage taker, this has not happened in the past leading her to ask why? We get snippets from the villain’s point of view, without revealing who they are. As much as I tried, I could not figure out who the villain was or what motivated them until Julianna had figured it out. I loved getting an inside look at negotiating and the way the whole team (negotiator, research analysts and SWAT) must work together in these situations. I enjoyed how the story showed that God is always there for us. He doesn’t stop bad stuff from happening (because we live in a fallen world and people have free will) but he is there to help us through it. I really enjoyed the sibling relationship that both Clay and Julianna had with their sisters. The only thing I struggled is at times the POV would switch to a particular person and I couldn’t figure out how they fit into the story, their involvement wasn’t revealed until the very end. Only just before this reveal did I guess how they were involved. I don’t think their sections really added to main storyline.

I couldn’t put this book down and read it in two days. I quickly came to care about the main characters and was engrossed in trying to figure how everything that was happening tied together. While I do enjoy romance in books, I liked that the budding romance did not overshadow the suspense, it just there in the background and added some sweet moments. While I always recommend reading series books in order, this one could easily be read as a standalone. 

Favourite Quotes: 
“Living in a fallen world meant there would be bad times, but He was still good.”

“I am who you made me to be, and as long as I'm walking the path you've set me on, I have no reason to feel inferior or 'less than'.”

(I received an ARC of this book from Revell through NetGalley; opinions expressed 
in this review are my honest opinion and completely my own.)

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