Review: A Distant Shore by Karen Kingsbury

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Atria Books
Released: April 27, 2021
374 pages

About the Book:

She was a child caught in a riptide in the Caribbean Sea. He was a teenager from the East Coast on vacation with his family. He dove in to save her, and that single terrifying moment changed both of their lives forever.

Ten years later Jack Ryder is a daring undercover agent with the FBI and Eliza Lawrence still lives on that pristine island. She’s an untainted princess in a kingdom of darkness and evil, on the brink of a forced marriage with a dangerous neighboring drug lord, a marriage arranged by her father. This time when Jack and Eliza meet, there’s a connection neither of them can explain. Both of their lives are on the line, and once again, the stakes are deadly high.

Can they join forces in a complicated and dangerous mission, pretending to have a breathtaking love…without really falling? Sometimes miracles happen not once, but twice…along a distant shore.

  

My Rating & Thoughts:    ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was a bit confused with the way this book started, but by chapter two I was tearing up when an incident happens that broke my heart. I really wondered where it was going to go from there. It then picks up 10 years later and we discover Eliza’s situation. Wow, I felt for her so much. Sex trafficking is the central plot of this book. I quickly grew to like the characters of Eliza and Jack and was rooting for the good guys to win overall. I loved Eliza’s determination and stubbornness. There is an event that happens that I thought was going to go one way, but something completely different happens that left me curious on what was going to happen next, because of this and the feeling drawn to the characters I found that I couldn’t put the book down. The story went in such a different way than what I was expecting, and that was okay because it made it unpredictable for me. I was really enjoying the story and the characters but then a particular scene takes place and I felt like ‘oh that was weird’, I really didn’t know what to think at this point, but I kept going and thankfully this only had an impact on a very small portion of the story. I understand this part was included to share a certain message, but I did not like the way it was portrayed, it just made it unbelievable for me. I did really enjoy these characters, was cheering for things to work out for them and really thought I might give rate this book 5 stars, but then the one scene happened and I couldn’t give it a 5 stars. I also found the ending to be a little predictable. Overall, I really enjoyed these characters and could have spent more time with them. 

(I received this book as a gift from a friend; opinions expressed 

in this review are my honest opinion and completely my own.)