Exposing the Heiress by Jennifer Apodaca Published by Entangled: Ignite
Publication Date: August 4th 2015
Genres: Romantic Suspense
Source: Publisher
Format: eARC
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Disclaimer: I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book. All opinions stated are solely mine.
This Marine will protect her at all costs…
When wealthy heiress Alyssa Brooks finds out her stepfather has been paying her fiancé to marry her, she’s humiliated and betrayed. She quickly breaks the engagement, only to be blackmailed by her now ex-fiancé, who threatens both Alyssa and the son she gave up for adoption. With nowhere to go, she turns to the one man she can trust.
Former Marine sniper Hunter Reece’s lethal skills could save Alyssa’s life. But his little sister’s best friend has turned into a woman, who is an irresistible mix of secrets and sexiness. And while Hunter can trust himself to protect her, he can’t trust himself to keep his attraction hidden…or even pretend to be the man that Alyssa remembers.
Because the only way to keep the lovely heiress safe is to become the one thing he knows she could never love…a killer.
The blurb for this book had everything I love in books – a Marine, an ex-fiancé with an ax to grind and the best friend of a sibling as a love interest and caught my eye.
Alyssa Brooks is weeks away from getting married when she stumbles on her stepfather and her fiancé discussing their future plans and the payments her stepfather has been making to her fiancé to marry her. When she confronts her fiancé and breaks the engagement, he resorts to blackmail and threats to coerce her to go through with the marriage. In fear for her life and that of the son she gave up for adoption, she retains the services of a security agency to provide protection and quite fortuitously, is assigned Hunter Reece as her bodyguard.
Hunter is the elder brother of her childhood best friend and is quick to step up to ensure her well-being, whisking her away to safety. Hunt was Alyssa’s first crush and now that they are in hiding together, those feelings grow into something more, but the two of them are not the kids they were back then. Hunter is former Marine sniper who came back home with lots of issues and does not consider himself relationship material, having tried it once unsuccessfully. Alyssa has faced her own issues – her mother’s death and the resulting fallout including her pregnancy and giving her baby up for adoption and she is willing to take the little that Hunt can give her rather than have nothing at all.
The time in hiding was great for them because apart from the attraction that flared up between them, Alyssa and Hunt find themselves opening to each other completely, sharing secrets that they have held closely for a long time and I loved all of it, including the healing that sharing brought them. When it comes to relationships, both of them had been dealt the short end of the stick, the only difference being that while Hunt thought he wasn’t relationship material because of what he had done in the Marines, Alyssa thought she was unworthy because, in addition to the loss of her parents, everyone else either left her or used her.
I enjoyed EXPOSING THE HEIRESS particularly because of the friendship that Alyssa and Hunt built on what they had from their childhood and the ease and openness of their interactions. I also enjoyed seeing Alyssa take charge of her life and go for what she wanted- her career, Hunt – instead of allowing herself be manipulated into doing what she was not comfortable with.
The suspense was very well done. Even though the villain was known from the beginning, his attacks on Alyssa, his well-covered tracks and the wait for him to show his hand was enough to keep me on the edge. Now, I have a few issues, especially the speed at which they moved their relationship along, but these do not affect my overall enjoyment of the story and knowing that I’ve had the first two books in the series in my TBR? I’m definitely moving them to the top of the pile.
SERIES ORDER
Find series online: Goodreads |Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
About Jennifer Apodaca
Award winning author Jennifer Apodaca grew up in Southern California and met her very own hero at the dog pound. She worked there, he came in on business, and it was puppy love. They married and had three wonderful sons.
While her husband worked on his master’s degree, Jen did the mom thing by day and went to college at night with the intention of pursuing a marketing degree. But her true passion was writing. With time at a premium, she had to make a choice.
Choosing writing, and with the full support of her husband, she poured herself into her dream. A mere eight years later, she published her first book DATING CAN BE MURDER. In her career, Jen has written a fun and sexy mystery series and a variety of contemporary romances. Taking the pen name of Jennifer Lyon, she also created a dark, sizzling paranormal series, and most recently, The Plus One Chronicles, an emotional and sexy adult contemporary series.
Jen has achieved many of her dreams except for attaining a self-cleaning house, a latte delivery service, and finding the holy grail of nonfattening wine and chocolate. She can live with those disappointments as long as she can keep writing the stories she loves to share with readers.
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