Hold Your Breath by Katie Ruggle Series: Search and Rescue #1
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: April 5th 2016
Genres: Romantic Suspense
Pages: 352
Source: Publisher
Format: eARC
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Disclaimer: I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book. All opinions stated are solely mine.
In the remote Rocky Mountains, lives depend on the Search & Rescue brotherhood. But in a place this far off the map, trust is hard to come by and secrets can be murder…
As the captain of Field County’s ice rescue dive team, Callum Cook is driven to perfection. But when he meets new diver Louise “Lou” Sparks, all that hard-won order is obliterated in an instant. Lou is a hurricane. A walking disaster. And with her, he’s never felt more alive…even if keeping her safe may just kill him.
Lou’s new to the Rockies, intent on escaping her controlling ex, and she’s determined to make it on her own terms…no matter how tempting Callum may be. But when a routine training exercise unearths a body, Lou and Callum find themselves thrust into a deadly game of cat and mouse with a killer who will stop at nothing to silence Lou—and prove that not even her new Search and Rescue family can keep her safe forever.
Review
HOLD YOUR BREATH delivers on suspense, romance and drama as expected and I can’t wait to see what comes next in this series.
When we met Louise “Lou” Sparks and Callum Cook in the series prequel, On His Watch, it was obvious that there was a little something sparking between them, even though their roles as boss and new girl constrained them from following through on the attraction between them. Lou’s discovery of a headless body in the lake during dive training breaks the ice between them, figuratively speaking and the discovery of her stalker forces them into close contact, a growing friendship and ultimately, a love connection.
Lou and Callum are so different that it’s surprising that a romance between them worked. While Callum is very anal and a man of very few words, Lou is a tornado leaving chaos in her wake but my favorite thing about this story is her irreverent sense of humor and how she continually poked at Callum. I loved seeing her grow from the pampered East Coast society princess to a mountain woman roughing it in the Rockies.
There really wasn’t a lot of back story on Callum, which I would have loved, to have a better idea of the experiences that made him the man he was, but I loved that Lou was the only one able to loosen him up just a bit.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable story, more of a slow burn than full-throttle action but the pace was steady as Lou and Callum’s relationship progressed and they investigated both the identity of Lou’s stalker as well as the body in the lake. There is a lot of suspense to keep readers guessing and enough romance to satisfy. The growth of Lou and Callum’s relationship from friends to lovers fits in with the whole direction of the story and honestly? I think it was very sweet.
Ms. Ruggle’s experiences obviously shaped Lou’s character and her living conditions, which is intriguing but I’m a city girl through and through and need my conveniences especially electricity to charge my tablet 🙂
PS: On His Watch is currently free at major e-retailers.
About Katie Ruggle
When she’s not writing, Katie Ruggle rides horses, shoots guns, and travels to warm places where she can SCUBA dive.
Graduating from the Police Academy, Katie received her ice-rescue certification and can attest that the reservoirs in the Colorado mountains really are that cold.
While she still misses her off-grid, solar- and wind-powered house in the Rocky Mountains, she now lives in Rochester, Minnesota near her family.
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