Claiming Grace by Susan Stoker is the first in the five book series called Ace Security. The novel focuses on two people who were abused their entire lives but in completely different ways. Logan Anderson and his triplet brothers, Nathan and Blake, spent the entirety of their childhood being physically abused by their mother before they all leave after graduating high school. Grace Mason, on the other hand, has been emotionally abused and manipulated by her mother and father well into her adulthood. When the two were in high school together, they formed a friendship while Grace tutored Logan and planned to further their relationship by writing often when Logan joined the Army. Though they both wrote to each other often, neither received any of the letters given that Logan’s were being returned by Grace’s parents unbeknownst to her and Grace never got an address to mail hers to. For ten years each of them believed that the other had decided to forgo their friendship until Logan comes back to their hometown to form Ace Security with his brothers after the death of their parents. The two discover the truth and make plans to get Grace out from under her parents’ thumbs so that they can finally be together, but there are numerous hurdles they have to overcome. When Grace first goes to confront her parents about becoming more independent, they snap and handcuff her to the bed for a week while feeding her only enough to keep her alive. Fortunately, she is freed with the help of Logan, his brothers, and her friends, but they are far from being in the clear. Grace is once again kidnapped by her father and put in a compromising position with the son of another wealthy family. Once she is saved (again), the group devise a plan to reveal all of the shady business Grace’s parents were involved in. After the Masons are arrested, Grace and Logan are finally able to have a normal relationship.

When I first read the synopsis on the back of Claiming Grace, I thought that the concept would make for an interesting read. That being said, I think that the execution was done incredibly poorly. All of the characters in the book, including the main protagonists, had a two-dimensional aspect to them. All of the dialogue seemed forced, and I couldn’t picture actual human beings speaking to each other like that. Specifically the way that Grace’s parents would speak to her and about their plans seemed like it was written by a person who had never heard a villain speak in any capacity. After a while, the actions in the book seemed fairly unrealistic and cheesy eventually becoming outlandish. The ending when the parents are finally brought to justice for their crimes was anticlimactic and boring. Overall, I would have to rate Claiming Grace by Susan Stoker a 2.9/10.

Stoker, Susan. Claiming Grace. Montlake Romance, 2017.

She Can Tell is the second installment in Melinda Leigh’s She Can series which consists of romantic suspense novels. It takes place in a small town in Pennsylvania and focuses on a horseback rider, Rachel Parker, and the police chief, Mike O’Connell. Rachel has recently moved back into the house she inherited from her grandparents to be closer to her sister and two nieces who are stuck in a domestic abuse situation. Once she arrives, she immediately begins to receive threats in the form of vandalism to leave town which she assumes is from her brother-in-law, Troy. But when Troy is arrested on accounts of domestic violence and the threats continue, Rachel realizes that there is someone else out there who hates her just as much if not more. Mike becomes involved when he responds at the scene of Sarah, Rachel’s sister, and Troy’s domestic dispute, and sticks around when he realizes the level of danger that Rachel is in. Unfortunately, Rachel’s stalker begins to escalate from vandalism to attempting to kill her by cutting her saddle, filling her mailbox with bees which she is deathly allergic to, and setting her barn full of eleven horses on fire. We find out that the person attacking Rachel is her old neighbor that lived next door and worked for her father, and was taking these measures because he believed that she was the only living person who could connect him to a decades old murder.

This novel reminded me a lot of the last book that I reviewed on my passion blog which was called Divine Evil. Both books had a female protagonist who moved back to their small town after years of being away and had the knowledge of a secret in the town, but believed it to be a nightmare they had as children. The male protagonists are both high official law enforcement officers who once operated in a large city and moved back to their small hometown for a quieter beat. The villain(s) in the two novels end up being people that the protagonist have known the entire time. While Divine Evil and She Can Tell had similar plots, the authors had very different writing styles, so it did not feel identical when reading them.

Rachel and Mike definitely had an attraction between them that began the moment they first met. It wasn’t until about halfway through the book that they let their guard down and the passion that they had for one another became evident. She Can Tell did a wonderful job of balancing the romance aspect and the suspense part that made it an enjoyable read. Overall, I would have to rate She Can Tell by Melinda Leigh a 6.7/10.

Leigh, Melinda. She Can Tell. Unabridged, Montlake Romance, 2012.