Run from Fear

by Jami Alden

[Cocktails and Books]

I'm going to be honest and say I wasn't really looking forward to the third installment to the Trilogy series. To me, the series was always about Megan Flynn trying to exonerate her brother Sean and the aftermath of Sean being found not-guilty. I didn't like Talia Vega, in either book, despite what horrible things she had suffered because of Nate Brewster. I was iffy on Jack Brooks, because he seemed shady and wishy washy at times. But, I'm absolutely, positively glad I picked this one up because it was absolutely fabulous and changed all my feelings about Talia and Jack.

The story picks up two years after the events in Beg for Mercy and Hide from Evil. Talia is living in Northern California and trying to put together some semblance of a normal life for herself and her eighteen year old sister, Rosie. But she's still haunted by what Nate Brewster, David Maxwell and Margaret Grayson-Maxwell did to her. So it's no surprise that when she starts receiving "gifts" in the mail that were things David Maxwell gave to her, she starts to freak out. What she wasn't counting on was Jack Brooks showing up.

Jack has been keeping his eye on Talia and Rosie, from a distance, for the past two years. He knew how important it was for Talia to feel like she was rebuilding her life and he knew that his feelings for her would always make him want to wrap her up and protect her. When business brings him to Northern California, he stops by to check on her. When their visit didn't go quite as planned, he vowed to stay away. But Talia's gifts make him take control and do what he needs to do to protect her.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I was really crazy about either Jack or Talia in the previous two books. But this book gives you a bird's eye view on just how scarred both of these characters are.

Talia is dealing with the guilt and fear the have been her constant companions since Nate Brewster kidnapped her. She knows it was her mistakes that landed herself and Rosie in the situation that they are in and she trying to ensure they have as normal a life as possible. Unfortunately, despite how she feels about Jack (and she really does like him) all she thinks he sees is the woman he rescued and pities her.

Jack isn't much better off in the emotional department. He had an abusive father with a mother was wasn't willing to help herself or her kids. He tried to save a friend and her son from an abusive Green Beret teammate, but instead had to deal with the aftermath of their murder/suicide. And then there is Talia and what she went through. The man is a big pile of mush covered in muscle.

Putting these two together is a tremendous emotional roller coaster. She pushes, he pulls. He says yes, she says no. But when they do finally get their act together and connect, as a reader you can visually see to halves joining together.

As with the other two books in the series, Jami Alden creates some fabulously evil characters who try to wreck havoc in our hero and heroine's lives. In this case, it's a geeky physics TA who has a need to emulate his hero and take a step his hero was never able to take. He's creepy, in an unassuming kind of way, that may have you looking at the quiet ones a little bit differently!