Final Siege (Love Over Duty #2) – Scarlett Cole (Review)

Expected publication date: January 30, 2018

Cover blurb:

IN THE LINE OF FIRE…

Former SEAL Malachai “Mac” MacCarrick is all about the future he’s created with his Navy brothers in Eagle Securities, taking assignments in the most dangerous places, and doing things no one but ex-military would attempt. But when an urgent phone call brings his troubled past—and the woman he once loved—into the present, it’s a chance to redeem himself that he can’t refuse.

STRAIGHT TO THE HEART…

An investigative journalist researching an explosive story, Delaney Shapiro tells herself she got over Mac—and his role in her brother’s death—a long time ago. But the first moment she sees him at her bedside in an overseas hospital, she knows it’s not true. Every moment together rekindles the desire that once burned between them, and now that she’s a target for an emerging Russian arms dealer, Mac won’t let her out of his sight. To protect her, he’ll risk it all—including his life…

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You can’t be surprised that after an excursion into nonfiction, I returned to the world of hot guys with guns, are you?  And what’s better than the second book in a series set in San Diego?  Toss in the fact that it is a second chance romance involving danger, and it was a no brainer!

We first met Malachai ‘Mac’ MacCarrick in “Under Fire”, the first in the ‘Love Over Duty’ series about a group of former SEALs that open a security company after leaving active duty.  (Instant FF catnip!)  There are brief references to his past relationship with Delaney, which was torn apart after her brother Brock died in an accident she blames Mac for, and they have not seen each other in 14 years.  In fact, their last encounter was when she slapped him in front of her brother’s coffin.  (More FF catnip-angst!)

So it comes as a complete surprise to him when he receives a call from Landstuhl informing him that not only has Delaney been injured, but she asks for him during her brief periods of lucidity.  He immediately goes to be with her, and what he finds shocks him.  She had been captured in Afghanistan and beaten while investigating aid to insurgents from an unknown party in the US, including both money and weapons. (Not that she’ll tell him at first what she exactly she had been investigating.)  Delaney is torn when she realizes who exactly is with her; as much as she loved him, she can’t forget his role in her brother’s death.  But when it becomes clear that the danger has followed her from Afghanistan to the US, she knows she needs his help and that of the rest of Eagle Securities.

Okay, the second chance romance trope is one of my favorites so on many levels this is my kind of book!  Mac is also my kind of hero: hot, sexy and dangerous, but with a soft spot for those he loves.  I waver on Delaney though, because she comes across as just a tad too stubborn, and I didn’t like how long it took for her to finally listen to Mac about what happened that fateful night with Brock.  I get it, but I just didn’t like her as much as I liked Lou from the previous novel.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to other fans of romantic suspense, and I can’t wait for Cabe’s story…the angst in that one is going to be off the charts!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the eARC!