Review: Nothing to Fear

Nothing to Fear
Karen Rose
Romantic Suspense
Grand Central/August 2005
Library Book

From the back cover ~

Nothing to See

As director of an inner-city woman’s shelter, Dana Dupinsky safeguards many secrets. Some are new identities; some are new addresses; and some are even hidden truths about herself. Passionately dedicated to Hanover House and the women she protects, Dana has always been reluctant to look for love. But now, just as a case puts her and a child in mortal danger, it seems that love has come looking for her.

Nothing to Hear

Security expert Ethan Buchanan learned to stalk men in the Afghan desert. Now he vows to track down the ruthless woman who kidnapped his godson—and falling for Dana is not in the plan. Yet her very presence seems to chase away the ghosts that haunt him, and her skillful evasion of personal questions raises his hunting instincts. For there’s a deadly new secret at Hanover House. A brutal killer is weaving a web of revenge with a stolen boy at its center. And Dana is the next victim on the list…

I love finding a new to me author with a nice, long back list to enjoy. Karen Rose has become one of my go to author's for romantic suspense. She writes complex characters and dark, warped antagonists that give the heroes and heroines worthy adversaries.

We met Dana Dupinsky in Rose's first book, Don't Tell. Dana runs the same Chicago shelter that the heroine from that book, Caroline Stewart, ended up in. I really liked Dana in Don't Tell and have been looking forward to her story. She's smart and tough but has a soft side when it comes to abused women and children. She puts her heart, and her money, into running the shelter. Dana doesn't have time for romance, she barely has time to sleep, but when Ethan Buchanan shows up, Dana takes notice of the handsome security expert.

Ethan is such a wonderful hero. He's an alpha but he's also smart, loyal and loving. Ha - sounds like a puppy! LOL I liked him a whole bunch. He's close to his family and is pulled into the kidnapping because of an old friendship and guilt. Ethan's searching for his kidnapped godson and the psycho woman who took the boy. Ethan is a security expert, not an actual PI, so it's a good thing that his brothers are Chicago police officers. Ethan is no slouch when it comes to protecting those he cares about. He's there for Dana when she needs him even though she doesn't like to lean on anyone. Ethan lets her know that it's okay to ask for help and not do everything herself.

One thing that I enjoyed was seeing some characters from the previous books play roles in solving the murders and finding the kidnapped boy. It's good to see the development of the characters prior to reading their stories as well as catching up with previous primary characters. I was especially pleased to see Evie Wilson, a young women who was attacked and brutalized in book 1. She's an interesting character and we do get her story but not until I Can See You (book 10).

The kidnapper and murderer are known to the reader. That's not kept a secret. What is kept from the reader, until the end, is the why of the kidnapping and murders. Some of the killings psycho bitch commits are really just because she can, and well, she's a psycho. I'm not sure what it says about me but I like when the antagonist is a woman who's not a watered down version of what the character would have been had the antagonist been a male. Women may not commit murder as often as men but they can be just as evil and violent as men. In a way it makes it almost colder, more evil, when it's a woman doing the killing. Women are thought to be nurtures not killers. Rose does an admiral job getting into the mind of psycho bitch and her twisted logic.

Rose does the suspense and violence well, giving this reader just enough to keep me on the edge but not completely grossing me out. I also liked the romance between Dana and Ethan but it never overtook the suspense - there was a good balance between the two. I would even go as far as saying the suspense gets more page time than the romance but that's what I've come to expect from Rose and that's fine with me. This is another long one, coming in at just over 500 pages, but it goes quickly. Another well written book in this loosely connected series.

Rating: A-