Title: His to Protect

Author : Stacey Lynn

Series: Fireside #2

Release date: 12 Jul 2016

Rating : 4 Stars

 

Blurb : A warm home for broken hearts, the Fireside Grill serves up hope and healing in equal measure. Stacey Lynn’s sensual, deeply emotional series heats up as a jaded restaurateur falls hard for a woman who’s hiding from a damaged past. Declan James lost his last ounce of trust the day his wife walked out the door, leaving him to save the restaurant they built together. Throwing himself into his work, Declan swears off women—or at least, women who expect him to stick around in the morning. But when he discovers a skittish beauty scrounging through the Fireside’s trash to feed her dog, Declan offers her a job and a place to rest her head. There’s just something about her that awakens his protective side. And soon, not even that mangy mutt can stop Declan from caring for her.After one too many trips to the ER, Trina Wilson finally gathered the courage to leave her husband, taking only her car and hyperactive boxer. Unfortunately, life on the run proves harder than she anticipated—until Declan takes a leap of faith on her. But even as Trina starts to see beyond his gruff exterior, she can’t relax, even for a moment. Not with her husband still tracking her down. What Trina doesn’t know is that in Declan, she has a powerful ally—and, if she would only follow her heart, a devoted lover.

 

Review : 4 warm stars for His to Protect (Fireside #2) by Stacey Lynn.

 

Trina – the female lead – is a woman on the run. Used by her family and abused by her husband. But even hurt and broken she still remembers the woman she once was. She knows what is wrong with her – every time she flinches just when someone comes a little to close to her. She is a well written and developed character – from her appearance to her struggles and demons. They are clear to the reader and we can see quite easy the transformations she is going through

 

Declan – our male lead – was little more difficult for me. The author paid great attention to details like his appearance and even his voice. Basically everything that related to how Trina was feeling or acting because of certain things he did or said. Like when he speaks to loud or moves to fast and she flinches. But what I was missing out was his struggle. It was described what went wrong in his marriage with Mara.

 

But those descriptions felt detached – I could not make out his hurt in those. They felt like the hearsay description of events by a third party. Together they made (just) a good team – not a great one – if you get what I mean.

 

With the focus on TWO hurt people becoming ONE whole pair … one of those was missing out for me.

 

I liked the story development and the writing style so I will definitely read the next part of this series as well if the plotline will appeal to me. (The first part I left out because I was not attracted to the “mafia” background of the story – but those books read well as standalone so that is no problem)

 

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