The Strength Of Family
Characters: Rachel and Ethan Kelly (with appearances by the rest of the Kelly family)
Premise: When Ethan discovers that his wife Rachel isn't dead, he's plunged into a cat and mouse game of trying to protect her from someone trying to finish the job while trying to repair their marriage.
At the start of the story, ex-Navy SEAL, Ethan Kelly is deep-seated in grief at the one-year anniversary of the death of his wife, Rachel and despite their best efforts, the rest of his family hasn't been able to break through his grief even as they tell him that it's time for him to move on as Rachel would want him to move on and be happy, which guys, no! It's only been a year! Hush up and go away, the lot of you. (Sorry ya'll, that's a pet peeve of mine).
For background, Rachel had gone to a humanitarian effort in South America to get away from Ethan who had pulled away from Rachel because he was in a bad headspace after retiring from the Navy and taking it out on her, which my dude! No! He had said that he wanted a divorce---which he did not mean at all---and Rachel was upset and decided to leave, which, yeah, I kinda get, she was blindsided, sometime apart would probably be helpful and allow both of them to clear their heads. Ethan of course regretted this right away and was planning on begging for forgiveness and for her to stay as soon as she got back. Then he got word that she had been killed in a plane crash, and he's understandably upset. But as it turns out, Rachel is not dead and is in fact being held captive, which Ethan when he receives pictures of her in the mail. So Ethan does the smart thing and shows his brothers the information
Then comes the rescue (and honestly, I thought this part was a lot of fun!) The boys go in blazing, wipe out Rachel's captors, and get her to safety. Look, I really doubt this part was by the books, but heck, if I found out that my SIL was being held captive somewhere and had already been there a year, yeah I'm not waiting for permission either. I'll go with asking for forgiveness instead. But of course, these things never run all that smooth and the complication was that Rachel had no memory of Ethan or their marriage (which honestly, I think was because of the drugs she had been continually pumped full of and the book seems to hint at this as well), so Ethan has to rebuild her trust in him and help her fall back in love while hoping that she gets her memories back.
The memory issues. I'm not a doctor of any sort, but between the traumatic experience of almost dying in a crash which claimed the lives of her colleagues and being pumped full of drugs to keep her compliant, I can see how Rachel would block out everything to protect herself. And you know, I liked that it showed both Ethan and Rachel's side of the issues: Ethan trying to show Rachel his love for her without scaring her or pushing her, Rachel learning to trust Ethan again while having dreams/nightmares of the fight they had had before she had left on the trip, and trying to deal with the confusion and fear that cropped up whenever a new memory cropped up. I haven't been in this situation myself, but I can imagine how freaky it can be not sure if you can even trust your own mind.
Of course this isn't even the worst of their problems. Rachel's still got people trying to kill her, but ya know, family full of military men, they ain't gonna stand for this and they go to protect her, and it turns out that the guy who not only tried to kill Rachel before but is now trying to finish the job is a senator---Geron Castle----(and what the heck kind of name is Geron? Good grief!)----who had made a deal with one of the cartels in South America to open up a pipeline to the U.S. if they gave up some of their competitors so that he could appear to be tough on crime and drugs, which, in a sick way, makes sense. Turns out that the cartels kept Rachel alive so that if the senator ever turned on them, they could use her as blackmail, which, also kinda makes sense, in a twisted sort of way.
Books like this are right up my alley and I enjoyed it, though not enough to want to read the rest of the series, giving this particular story an 8.
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