I always consider a new Gun Brooke novel a lovely treat to read and will often put off reading it so I do not have wait long for the next new one. Thorns of the Past is good and I like the characters a lot, especially Sabrina, but as I was reading I just felt like things take an almost absurd twist during the last third of the book and that this takes away from the realism and importance and seriousness of what happened to Sabrina in the past. There are also a few major changes in certain characters, like Sabrina's parents, that just do not ring true. Overall, though, I would still highly recommend Thorns of the Past, both for its characters and the author's sincere and true commitment to capturing the long-lasting and horrific ramifications of sexual assault. ( )

That was intense. That was really, really intense. (And perhaps I shouldn't have read it at night and all in one night. Because while usually, I can separate myself from the plot, I see it, but I don't feel it, but, there was something about how Gun Brooke wrote this suspense novel that had me anxious right along with the characters).

It's the story of Darcy and Sabrina. Darcy is a former Police Officer who had a bad shooting on the job and so she's now a PI for her cousin Meghan's PI firm as well as being a night guard at an office building.

Sabrina works in that building. She has her own accounting firm and she has a helluva past. She was assaulted in college and it changed her forever. And when her office is broken into in the building, and she starts getting threatened and followed she reluctantly lets Darcy help investigate what's going on and slowly they get closer in a romantic way.

But, they each have so much baggage, and it seems like they'll never figure out who's doing this to Sabrina.

Can their blossoming love survive? Hell, can they both survive the book?

As I said above, it was an intense and suspenseful book that kept me up for sure. I highly recommend reading most of it during the day, a bright, bright day.

I got this ARC through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books. ( )