“No matter what happens, whatever we find out . . . we will always have each other, right?” he asks. “No matter what.”
Noah Marshall’s mother, Jackie, is the police chief in Austin, Texas. Highly decorated and respected, it comes as a shock to Noah when he discovers the skeletons she has been hiding, skeletons that resulted in crushing an innocent family. When the guilt of her actions becomes too much for her to live with, Noah sets out to complete his mother’s last wish, to track down the daughter of the man she failed.
Gracie Richards has spent the past nineteen years living in a trailer park with her mother since her corrupt cop father was killed in a drug deal gone wrong. Struggling to take care of her heart broken and drug addicted mother, the last thing Gracie expects is to have a strange man with ties to her past show up on her doorstep.
Together Noah and Gracie begin to uncover the truth around her father’s death and the full extent of corruption within the Austin Police Department.
‘Keep Her Safe’ is written in first person point of view and alternates by chapter between Noah, and Gracie in the present, and Abe and Jackie in the past. This technique allows the reader to follow along with Noah and Gracie as they discover the truth about their parents as well as who is truly responsible for Abe Wilkes death, while also understanding Abe and Jackie’s motivations and how things ended up going so wrong.
K.A Tucker has written such authentic characters and I absolutely loved the dynamic between Noah and Gracie, as well as the fact that Noah was not just another tough guy romantic interest, but a genuine and well written character who is sometimes unsure of himself – something many male characters lack in romance novels and was a refreshing change to read;
“Yet sudden, rare fear holds me back from making a move. Fear that she’ll change her mind on a whim, that I want this way more than she does; that, in the end, I won’t be what she wants.
I fight desperately to chase that fear away by pulling her mouth into mine, to kiss her like I’m convincing her that I am what she wants. All that she will ever want. I kiss her like I want her to pine over me. I kiss her like I want her to remember this moment in case we never have another chance.”
‘Keep Her Safe’ also deals with themes of sexism and racism, with both Jackie and Abe having to contend with other people’s bigotry in order to do their jobs;
“So you’re telling me that if my father was white, people would have been as quick to write him off as a dirty cop?”
“I can’t tell you that, Gracie, because you and I both know there are dumb-ass people out there who think the color of your skin decides how you’re going to be. I wish it weren’t true, but it is, especially in Texas. Hell, there’s plenty of people who think women shouldn’t be cops. I never could figure out how my mom landed that job.”
It has been a while since I have read a believable crime novel that has still maintained suspense without become far fetched with the use of Dues Ex Machina (a person or thing that appears suddenly and unexpectedly to provide a solution to a seemingly impossible to solve problem), bad writing, or simple plots that take away from otherwise enjoyable novels. ‘Keep Her Safe’ was such a refreshing change, and I loved not being able to pick what was coming while connecting with well-written characters.
K.A Tucker has written a marvellous novel, creating an intricate and riveting page turning plot with unexpected twists and shocking turns. ‘Keep Her Safe’ is a thrilling and complex slow burn romantic suspense novel by K.A Tucker that will keep you guessing right to the very end.
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