Review: Love Me To Death by Allison Brennan

Love Me To Death
By: Allison Brennan

Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages 
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Original edition (December 28, 2010)

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Review for: TLC Book Tours

A tale of suspense and deep darkness of the soul.  Allison Brennan brings readers a story that will captivate them from beginning to end in Love Me To Death.

Upon beginning Love Me To Death, I was hooked.  The suspense and action is constant throughout the entire story, taking the reader on a journey of unending twists and turns. 

It has been six years since Lucy Kincaid was brutally raped, tortured and nearly killed.  Through it all, she has come out strong and determined to save others from ever suffering as she once did.  With the dream and goal of becoming an official part of the FBI, Lucy works for an undercover victim's rights group, whose main goal is to put rapists and attackers, out on parole, back into prison.  What Lucy did not count on were the guys she "set up" through online chats, to end up dead.  Exactly who is taking matters into their own hands and why are they making Lucy look like a suspect? 

If she didn't have enough to deal with, Lucy discovers there is a stalker on her tail, and the terror of six years ago, which constantly haunts her, comes thrusting forward relentlessly.  The one glimmer of light, filtering through the nightmare, is Sean, Lucy's brother's partner in a security firm.  Sean is set on protecting Lucy, no matter the consequence, and will stop at nothing to keep her safe.  As the flame soars between Lucy and Sean, the twisted and menacing mind of evil gets closer to Lucy and her dream of a "normal" life.  Can she be saved before spiraling into an eternity of darkness and endless torment?

Love Me To Death focuses on a very real and very terrifying epidemic - online predators and sex offenders.  This is not a book that can be read light-heartedly, nor without having a cruel reality thrown in the reader's face.  However, this realism creates a memorable and hard-to-put-down read.  The story is solid and I really enjoyed the characters.  Particularly the strength and courage of Lucy and the sturdiness and love of Sean.  They are both incredibly real and strong characters that work well off of one another, as well as together.  I also enjoyed Kate, Lucy's sister-in-law, whose care and love of Lucy makes for a wonderful support system as well as an added dimension to the story itself.

While I greatly enjoyed the story weaved by Ms. Brennan, I do have to be honest in saying that as I read Love Me To Death, I often felt as though this was actually a continuation of a prior story.  I did a bit of searching and did not come across anywhere that mentioned this book being a spin-off of another or part of a series, so I am not exactly sure what to think of this aspect.  This prior story, did unfold throughout the main story, however as I read, I often felt questions popping up in my mind, as well as feeling as though I was missing something, somewhere.  I am not sure if this was intentional, on the part of the author, as a way to draw the reader in and make them continue to read to try and figure the questions out?  Whatever the reason, it did take a bit away from the story, for me.  While I loved the characters and plot, I was unable to completely feel as though I was within the story, for reason of lacking information.  I do enjoy Allison Brennan's writing style and her ability to create a fantastic story, so I still recommend Love Me To Death to readers looking for a great suspense story, however I did want to mention my trepidation on the background story, to make future readers aware of it.  Overall, Love Me To Death is a great read and held my attention from start to finish.

About Love Me To Death:

Six years ago, Lucy Kincaid was attacked and nearly killed by an online predator.  She survived.  Her attacker did not.  Now Lucy’s goal is to join the FBI and fight cyber-crime, but in the meantime, she’s volunteering with a victim’s rights group, surfing the Web undercover to lure sex offenders into the hands of the law.  But when the predators she hunts start turning up as murder victims, the FBI takes a whole new interest in Lucy.

With her future and possibly even her freedom suddenly in jeopardy, Lucy discovers she’s a pawn in someone’s twisted plot to mete out vigilante justice.  She joins forces with security expert and daredevil Sean Rogan, and together they track their elusive quarry from anonymous online chat rooms onto the mean streets of Washington, D.C.  But someone else is shadowing them:  A merciless stalker has his savage eye on Lucy. The only way for her to escape his brutality may be another fight to the death.

About Allison Brennan:

Allison Brennan is the New York Times bestselling author of many romantic thrillers, including Carnal Sin, Original Sin, Fatal Secrets, Cutting Edge, and Sudden Death.  A four-time RITA finalist and Daphne du Maurier Award winner, Brennan enjoys spending her free time reading, playing games, watching high school sports, and researching her novels.  She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Horror Writers Association, and Internation Thriller Writers.  Allison Brennan lives in Northern California with her husband, Dan, and their five children.

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For more information, visit Allison’s website or connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

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