Locked-Down Heart

by Tarina Deaton

I hadn’t read the first book in this series and I will admit that after about 15% of this one I realised my mistake and put this one down and started at the very beginning, I would suggest that if you haven’t read Half-Broke Heart you should, for me it filled in the details that I hadn’t known that I was missing!

Denise had suffered, the death of both her best friend and a family member had taken their toll on her and left her in a position that she had never anticipated, looking after her cousin’s children but I had a gut feeling that this was a woman with an inner strength and fortitude that I believed would stand her in good stead, the question though wasn’t what I believed it was what she did and I wasn’t sure that she felt the same way.

I say that because, it seemed that initially it appeared that her fears were ones that weren’t always easy for her to overcome, and that was compounded when her past stucks its oar in and threatened to upset all the progress she has made.

With Chris back on the scene, it was far from easy to see how they could piece things back together, after all he was the man that left her not only high and dry but totally broken hearted when he left. But was his re-emergence more to do with his job or were his feelings for Denise the driving force, it was hard to tell, the waters were still muddied and I couldn’t help but think that she deserved better.

Would he change my mind?

I didn’t think he could but I have to admit that the guy has some skills, I got the impression that the way he was with Denise was genuine and the passion that the author gave the pair of them brought that completely to life, they had so much going for them that it wasn’t easy to see if the author was just playing a very clever game of whether she was going to give the pair of them the happy ever after that I actually came to think they deserved.

Don’t be surprised if you catch yourself shedding a tear or two as this story unfolds, I thought the emotion that the story conveyed was pitched to perfection and applaud the author for a work that was memorable for all the right reasons.