Pursuit

Charlotte Court is horrified when she walks into her father’s hospital room to find him dead at the hands of man who is supposed to be protecting him. She knows that Robert Haine is responsible for the death of her beloved parent, the only one she had remaining living, and now he wants her dead too. On the run with a bullet-wound in the shoulder, Charlotte heads for Mexico and only feels safe when she reaches San Luis, the small artisan community in Baja Sur. It is there that Charlotte finds Matt Sanders.

A man running from his past and trying to rebuild his life, Matt builds strength from Charlotte as she does from him. One day, he saves her life and realizes that she needs a protector and on the spot, he takes that role. From then on, they are nearly inseparable. But Robert is not giving up his hunt to kill Charlotte and has sent someone to do the job for him, a ruthless tracker that will not stop until he has found her. But Matt will do whatever it takes to make sure his Angel is ready to fight when the time comes. And in the meantime, getting close to Charlotte is no hardship for him either.

Elizabeth Jennings has penned a wonderful romantic suspense novel that will keep readers enthralled until the very end with PURSUIT. I had previously not read this author but she came highly recommended and I was interested to learn if I would enjoy her work. Needless to say, I will be looking for more Elizabeth Jennings’ novels (she also writes under the pseudonym Lisa Marie Rice) in the future! What a captivating story this was! I kid you not; I was hooked from the beginning. The suspense and intrigue of it was brilliant as the reader followed along in the hunt to find and kill Charlotte with the hired assassin, simply known as Barrett. I thought this was one of the best parts of the novel, as I was held by the methodical way in which he pieced together clues to find out where Charlotte had gone, her travels originating in the Northeast U.S. and ending in Mexico.

But even greater than the suspense was the love story between Charlotte and Matt. Both are in San Luis because they are wounded, Charlotte by a gunshot wound received when she found her father dead, and Matt by gunshot wounds he received while fighting in Afghanistan as he was ready to give up his life to save those of the soldiers in his unit. As both battle back from their wounds, they draw strength from each other even as they do not meet formally. But once they do, both find themselves taken with each other. Matt is a hero I loved from the very beginning. His bravery, his courage, and his fierce protectiveness of Charlotte melted my heart! He is the kind of hero any woman would be proud to call her own. He will definitely stay in my memory for a long, long time to come. And Charlotte, too, impressed me with her strength. First, in fighting against the man who took her father’s life, then in pushing forward even as she nearly died from her untreated wound. Together, these two make an explosive couple. The love scenes were sensual even though they did not account for a large portion of the novel. And yet, I felt so invested in seeing these two to their happily ever after.

Elizabeth Jennings has written a winner in her novel PURSUIT! I look forward to each and every novel that she writes from here on out!

May 2008