Well it's not what I expected but I like how it turned out. I am a HUGE fan of Lora Leigh's Breeds series. It was one of the first books I ever read, I devoured them then and still love them now.
I have read a few other books from her outside that series but not many so I had no clue what I was getting myself into and to be honest I dreaded reading it after seeing some reviews.

Now I love an asshole alpha who's over possessive, all cock sure arrogant and bossy as hell. Riordan was all of that and more. Amara cracked me up with her sass and constant defiance to all of the men in her life. She had me in stitches when she was giving the lectures and the stink eye. She may be small but she's mighty!.

The story is well written and jam packed full of suspense. The author cock teases us mercilessly throughout the book with that slow burn drawn out heavy petting but no action shit.. when it finally happened I was singing halle-fucking -lujah thank you smut gods. There is a lot going on here and yes the amnesia part was a little cheesy but it draws out the desired emotions ... that ending was EVERYTHING.
I have no complaints! I liked the pace of the story, I loved the characters! And I just allround enjoyed the book.

I'm so curious about Ivan though!. Crimsyn..... she has me all kinds of curious to.

I kindly received this ARC from the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

ARC for an honest review from St. Martins press......Not sure I could forget Riordan, but Amara does. She was kidnapped and he almost dies saving her and she forgets him.......but six months later she's dreaming about him, he's ready to pick up where they left off but is she?? Such a good book.....love Lora Leigh

Six months ago Amara was kidnapped and beaten. When Riordan and his team rescue her she watches as the love of her life is killed. When she awakens in the hospital she has no memory of her abduction or anything from the moment she first met Riordan. But the nightmares and memories are just a whisper and a dream away and she instinctively knows that she is still in mortal danger.

After retreating to his family’s home in Texas, Riordan is struggling to regain his strength even as his attempts to contact Amara go unfulfilled. She refuses to speak to him. Now she’s at his front door and it’s time he returns to the house where he found this amazing woman in an effort to not only help her to find her memories, but to protect her from the ones who would kill her.

I really enjoyed this couple and their struggle to wade through Amara’s memories, dreams and reality. Lora Leigh is known for some of the sexiest, steamiest scenes and she doesn’t disappoint here. Riordan is trying to keep himself in check knowing that Amara needs to remember him and not just a dream. Along the way he’s being tormented with the desperate need to protect her from someone that only she knows.

Riordan is the perfect possessive, protective alpha hero while Amara is a bit of innocence, fragility due to her memory loss, and determination. When the end comes down, she takes the adult and responsible approach of addressing it instead of making a ridiculous decision. I appreciated that her character was mature enough to do so.

While this has a slower pace it has a lot of layers of suspense and a bit of thriller. Plenty of secondary characters to help keep you guessing who the bad guy is as well. This couple pretty much wraps up at the end but the epilogue is setting us up for the next book. Hopefully, we’ll get a future look at Riordan and Amara along the way.

This is an honest review of an advanced copy provided by NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press

Noteworthy experiences while reading this book: My first book by this author not sure if I will read more.

Check out author's other books? Yes
Recommend this book? Yes

Notes and Opinions: Although I do recommend this book it would have to be to this author's fans. For me, it was more of a 3 1/2 star but we don't do half stars so I just rounded up. This is a very sexy and steamy title. Although some of them seemed a little over the top and just a tad over done. The story itself was well paced and the characters were all well formed. The other issue I had was the introduction of another character during the end of the book. It just made the ending feel very weird.

The story did at times feel a little choppy but I pretty much kept everything together. It was a great premise of using memory loss and romance and a thriller all in one. I think I will check out the next one when it comes out though just because I did like it enough that I would like to see what happens.

Go Into This One Knowing: A little choppy at times, Over Done Sex, Great Story

The story had me entertained up to the end. Then it lost credibility. These people were supposed to be professionals and thorough investigators and none of them were able to figure who the kidnapper was? I was very disappointed.

Feisty heroine,macho hero,protective father what more could you want. A story that moves along and an unlikely villain.

I thoroughly loved reading the extraordinary first book in the Brute Force series. I voluntarily reviewed a copy of the story through NetGalley. Even though Amara can't remember her lover and bodyguard, Riordan, saving her life and almost dying himself, she feels closely connected to him and needs him to protect her again. Read the highly recommended, wonderfully written, full of romance, intrigue, and mystery, and riveting the reader to the storyline. Can't wait to read the second book in the series by the incredibly talented Lora Leigh!

Read this in one sitting, I love all of Lora Leigh’s books! This is the first book of the Brute Force series which is a spin off from the Elite Ops series. Our hero, Riordan Malone is the brother to Nathan Malone who is the hero in Wild Card, the first Elite Ops book. Amara Resanova is the daughter of a powerful man, a Russian ex-crime lord who became mostly legitimate for the sake of his daughter. Riordan is brought on as a Brute Force operative / bodyguard for Amara and sparks fly. Rory is sent away on a mission by Amara’s father and in his absence, she is abducted and tortured until Rory and the rest of the Brute Force team can rescue her. Rory is shot and almost killed during her rescue and taken away to recover for several months. When Amara wakes up in the hospital, she remembers nothing of the past year, which includes her past with Rory. When months of little incidents that can’t be coincidence keep happening and endangering Amara’s life, she decides to trust in the strange dreams she’s been having that push her to find Rory, to go to him for help. With the woman he loves back in his life, Rory won’t allow her to escape him again. He will do whatever it takes to protect her and stay strong when her slowly returning memories could destroy them both.

This novel opens up right into an explosive beginning and boy was I hooked. I loved Riordan and Amara and thought their relationship was intense and provocative. Their chemistry was fiery and their banter was just as hot. I could not get enough of this story!

Daughter of an alleged notorious crime lord Amara Resnova and Bodyguard/Special Ops Agent Riordan Malone have a history. Deeply connected as past lovers, they are both reeling after she was abducted six months earlier. Feeling guilt after what happened to her and her losing her entire memory of the kidnapping, they must now work together to find out who has been trying to kill her. But as they travel a road ridden by secrets and lies and hidden memmories, will they be able to lean on each other when danger arises?

I enjoyed this book and look forward to more books in this series. But while I thought this novel was fantastic, there were times I was confused and kept feeling like I was missing pertinent background details. All in all this was great and I look forward to book two in this series.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the SMP Romance team for an advanced copy of this book for an honest review. Bravo! 4 stars! ~Ratula

Having read and enjoyed several books by Lora Leigh, I was excited to see she was starting a new series. However, I hadn't realized this new series was actually a spin-off of her Elite Ops series, which I did not read. As a result, I really felt I was missing some of the background information and characters. While in some ways, that made me want to read to find out the full story of Nathan/Noah, overall it just hurt this story. So while I didn't hate this story, I am glad this isn't the first book I have read from this author or I probably wouldn't have ever read more.

Lora Leigh has done it again. She can suck you in from the beginning and keep you questioning what's going to happen next. Amara is the protected daughter of a somewhat shady businessman. But when she is kidnapped her entire world changes. She has no memory of the year prior to her kidnapping, which includes meeting and falling for Riordan. They both have healing to do and then it's time to get back what he's lost. Cause Riordan isn't the kind of man to walk away from the best thing that's happened to him. And finding out who was behind Amara's kidnapping and helping her get her lost memories are his to priority.

Thoroughly enjoyed Riordan and Amara's story. The Malone men are worth waiting for! Amara's memory loss was tied to other losses and betrayal making the gradual return of those memories fraught with danger and sadness. Well written, sexy story.

This book was just messy and confusing to me. While a plot with the heroine in danger is a good starting point, who she was in danger from created a really convoluted ending. It didn't seem like the romantic leads really liked, trusted or respected each other, just had good sexual chemistry. This made it hard for me to pull for them ending up together. The love scenes didn't really feel romantic and natural, just kind of cringe-worthy. In addition, the cover of the book says "First in a new series", but it's clear that one of the other supporting characters has a whole backstory of his own that I haven't read.

Explosive action and sexy romance abound in this fast-paced novel by Lora Leigh.

This was an ok book. I will start with I enjoyed the storyline of this book a lot. How everything went down was well written and I liked most of the characters. I didn't like Riordan or the way he was toward Amara. It is personal preference here, he just wasn't a character I liked. Amara was strong but had some crazy choices. She says Riordan isn't her kind of man and sometimes it is like she hates him but they are great in bed together and have an unexplanable connection.
Amara doesn't remember the last year of her life. She knows she was abducted and rescued but that was only 6 months ago. The only thing that she believes in is the man from her dreams, a man that she doesn't rmeember but knows she can trust. Riordan was her bodyguard and so much more. His getting her to remember that is what may unlock all the other memories that she has repressed.
It was a 2/5 for me. I do want to know what happens to this family in the future though.

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy of this book. I received this book in exchange for an honest review and the opinions stated above are 100% mine.

Not a fan of this book at all. I guess the plot is actually okay, and was the kind of book I thought it would be....that is, IF it would have stuck to the main plot. But with this book, you get a few pages of storyline and suspense, then many pages of the the same passionate sex details as the interruption 5 minutes ago. And so tiresome with Rory always snarling, growling, and taking possession of her. Seriously? Who would be attracted to that? Not for me!

I enjoyed this read. I didn't realize it was a spin off... but that didn't seem to bother me too much.
I was hooked to the characters and wanted to know what would happen next!

If you're into suspense, love, lies, sexy moments and everything in between this is the book for you!!!

4 stars from me.

Recv'd a copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was much better than some of Leigh's others. And while it is the first in a new series, reading at least the first in the Elite Ops series is a good idea. The plot/mystery was decent and a lot less convoluted than normal for Leigh which I appreciated. I usually spend half the book wondering if I missed something.

This book is meant to be the first in a new series so I thought it would start off a new story as such however it seems to jump into the middle of something that I haven't read before and have since found out it is a spin off from another series. Having said that, I did enjoy the story very much and liked the characters even though I found myself confused at certain points due to the fact that I hadn't read the original series. I think if I go back and read the previous series then I might have a few "ah ha" moments for this book. Overall a good read.

Three and a half
My very first book by this author was Wild Card which ironically is very much connected to this new spin off series. This time though it's Riordan who is the man fighting for his woman but how can he do that if she doesn't remember him ? Amara was abducted, tortured and left for dead but now her memories of the past year are gone. She has no recollection of being kidnapped, her mind has blotted out her ordeal and yet her dreams feature Riordan, a man trained to kill yet with him strangely Amara feels safe.
I suppose if I had to describe this book I'd say romantic suspense but it's an extremely steamy read with the couple indulging at what I felt was inopportune moments. As a reader I knew that they have a sexual history but the constant chest banging, you are mine scenes felt a tad over done and yes I do understand that Riordan is an alpha male whose world nearly imploded. Amara has this privileged life and fluctuated from spoiled princess to assertive young woman but when faced with Riordans obvious sexual needs she melted like butter. What she's gone through is truly harrowing and bit by bit she starts to remember which finally meant as a reader we get answers and luckily there's a twist so don't expect the most obvious choice. A character is introduced and later alluded to in the epilogue and honestly I really hope the author doesn't go there as there's possibly a thirty year or so age gap which might not appeal to all her readers. Bottom line is if you enjoy lots of sexual tension mixed with a mystery you might enjoy this story.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair