I really enjoyed The Poet Recusant  The premise grabbed me from the start ... 
A great story line with brilliant main characters.. I read this book in one sitting as I couldn't put it down.

“Rebecca?”
Jack walked to the bathroom and looked around. Scrawled onto the back of the bathroom door in soft pink lipstick were two things; ‘PD’ and a heart. Rebecca was gone.
He could tell by the room there had been no fight. She would go willingly with the police. Probably even quickly, hoping they would be gone before he returned. Expecting them, understanding why they were there, and seeing no cause to disagree she would have complied.
Except it wasn’t the police. It couldn’t be. The police would have waited for him.
Whoever had taken Rebecca wanted her alone; wanted her away from him. That meant only two possibilities; leverage or … punishment.

Jack Shelley returns in the second ruthless installment of The Poet Series by Stephanie Harris; and he’s been invited to kneel at the throne of the King.
Relentless and unforgiving, Recusant will leave readers decidedly uncomfortable, and begging for the next installment in the series.

Thriller in a series featuring assassin Jack Shelley and his now wife Rebecca.
Overall interesting and keeps you wondering what will happen next, but very dark and somewhat gruesome. Definite violence trigger warnings on this one. 
Enjoyed the characters and plot.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the chance to review.

Thriller in a series featuring assassin Jack Shelley and his now wife Rebecca.

This episode deals with the abduction of Rebecca and Jack's increasingly violent attempts to rescue her. Much of the story revolves around a group of psychologically damaged people attempting to find redemption, usually by the use of violence.

It works best when read as a revenge thriller - a la John Wicke -and on that level works well.

This is better the Poet writing wise but the issues with the first book are still there.Rebecca is still getting held captive,Jack is still offing people and they are still stuck in their own heads and their pasts.There are too many characters that come and go,it is still hard to follow what is going on at times.Honestly the flashbacks are still more interesting.It is meh..

I returned to Stephanie Jo Harris to read her “The Poet Recusant,” and announce moderate approval.  We find the protagonists, Rebecca and Jack, married and moderately happy.  The togetherness is marred, however, for these two characters who seem doomed to troubled times by their obsessions.  Rebecca is constantly fixated on Jack’s violent past, while Jack not only has a stormy past, but his present is dominated by a tendency towards snuffing people.

That’s the story relied on by the author this time around.  I’ll just say that the entire book involves the imprisonment of Rebecca by men who Jack is frantically seeking out to destroy because they have Rebecca in their clutches.  That’s it.  I’ll leave the arrival of a conclusion to your reading skills.

Now, does Harris do a better job of writing this time around?  It depends, I suppose, on how you define a better job of writing.  As opposed to the first book, “The Poet,” I think the writing is a little better polished but confusion still reigns supreme in her storytelling schemes.  There are too many pet names still being tossed around, making identification sometime hard to discern.  Too many characters travel in and out of the picture while too many mind benders still inhabit the main characters’ psyche, making them unlikeable.  I know the author, as does Rebecca, dwells in the world of psychology, but too much self-identity still dulls my enjoyment and the need for entertainment.

So, I know of many different writers with many different detective-type characters that I enjoy reading about to spend much time trying to like Rebecca and Jack.  I’ll be spending more time with these old friends.