This was a pretty good book. It reminded me of Kiera Delacroix' 'Engravings of Wraith', in fact, it struck me in a few places that it wanted to be 'Wraith'. That's not necessarily a bad thing...
It's difficult to write an original plot & premise in this branch of lesfic, but the author tried hard. The book was entertaining, easy to read and made for a good bit of escapism.

But...
Honestly, whether the author intended this book to mirror 'Wraith' or not, and I'm sure it was unintentional, I was tossed out of the book in places by the similarities between the two. So my reading experience suffered a little because of it. Not the author's fault. Not sure the cover really matches what's inside, but as I said, it's a nice bit of escapism.

As you can likely expect from the blurb in this one, it's not all romance and rainbows for MCs Santana and Brooklyn in this story. I have to admit though, while it's billed as a thriller / intrigue story primarily, this one felt more like a romance than anything else. The change of pace with a contract killer as a MC was nice though.

Brooklyn and Santana originally meet in Tokyo by circumstance when Santana steps in and stops a drunk from hitting on Brooklyn. They talk for hours and feel an instant attraction, but don't even tell each other their real names. They exchange phone numbers, but both move on to their separate lives. Santana has a secret though - she's a contract killer who's forced to continue working for her controlling master because he's threatening her mother's life. Santana's next contract puts her right in the middle of Brooklyn's inner circle, and the killer who thought she'd never be able to love finds herself falling for the innocent Brooklyn. The only problem is that Brooklyn has no idea who Santana really is, and doesn't even know her real name.

Wallace's story is a page turner, filled with tension throughout, but I found myself watching it from the sideline. It's a solid storyline, but I just didn't connect with the characters like I wished I could have, and didn't really feel their chemistry either. I wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did, and actually found myself wondering and not able to get past some of the smaller things that shouldn't be bothersome in a read that I'm invested in.

All in all, this is a good read, and I'm glad to have read it, but also somehow didn't quite live up to what I really hoped it would be. Another perfect example of why I wish there was a 3.5 star rating!

**Many thanks to Bold Strokes for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.**

I received an ARC copy of this book from the Publisher via Netgalley and voluntarily leaving my review.

This was more of romance then intrigue thriller.

Santana is hire gun she does this to keep her mother safe even though they are estranged from each other.

Brooklyn is CEO of Tech Company.

Brooklyn and Santana have a chance meet at a tech company convention in Tokyo when Santana help her defend herself from unwanted attention from drunking man.

When they introduce theirself they use nickname THD and Olaf and they have a nice conversation when they part Brooklyn gives Santana her number if ever in New York City.

They cross path again when Santana is hire to kill Brooklyn best friend Charlotte when Santana can't go through with it another killer does and now she is task to found out why this woman needed to died.

As Santana grows closer to Brooklyn the more afraid she going to lose her.

I like the characters the romance was good but I didn't feel the thriller part because it wasn't really any consequences beside Charlotte death. I mean we learn why she died though in my opinion it coulda been another way to have kept her alive without killing her to exact revenge on the peoples they wanted to hurt.

This is a difficult book to tag since it does not have enough plot to consider it Intrigue & Thriller nor in the romance part it is very well developed, so to me it has not had enough in either of the two aspects in which it could be framed.

The Intrigue & Thriller part is poor and poorly resolved, and in the end it has some cheating, of those who bother me, since they are there to fix the loose ends and this final arrangement is very inconsistent and quite simple.

And the part of the romance between the two women is lost in the tragedy and it doesn't make much sense either. Some situations happen too quickly and then the course of time is unbalanced, a day or a week or a month, I have had problems to place myself in the time of the story.

So for me it falls short in many ways what makes the book not entirely consistent. It is finished yes, but very quickly and with few explanations of how the plot has been resolved. Nor is it very clear how the relationship between them is resolved with all the circumstances that occur.

I may be too demanding and it's not all that. But, for me, it really lacked something to make it better.