Another great instalment in this series - which I hadn't realised was the case. On to book 3!

I'd highly recommend rereading book 1 before embarking on this, as book 2 picks up immediately the other ends and I had to go back and reread my review to be able to jump back in and enjoy this ride.

LR can write. She gives us a world where money and evil and double crossing rule and where players are perhaps shades of grey, rather than black, in many cases, and she also gives us the complete opposite in the lovely family set-up that Marsh has. We briefly heard about his mums in the first book and here, they play a bigger part as they extend their home to Lily, Brax, Holt, David (Levi's son) and Levi. There are some really sweet moments and some funny ones, especially where David crushes on a certain person who appeared briefly in book 1, but who's sadly taken, ergo no book for them.

There are also a LOT of new characters who appear, and also a bit of name-dropping at times that didn't seem necessary, and sadly, I began to get a little lost in who was who. There was reference to 'the blond' a couple of times, which I couldn't clock until belatedly, 'she' came into it and I realised that this referred to Helena, Holt's sister. I think some of the Agents Irish & Whiskey guys got added to the mix, and there was a fleeting mention of Mel Cruz from that world, though she didn't appear on page. I liked the Patel brothers too, but tbh, though it made for an entertaining read, it began to feel like LR had thrown in the kitchen sink with all the side characters.

That aside, the plot that started to come to light towards the latter part of book 1 gets bigger and murkier and it's hard to figure out who to trust and who's in collusion with who. One think that got sweeter, still, was the relationship between the leads, who had some tender moments and some really sexy moments. Often in a tale, I like one lead more, but here, both guys were lovely. Caring, respectful of each other's feelings and their capabilities as agents, consideration for their families, romantic in a non-swoony way that felt more than the swoony stuff, and yeah, some of the nicest lines that I've heard in a long while.

I wasn't expecting there to be another tale in this series until some 30 pages before the end, when the events made me clock there was no way LR could wrap it up. I did a double take right at the end when one of the Patel brothers announced something about one of the leads, wondering if I'd missed something, but nope, there was a cliff hanger and a tangent, not that I'm complaining about the latter. I'm impatient for book 3, but that's not out til 2023, bummer.

Still, this was a good fix of Levi and Marsh until their ultimate HEA.

ARC courtesy of the author and Valentine PR & Literary Management for my reading pleasure.