Sandy M’s review of With Every Breath (Slow Burn, Book 4) by Maya Banks
Romantic Suspense published by Avon 23 Aug 16

I’ve been lamenting this new Maya Banks who appeared out of nowhere a year or so ago, one who confuses me to no end. The Maya Banks currently writing this series, and a few of her others, is not the same Maya Banks who began writing each series.  I keep reading her stories in the hopes her mojo returns and her fans will get the stories they’re used to when picking up one of her books. So far, that hasn’t happened.

The tension has been building between Wade and Eliza over this series. They don’t like one another, though I think Wade realizes what the score is and just won’t admit it. When Eliza’s past rises up to threaten her and all she loves, her first instinct is to lie to everyone and rush headlong to her death. As much as she agonizes over this, as much as she views the whole Devereaux team as her family, she does everything in her power to cut them from her life instead of asking them for help. Okay, the danger she’s headed for is extremely bad, but she has some bad-ass ladies in her corner who would be able to take her monster on and win. They’ve done it before. Maybe that’s why Ms. Banks takes Eliza in this other direction? I’m not sure, but I sure wish she hadn’t. To me, Eliza, a bad-ass herself, doesn’t run from anything. Thus, this person written about in this story is not true to her character that we’ve met time and again in this series.

Then there’s Wade, whom I’ve liked quite a bit since we met him in the first book. I still like him for the most part here. He’s totally alpha male and goes ballistic when Eliza is anywhere near danger or is even thinking of doing anything on her own, despite the fact her training will probably keep her just as safe as he would. When he finally tracks her down back in her hometown, he begins to call the shots, but he has a huge task ahead of him to get through her fear. Eliza eventually tells him all, what happened to her years before and why she’s now back where it all started. Her monster is getting out of jail, and she knows he’ll come looking for her. So she decides to make it easy for him, make herself a target to keep everyone back at Devereaux safe.

This is the story in a nutshell. I like it. It works as great romantic suspense. Of course, the steamy sex scenes are there as usual. So what is the problem? First it’s the repetition that has become an integral part of Ms. Banks’ writing for the last quite a few books. This time too it’s done in so much internal dialogue that it seems to be twice as much as before, though it’s probably not. There are pages – too many pages – of internal dialogue for these characters. Even for Dane, Eliza’s boss back at Devereaux. They all castigate themselves over this current situation and they hardly ever speak to an actual person. I know we all hold conversations with ourselves every day, but never to this extent.

Another huge change in Ms. Banks’ writing that bothers me is the dialogue when it does happen. Her characters never – NEVER! – spoke this way before in any of her books. Not until this repetition thing began anyway. Especially her heroes. They now go on nonstop, when it’s their turn to speak, for a few paragraphs, waxing romantic with more words than most men ever utter. It’s….cheesy. I’ve never before thought of her heroes as cheesy, but there you have it. The content of this dialogue is also bothersome, not seeming to be what that particular character would say at any give time. Very frustrating when I know how good of an author she is.

I know some readers have given up reading Maya Banks. I’m not to that point yet. I still have fervent hope that whatever this is will reverse itself and her future books will be what they once were and we will have the Maya of old back on track.

Grade: C

Summary:

Eliza Cummings fought free of a monster who terrorized her when she was an innocent teenager and helped put him away for good. She took a job with Devereaux Security Services and devoted every hour to taking down the very thing she’d nearly become. No one, not even those closest to her, know her darkest, shameful secrets. But now the killer has been set free on a legal loophole and it’s only a matter of time before he comes for her. Eliza’s only choice is to run and lead the monster away from the people she loves.

Wade Sterling has always lived by his own rules, a law unto himself who answers to no one. He’s never professed to be a good man, and he’s definitely not hero material. Wade never allows anyone close enough to see the man behind the impenetrable mask—but one woman threatens his carefully leashed control. He took a bullet for her and the result was more than a piece of metal entrenched in his skin. She was under his skin and nothing he did rid himself of the woman with the courage of a warrior and who thinks nothing of putting her life before others.

But when Wade sees a panicked and haunted Eliza he knows something is very wrong, because the fool woman has never been afraid of anything. And when she tries to run, the primal beast barely lurking beneath his deceptively polished façade erupts in a rage. She may not know it, but she belongs to him. This time, Eliza isn’t going to play the protector. She was damn well going to be the protected. And as long as Wade breathes, no one will ever hurt what is his.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series: