Sandy M’s review of Spectre by Shiloh Walker
Romantic Suspense published by Amazon Digital Services 22 Jul 19
I absolutely love how Shiloh Walker takes a hero whom you would never imagine to be such and turns him into one you love and cheer for, hoping he too can have that happily ever after we require in reading romance. Spectre had a shitty childhood with a lowest-of-the-low father. Then he meets Sarge when survival doesn’t seem certain. While that meeting is a saving grace, Spectre has turned into the ultimate assassin – never seen, never heard, and very successful. Thus, his name. But then one day when scoping out his next target…
Everything in life begins to change for this tormented man. There’s something about the woman he’s been watching. Something that tells him not to take the current hit he’s been offered. He knows, however, if he passes someone else will be hired to do the job. So what to do? The man plans and then acts. That’s one of the sexy things about him. Kidnapping doesn’t mean a thing to him when it comes to keeping Tia safe, and he does one bang-up job, including subduing a fighting Tia and then keeping the enemy at bay.
Tia is a child therapist, helping those with autism, Asperger’s and the like – herself included. She had a mother who didn’t care to figure out Tia’s issues when she was young, so she’s determined to help other youngsters now how to navigate society, feelings, and so much more. She has a tiger-fierce best friend and a brother cop, so life is good in her isolated cabin/workshop. Then her world blows up, taken by a man who she believes is there to kill her, but as time passes with him, she learns he’s not the monster be thinks he is.
Both of these characters have had to struggle through their lives, Spectre a bit more than Tia, considering his present occupation and lack of nearly everything – except that moral compass he discovers hidden deep within. Tia’s issues are from within and she’s found her “normal” over the years. She brings out the gentleness, warmth, and love in Spectre, which surprises him at every turn, and that is a fight worth reading. He brings out the sensual wanton in Tia, something she’s never craved before and she takes to bedroom, living room, shower (you get the idea) antics like you wouldn’t believe. Talk about baiting the lion, shark – you get the idea again. In usual Shiloh Walker style, their sex and then loving sizzles, steams, and explodes every time, and they are quite insatiable. Intense and raw. You name it, you get it with these two.
You keep wondering how the author will fix everything so Spectre and Tia can be together. I was surprised in the way Spectre goes about doing it all, but once I thought about it, I really wasn’t that surprised. Because it’s definitely in keeping with the character, and Tia loves him anyway, just as I do. I always love a tormented character turned hero, and this time that HEA is better than ever because of who he is.
Grade: A
Summary:
Myth. Monster. Mine.
Spectre
I wasn’t even a man when I took a life for the first time, although you couldn’t say I was a child. If I’d ever had a childhood, it hadn’t lasted long. My father, may he rot in hell, had seen to that. I took his life as well and that, too, happened before I was old enough to be considered a grown man.
I never regretted it for a second.That path almost led to my own grave, and would have, if I hadn’t stumbled across somebody who was as different from my father as day was from night. Sarge had seen the monster lurking inside, so he took control, gave me guidelines, rules, so I wouldn’t be the monster my father had planned.
It worked. I restrained the worst of my rage and honed the skills that had been drilled into me—theft, stealth… assassination. The broken child ceased to exist and I became Spectre, an assassin spoken of in whispers, hired to take out the worst of humanity.
Then I was sent to kill her…and my world came to a screeching halt.
Tia
It’s taken a long time, but I finally had a nice, steady routine. I stopped trying to conform to the neurotypicals of the world and found my own normal.
Normal went out the window when I walked into my kitchen and found a strange (hot), dangerous looking (so fricking hot) man drugging my new dog.
It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to leap at him like a banshee and attack, but that’s what I did.
When my attempt to wreck the vehicle was averted, my kidnapper didn’t hurt or threaten me. In fact, he told me he wanted to protect me.
This (hot) guy had to be crazy. But if he was crazy, what did that make me? Because I believed him. More, I found myself seeing something beyond the rigid, blank mask he wore. He kept trying to push me away, but I couldn’t seem to keep my distance.
He calls himself a monster…but when I look at him, that isn’t what I see. I just see him…and I know he’s meant to be mine.
Read an excerpt.
