A Love Like Ours by Becky Wade

Former Marine Jake Porter has far deeper scars than the one that marks his face. He struggles with symptoms of PTSD, lives a solitary life, and avoids relationships.

When Lyndie James, Jake's childhood best friend, lands back in Holley, Texas, Jake cautiously hires her to exercise his Thoroughbreds. Lyndie is tender-hearted, fiercely determined, and afraid of nothing, just like she was as a child. Jake pairs her with Silver Leaf, a horse full of promise but lacking in results, hoping she can solve the mystery of the stallion's reluctance to run.

Though Jake and Lyndie have grown into very different adults, the bond that existed during their childhood still ties them together. Against Jake's will, Lyndie's sparkling, optimistic personality begins to tear down the walls he's built around his heart. A glimmer of the hope he'd thought he'd lost returns, but fears and regrets still plague him. Will Jake ever be able to love Lyndie like she deserves, or is his heart too shattered to mend?

A Love Like Ours is the third novel in Becky Wade's Porter Family series, and it involves Jake Porter and his childhood best friend Lyndi James. I really enjoyed this novel; its plot line was intriguing and filled with mystery, romance, and humor. Jake Porter is definitely one of my favorite of the Porter brothers, partly because of the vulnerability and hurt he hides behind an impenetrable wall. He refuses to trust in God again, nor to let his guard down around his family or his closest friends. I really enjoyed watching Jake's heart change and seeing how Lyndie and he reconnected and grew as characters throughout the novel. Overall, I heartily liked the characters, the storyline, and the character growth, and I would definitely recommend this series to anyone who likes a good Western style romance.

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Taken by Dee Henderson

An investigator who knows tragic loss firsthand,  and his new client, missing far too long...
 

Abducted at the age of sixteen and coerced into assisting the Jacoby crime family, Shannon Bliss has finally found a way out. She desperately wants to resume some semblance of normal life, but she also knows she has some unfinished business to attend to. She might have enough evidence to put her captors behind bars for a very long time.

When Shannon contacts private investigator Matthew Dane, a former cop, to help her navigate her reentry into society, he quickly discovers that gaining her freedom doesn't mean her troubles are over. If the Jacoby family learns she is still alive, they'll stop at nothing to silence her.

If justice is to be done, and if Shannon's life is ever to get on track again, Matthew will need to discover exactly what happened to her--even if it means stirring up a hornet's nest of secrets.

Taken is the is the fourth novel in a series of novels that Dee Henderson has written since completing her O'Malley series. While these four novels are not actually a series, they do contain characters that carry across the novels. For example Paul and Anne Falcon from Full Disclosure, Charlotte and Bryce Bishop and other minor characters from Unspoken, and even Rachel and Cole from the O'Malley series are all featured in this novel as Matthew and Shannon work together to pick up the scattered trail of Shannon's kidnappers. This novel, like the other three post-O'Malley books, is very slow paced and thorough. This story takes place over just three weeks, and it left me rather disappointed when it ended. There was very little resolution to the overall plot, especially with regard to the main characters. However, despite that, I did enjoy learning more about Shannon's past life as her story unfurled and how Matthew dealt with everything as it happened. It was definitely a whirlwind of a three weeks, but it still made for a very slow and exacting read. I love all of Dee Henderson's detail in her more recent novels, and her ability as a storyteller is fantastic, but Taken was certainly not my favorite of her novels, particularly as the story is very close to that of Charlotte in Unspoken. However, I would definitely recommend all of Dee Henderson's novels to those who love a good romance (all of her novels) or a great suspense thriller (O'Malley series).

I received this book from Netgalley and Bethany House in exchange for an honest review.