Title: Shameless
Author: Brynley Bush
Publisher/Year: CreateSpace Publishing 2/13/15
Length: 286 pages
Series: Black Brothers Trilogy #3
Overview
Sheltered good girl Victoria Raine has always wanted to be a little bad. Tired of living life safely on the sidelines, she summons the courage to forge a new path for herself and applies to the FBI, looking for adventure and something to fulfill her vague longing for something…more. She gets more than she bargained for with her first undercover assignment-posing as the girlfriend of country music’s bad boy, Drake Maddox, a lone wolf with a reputation for having singularly erotic tastes. Hoping to catch a serial killer that’s targeting women close to Drake, Tori’s job is to convince the public, and the killer, that she and the wickedly handsome superstar are an item.
Although their relationship is a sham, there’s nothing fake about the hidden desires the sexy as sin cowboy awakens in Tori. As the killer draws closer, Tori finds herself falling for the one man she can’t have.
My Thoughts
I have been waiting for Drake’s bit of the series since he’s been interwoven quite a bit on the first 2 books, where we get to see this dark and naughty side of him. Being a youngest brother too – well that means that we’re going to get some excitement (as if all the excitement in the series so far wasn’t enough).
In this third installment, we are fully immersed in Drake’s life on the hunt for the serial killer/stalker who has been hounding him on tour over the past few months. While his brother Griffin, the ex Navy SEAL was working on security to flush out the person who was behind everything, the FBI has now been brought in. Enter Tori – a newly minted FBI agent who doesn’t follow the stereotypes of being an agent who blends in. It’s not that she’s out spoken, she’s just above average in the beauty department, which works in the favor of the FBI right now since they need someone to pose as Drake’s girlfriend in the hopes that it’ll lure the stalker out and she can get him.
Where we go on this journey is one of self discovery for Tori – she’s stepping far far outside of everything that she knows and was set up to do. She’s chosen a path against her father’s wishes and that’s something that she fights with all the time since he gave so much to her when her mother died and she had no where to go. The other bit is that her choice to go into the FBI goes against that of her ex boyfriend’s wishes, and you know that it will have to come back up during the story some how right? we can’t ever have a jilted ex who doesn’t seek revenge and trust me, our author writes him back in at the best moment possible.
The dynamic between Tori and Drake is amazing. You see 2 people that understand the job from the very beginning but that immediate spark that they feel is too much for them to really do anything about it. While they may not admit it to themselves, they definitely know that this is more than a job, that their sham relationship is something much much more, but i think that it will take something significant for them to acknowledge it.
If you’ll recall in the last book, there was the under lying story line of the grant that was funding the research that Dr Black was doing, and i think that we should all remember that it was never resolved. thats something that i spent quite a bit of time wondering about, since we know that Camille is still out there somewhere and she’s out for blood. While it’s not an overt part of this story either, it’s something that i wonder about all the time – where is she and is she behind grant and what will that mean for the research.
As for everything else, we see that Drake falls in line with his brothers in the fact that he’s very Alpha, and he’s very dominant, even if he’s not at D as his brother(s). There’s something hot about a man that likes to take control and push limits, and we see Drake do it with a grace and natural ease that’s just so steamy. The scenes with him and Tori – such great chemistry there. You see that there’s a connection that’s more than just physical – even though it’s written so well that you’re feeling that heat and passion on every page.
The questions that you wonder throughout the entire book, who’s the stalker, what are they going to do next, and when is Tori going to be taken? that’s something that i keep wondering about since you know that she’s going to slip up on her safety at some point. It’s the ever running thought in my mind. I think that we just all want a happy ending for this last piece of the Black trio – so i hope that you guys read through this final installment and see if it happens for him. Enjoy!