Title: Diamond in the Rough
Author: Skye Warren
Publisher/Year:  Book Beautiful 6/7/20
Length:  314 pages
Series: Diamond #1

Overview

I’m stepping off a nine hour flight when it happens.

A white van. A dark hood. Every woman’s worst nightmare.

Now I’m trapped in an abandoned church. The man who took me says I won’t be hurt. The man in the cell next to me says that’s a lie. I’ll fight with every ounce of strength, but there are secrets in these walls. I’ll need every single one of them to survive.

My Thoughts

It took me a moment to realize why I was familiar with the North name, and that’s because I read a later part of an adjacent series featuring Liam – you’ll remember him from a few reviews back. Anyway, in this story, we get the beginning of what you can expect to be a roller coaster with Elijah, and Holland (Holly) as their lives become intertwined years before they even know what’s going to happen.

We start off this book with Holly on a trip with her family, one that is protective for reasons that we don’t quite know, but for reasons that i’m sure will come in handy down the line. Holly is 16 and she’s acknowledged that she’s so different from the rest of her family. not interested in the same things and likely a bit deeper in thought. Her older sister London is the one to get attention, be adventurous and this trip to Paris gives Holly a view into what that life is.

She’s approached by a security guard at the Louvre who is not much older than her, but incredibly sexy. For some reason, this boy, E, he pays attention to Holly and not to London and that’s something that she struggles to wrap her head around. What happens next is that she goes against her families expectations, she sneaks out of the museum to spend time with him, and then sneaks out at night to do the same again. What she learns though after the fact is that she was used partially as a pawn. E wasn’t a security guard only, he was working with thieves who were stealing diamonds from the museum and used Holly to get them off property.

Fast forward 8 years and London has gone missing. Holly returns to Paris in the hopes of finding her since that’s the last known destination she was at, and what happens from there is insanity. Holly meets a man on the airplane who seems like someone out of a romance novel. He isn’t what he seems and we quickly realize that he’s using her as a pawn as sorts as well. He kidnaps her from the airport and she’s thrown into a cell with none other than Elijah.

There’s no end to what we question in this story – how she got pulled into this, what E has to do with it and what do they mean to each other. The man who kidnapped Holly, his name is Adam and he works with Interpol, but there’s a darker side to him. there’s something that we can’t put our finger on and what he makes E and Holly do brings out his true colors. The challenge of course is that it also forces up the emotions and feelings and chemistry that these two shared 8 years ago.

Holly needs Elijah’s help and protection to find her sister, especially once they break out of their prison, but what she learns about what Elijah is doing….how he’s made her his prisoner at the same time, well there’s no way that it’ll end well.

What we get at the very end though is a surprise. Elijah has broken Holly entirely. She wants to escape but has no way out of the house, and then when she least expects it, someone peers through the window, has the code to get out…..and we get more questions than answers. So, now i’m off to the second book since I can’t wait to see how this resolves. Enjoy!