Tag Archives: Annika Martin

Review: Hostage (Criminals and Captives #2) by Annika Martin and Skye Warren

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Title: Hostage
Author: Annika Martin + Skye Warren
Publisher/Year:  CreateSpace Publishing 1/27/18
Length:  410 pages
Series: Criminals & Captives #2

Overview

I NEVER KNEW WHEN HE’D COME TO ME. ONLY THAT HE WOULD.

I’d never even kissed a boy the night I met Stone. The night I saw him kill. The night he spared my life. That was only the beginning.

He turns up in my car again and again, dangerous and full of raw power. “Drive,” he tells me, and I have no choice. He’s a criminal with burning green eyes, invading my life and my dreams.

The police say he’s dangerously obsessed with me, but I’m the one who can’t stop thinking about him. Maybe it’s wrong to let him touch me. Maybe it’s wrong to touch him back. Maybe these twisted dates need to stop. Except he feels like the only real thing in my world of designer labels and mansions.

So I drive us under threat, until it’s hard to remember I don’t want to be there.

Until it’s too late to turn back.

My Thoughts

We met Stone in the story with Grayson and Abby’s story and learned quite a bit about him. He was the protector, the oldest of the crew and the one that has a clear perspective of what the rules needed to be in order to survive. He watched them get bent and broken when Grayson found love and now it’s time to watch him fall down the same rabbit hole.

Brooke – our leading lady is the center of our story. We meet her the night of her sweet sixteen, her family is throwing a party for ‘society’ to keep up the optics that they are as successful as people want them to be. Her father’s business isn’t doing so well, and it’s when she needs to get away from the party – that’s when she crosses paths with Stone and her world flips.

Stone is trying to get information from a man who was at the party and that turns into Brooke being taken hostage sort of while the man is put in the back of a van, and finds his own demise.

From that point on, we know that Brooke will be seeing the world through different eyes. She’s not even sure if Stone will let her live, will let her go….she’s haunted by him. but she’s also mesmerized by him. Stone is everything that’s not allowed – he’s dangerous, he’s scary and he he has the potential to give her the freedom that she wants but isn’t allowed to have.

This story takes us on a journey of their varied interactions over a series of years. We watch how Stone realizes that Grayson wasn’t wrong – there’s potential for love even with their background, but Stone is so afraid to let that become a distraction knowing that they still need to save the boys that are living the same life that they had when they were taken. They are looking for hints and clues to where the operation has moved to once they escaped and they keep running into dead ends.

Brooke seems to be the one distraction that he allows himself, knowing that he in part want to protect her, but can’t let her go. His protection turns to jealousy one night and then things really change for them both – he’s the one person that she wants, and he’s always allowed her to see the real him. because of that, they change their relationship on several levels, not intentionally, all in one night.

Brooke gets what she’s been missing from life and Stone for years, and she accidentally says something on her way to sleep that gives Stone what he’s been looking for. A name.

The rest of the story shows us that people are never what they seem, and everything that they think they know probably isn’t real. Brooke is still to ‘innocent’ to know who to trust and what information to share with whom, and that’s where our story takes an unexpected turn.

We get the ending that’s needed for this story – and we see how relationships and families are ripped apart, built differently and resolved. So, enjoy!

Review: Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1) by Annika Martin + Skye Warren

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Title: Priisoner
Author: Annika Martin + Skye Warren
Publisher/Year:  CreateSpace Publishing 11/03/14
Length:  410 pages
Series: Criminals & Captives #1

Overview

He seethes with raw power the first time I see him-pure menace and rippling muscles in shackles. He’s dangerous. He’s wild. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

So I hide behind my prim glasses and my book like I always do, because I have secrets too. Then he shows up in the prison writing class I have to teach, and he blows me away with his honesty. He tells me secrets in his stories, and it’s getting harder to hide mine. I shiver when he gets too close, with only the cuffs and the bars and the guards holding him back. At night I can’t stop thinking about him in his cell.

But that’s the thing about an animal in a cage-you never know when he’ll bite. He might use you to escape. He might even pull you into a forest and hold a hand over your mouth so you can’t call for the cops. He might make you come so hard, you can’t think.

And you might crave him more than your next breath.

My Thoughts

We don’t know exactly what we’re getting into when we start this story, but we certainly go through a roller coaster of emotions, both good and bad, and we learn that no one is what they seem. Everyone has a story, and lucky for us, our leading lady is a student who’s job it is to bring out everyone’s story.

We start off learning about Abbigail – she’s the teacher at the prison, doing a project of sorts as a means of getting her degree. Her mentor felt that this was a project, a job that she was right for – even though it’s so far outside of her comfort zone. It’s on one of her first days there that she feels a shift in energy – all because she crosses paths with a man who’s meant to be part of her destiny.

Enter Grayson – a man who’s been sent to jail for killing a cop but apparently there’s more to the story. We learn early on that he is innocent, or so he claims (as do most) and we watch how he plans to get out and get vengeance.

Grayson feels this shift in energy when he walks past Abby on that first day as well, and we know that they are forever intertwined. He realizes that through an ‘end of term project, each participant will get a story published in an online journal and that’s exactly how he can get work to his crew since he’s not allowed any contact with them, especially now that he’s states away.

So we watch how Grayson gets under Abby’s skin during class – how he takes up her personal space, makes her uncomfortable and keeps her off balance. He knows how to wiggle his way under her skin and this bodes well for him since it means that he’ll for sure get his words out there.

Things change when his story is published, and he’s able to escape from jail. Plans change though and Abby sees his escape unfold, is in the midst of it and finds herself taken prisoner, hostage while he escapes. Driving him away from the prison to where he believes he’ll be free. Challenge of course is that they already have some connection between them from their time in class, not sure what it is, but she’s marked – and she’s his, and that means that he wants to protect her even when it goes against everything that he and his boys believe in.

The story that we see unfold from here is Grayson on the run from the cops, taking Abby with him since there’s no other alternative. We watch their bond grow and change, and we watch as they share bits of themselves through their pasts to better understand each other. Each time she’s ‘introduced’ to a member of the crew, we see how much of a problem this is – how much the men really don’t believe in keeping anyone around – how relationships are leverage and how they are all afraid of what Abby knows and can share to get them all arrested. Stone wants to kill her. Calder wants the same. Nate has grown to like her but that’s because he has a bit more trust of her than the others.

As time goes by we see what life will be like with them together as well as what happens if/when they have to separate. When that happens, we worry about her safety, her sanity as well as Grayson’s. It’s hurts to watch it all unfold but we know that there’s something more meant for them that only this story will give.

So, i’m not going to tell more, but know that there’s all the expected heat, passion and chemistry that we’ve learned to love from a story written by Skye Warren, and it’s a nice introduction to a series where we are destined to meet the other men and learn what shaped them. Enjoy!

Review: Most Eligible Bachelor (Billionaires of Manhattan #1) by Annika Martin

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Title: Most Eligible Bachelor
Author: Annika Martin
Publisher/Year:  Cinnamon Crane 9/16/21
Length:  300 pages
Series: Billionaires of Manhattan #1

Overview

OMG – the cute little dog I adopted turns out to be a billionaire Maltese! That’s right, my tiny dog just inherited giant corporation! …and the jerky CEO? Not amused.

I’m Vicky, the dog whisperer. (Not really, but that’s what my elderly neighbor says whenever I walk her dog, Smuckers.)When she dies, she surprises everybody by leaving a corporation worth billions to Smuckers…and she leaves Smuckers to me.

Suddenly I go from running my Etsy store to sitting in an elegant Wall Street boardroom with Smuckers in my lap. And my neighbor’s son, Henry Locke, aka New York’s most eligible bachelor, glaring across the table at me.

Rumor has it Henry’s a business genius who’s as talented in the bedroom as he is in the boardroom.

Sure, he’s gorgeous. Sex-in-a-seven-thousand dollar suit. But…He’s arrogant and infuriating.

He refuses to listen to me when I insist I didn’t con his mother.

He thinks he can bully me, buy me off, control me, even seduce me.

Henry may have the women of Manhattan eating out of the palm of his hand, but I’m so over entitled rich guys who think they own the world.

No way will his wicked smile be charming ME out of my panties.

His wicked…devastating…impossible-to-resist smile.

Oh well, who needs panties anyway?

My Thoughts

I have to say that it’s probably a good thing this was one of the stories that’s in ‘Deep Pockets’ the boxed set because i’m not sure that I would have crossed paths with this book on my own. It’s a sweet story – has all the trappings to be something great, but perhaps not for me. I don’t know. At some point I’m sure i’ll get into the second book in the series to see what’s what with Henry’s friend.

Anyway – in this story, we meet our leading lady Vicky (Vonda, Veronica….any V name will do) and she’s in an interesting position. We learn early on that she’s somewhat on the run from something that was so bad that she’s had to change her identity, protect her sister and become something that’s entirely new. We get hints throughout the story of what it was, but don’t get the full story until we’re about 75% done.

Vicky finds herself in an interesting position just as the summary says – she’s become the guardian of a rich woman’s dog after the woman passes and of course everyone is down to believe that she’s a scammer, that she knew the woman was wealthy and wanted to steal her money. Surprisingly that’s not the case even though all the money would do her good.

That’s where Henry comes into the mix. The son that stopped talking to his mother for many reasons, few that he believes are his own fault. His mother was eccentric and that means that there’s really no reasoning with her about anything. They didn’t talk for years leading up to her death and that adds to why things are so interesting when he learns that it’s the dog that inherits everything, and Vicky is the one to ‘interpret’ the dogs wishes.

The story we go through here is one of dishonesty and lies across the board. Henry doesn’t trust Vicky and Vicky is hiding everything from Henry. They form this Hate Hate/Love relationship between them, he hates her, she hates him, and then they have this weird dynamic that shifts things entirely.

Of course, just when things seem like they could be going well. the other shoe drops. Henry’s cousin Brett decides that he’s on this quest to dig up all the dirt and brings back the one person from Vicky’s past that could do real harm to them and that’s exactly what happens. Vicky loses trust in Henry, Henry doesn’t know how to properly fight for anything and they split.

Vicky and her sister are on the run again, new identities, new life and no one knows how their story will end. There’s no trail to follow and Henry’s charmed life seems bleak without her. So…..we have to see where their fairytale goes – what that means for their future and what it means for Locke Worldwide and the livelihood of Vicky and her sister.

I’m sure there are a lot of readers who love this book, and some that would truly enjoy it. It’s not my speed necessarily so while a sweet story, one that I likely would not have picked up on it’s own. But…i’d love to hear what you guys think. So read, and report back. Enjoy!