Title: Tangled up in Lace
Author:  Charlotte Byrd
Publisher/Year:  Byrd Books 2/26/19
Length:  198 Pages
Series: Tangled #3

Overview

I used to be a recluse, but no more. Harley helped me fight my dark past, and now it’s my turn to help her. 

But she’s not here. I have to find her. I have to show her what I’m willing to do for her. 

She’s not impressed by my money and wealth, and this is one thing I can’t buy. Am I willing to give up everything to have her?

My Thoughts

The second installment of this story left us in a moment of despair – watching Harley get kidnapped by Parker who we have not seen the last of. We know that he’s a loose canon and sadly, Jackson gave him the perfect opportunity for Harley to get abdjucted.

If you remember, in the last installment, we saw Jackson and Harley fall out because Woodward claimed that Harley was an escort and Jackson made a comment to the notion that it was ok if she was one before. Harley of course takes offense to this and they split up.

While they tried to go their separate ways, it doesn’t work, and Harley goes to his house to make amends, only to see Jackson and Aurora (his ex wife) in an embrace, she leaves, and finds herself being pulled into a van at gunpoint.

The path of this book is one of uncertainty. Jackson realizes what’s happened, gets into his car and takes chase of the van. That doesn’t end well as the van has managed to slip through traffic resulting in Jackson getting into a car accident, getting his by a truck and we have to wonder what that means for his health and well-being.

The plot of the Ponzi scheme takes a bit of a back seat in this book while we wait to see what happens with Harley. She’s taken by Parker and another man, she doesn’t know where they are going and really doesn’t know the full depth and breadth of why Parker has come after her. All she knows is that she some how needs to figure out how to escape since that’s her only hope. She figures that if she can convince the accomplice that Parker isn’t the one with a plan to keep even him safe, then she’ll have a chance, but what happens is that Sam, the accomplice, he leaves and that means that Parker and Harley are left alone.

While this is all going on, Jackson is fighting to stay alive. The doctors are having a hard time bringing him back to life, and they even want to call it since they can’t get a pulse. Thank goodness there’s a nurse who won’t give up and they continue to shock him in the hopes that something will happen. Jackson on the other side of things has these dreams, these visions where he’s with Harley again, but she can’t see him or hear him. He knows that he’s basically dead at this point and that’s not something he can cope with in his dreams.

Some how things work out for Jackson and he’s brought back to life, gets his strength back and some how doesn’t have any serious injuries from his accident. He calls Harley’s parents from Montana to come out and help find her since her mom is police, and we see how that dynamic of things changes the trajectory of the story on that end.

There’s so much uncertainty on where Harley is and in what shape she’ll be found if she’ll be found. There’s no real sense of where she is since the police and PIs can’t track her or a vehicle and it’s only once Sam the accomplice is picked up and given a plea deal that they know a town and address of the cabin that she’s being held.

Jackson leaves the hospital and goes rogue to find her and you can imagine that someone that emotionally charged will never have a good end result and everyone tells him that. We can only hope for the best here.

It’s a roller coaster for sure – we were at such a sad place in the last installment watching this couple break apart and just when we thought that they could find their way back to each other, someone takes that all away from them. There’s fear, harm, life is in the balance, but there’s also a glimmer of what could be the future for everyone if things were just a bit different.

We end this installment at a wedding – one that wasn’t expected given what we know of all the relationships in this story, but one that perhaps will be the impetus of something bigger for everyone involved. I can’t wait to see what happens next since we know that a happy ending for our main characters potentially isn’t in the cards. Enjoy!