Vindicate
Series: Recovered Innocence #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Beth Yarnall
Release Date: November 17, 2015
Beth Yarnall kicks off a steamy new series—perfect for fans of Kendra Elliot and Emma Chase—featuring a San Diego investigative team with a soft spot for lost causes and a passion for redemption.
Cora. . . . I got my driver’s license on my sixteenth birthday so I could visit my brother in prison. Five and a half years later, he’s still locked up for a murder he didn’t commit and I’m still trying to find a way to set him free. Then I hear about Nash Security and Investigation, a private detective agency that helped exonerate a wrongfully convicted man after thirty-nine years in prison. The problem? They’ve already taken on the one pro-bono case they’ll accept this year.
Leo. . . . I’m this close to finishing law school—and never working another day at my dad’s P.I. office—when Cora Hollis walks through the door. She’s got a box of files, a handful of leads, and an independent streak a mile wide. She fascinates me and I can’t say no. Suddenly I’m volunteering to help her find a missing witness who could be the key to her brother’s case. But nothing is what it seems and giving in to the attraction between us could be more dangerous than finding the real murderer.
I’m not gonna lie and say that cover isn’t what first drew me to this book, but it was the synopsis that ultimately sealed the deal. I was intrigued enough to give a new to me author a chance, and I’m glad that I did. Don’t let my three star rating fool you. I enjoyed the book for the most part and I’m certainly hooked enough on this series to continue with the next book. There were just a few things that kept this being from a four star for me, and most of these happen to be reader preference. I tend to be on the pickier end, so please take what I say with a grain of salt.
The premise is intriguing enough. All Cora has known for the past five and half years is determination to get her brother free from prison. After the brutal rape and murder of his girlfriend, all signs pointed to him and that got him life in prison. But Cora knows he’s innocent and she’s give up everything and do anything to prove it. She’s spent the past five and a half years building a case. She’s given up school, secluded herself from her parents, all with a single minded intent to exonerate her beloved brother. When she hears a commercial on the radio for Nash Security and Investigation that just freed an innocent man that spend thirty nine years behind bars, she knows she may have the answer to her problems.
Leo Nash is a law student who has no intention of staying on to take over his father’s investigation business. He’s also quite the bit of a manwhore. But when he lays eyes on Cora and hears about her brother’s case, he knows that he wants to help. Sounds interesting, right? And it was.
So what didn’t quite work for me?
I’m not a fan of the instal-anything angle. And unfortunately for me, Vindicate had it in spades. Leo has no interest in long term relationships, he’s already managed to have sex with their office secretary and piss her off when he wants nothing more to do with her. Yet all it takes is for him to lay eyes on Cora, and all of a sudden he’s smitten. I just didn’t buy this connection. It was too sudden, there wasn’t enough buildup to it for me.
I also found the dialogue and writing to be a bit stilted at parts. It just didn’t have a flow to it.
Experimentally, she runs her thumb across the tip. It slides in my pre-cum, which seems to delight her, so she does it again and again. I groan. Her fascination with it is killing me. She wraps both hands about my dick and gives it a squeeze. I put my hand on hers and show her how to stroke me. She picks up my rhythm. I’m dying. She’s torturing me.
I felt like I was reading separate sentences put together but there was nothing tying them together, if that makes sense. It just didn’t sound natural or have a flow to it. This was especially true during most of their internal dialogues.
I also felt extremely underwhelmed with the ending. The mystery behind who the true killer was was the one thing that kept me turning the pages. And considering it lasted well into the last pages of the book, I expected something a little bit more from it, I suppose. It was wrapped up a little too quickly for my liking. Considering the way the book ends, I’m assuming some of it will carry into the next book.
My quibbles aside, this was still an enjoyable read and I definitely plan on reading the next book in the series. i love me those tortured alpha males, and it just doesn’t get much more tortured then Beau. Hopefully the next book will be a little stronger than this one.
