In Safe Hands M/M Romance/Suspense
Dreamspinner Press
March 19, 2019
230
Former helicopter pilot Maverick Delgardo’s injuries ended his Air Force career, leaving him bitter and one drink away from becoming an alcoholic. When his sister asks for his help on a private protection case to babysit a disgraced pop star, Mav reluctantly agrees.
Deacon Daniels, onetime lead singer and idol to his teenage fans, saw his career and reputation ruined when a reporter’s exposé led to a devastating scandal. Without money or a job, a heartbroken Deacon has lost custody of his baby niece. And just when Deacon thinks his life can’t get any worse, a stalker’s threatening messages escalate to murder.
Mav only agreed to one meeting, but his protective instincts kick in, along with an attraction to Deacon. When the body count increases, however, Mav is unsure he is up to the task of protecting Deacon from a killer. But it is too late for Mav to step away, now that he’s lost his heart, and he must find the strength to reassure Deacon and his niece that they are in safe hands no matter the cost.
Reviewed by: Ulysses Dietz
Member of The Paranormal Guild Review Team
I had no idea Victoria Sue was such a good, tight writer. This is a romance novel that crosses a few boundaries and does it nicely, believably. The fact that it is also a page-turner was a bonus I hadn’t anticipated.
Maverick Delgardo is a wounded warrior. Big and brave, he was severely damaged in a suicide bomb attack in Somalia, ending his career and leaving him all but hopeless. As a favor to his sister – herself recently abandoned by a husband who decided he had to find himself – he takes on what seems to be a minor project of “looking after” Deacon Daniels, a feckless young pop star – whose boy band imploded spectacularly a while back.
But Deacon is not as shallow as Mav Delgardo might want to believe; and neither of them knows that there’s a psychopath out to destroy Daniels and anyone else who gets in his way.
Victoria Sue gives her characters room to grow and become fully-dimensional young men. They are compromised but uncorrupted. Within the settings she describes with just enough detail to make them real, and surrounded by secondary characters who do more than prop up the narrative, Deacon and Mav make us care about them, and draw us into the increasingly terrifying situation in which they find themselves.
An adorable toddler is well-utilized in this story. That’s a skill too often mishandled. At the other end of the line, the intimacy that boils to the surface between Mav and Deacon is both tender and appropriate to the plot. As with all book in this genre, it is love -emotional and physical – that gives strength, soothes pain, and proves the worth of each of us as people.
