Review: In All My Life by Ciara Knight #TBRChallenge

In All My Life by Ciara Knight
Series: Riverbend #4
Published by Defy the Dark on 2016-09-16
Length: 141 pages
Reviewing eBook from My Book Shelf
Rating:
Reading Challenges: COYER Blackout, TBR Challenge 2017

Shamed and dismissed from the Atlanta Sheriff's Department, Larson Raeder abandons big city law enforcement for a small town campus police job. He only hopes it's far enough to escape the publicity of putting a man his own sister falsely accused in the hospital.

Helen Simpson returns to Riverbend for a new start with her young daughter running a battered women's shelter. Small town life gives them a peace they never had, until a dangerous man from her past, untouchable by police, threatens to kidnap her daughter. A payment he feels is due to him for the humiliation she brought upon his family for fleeing the cartel and her husband.

Helen must learn to lean on someone again or she'll lose her daughter. But will Larson be able to trust her, or will he abandon her to her fate?

In All My Life by Ciara Knight is the 4th installment in the Riverbend novella series, a sister series to her popular contemporary romance series Sweetwater County. As with all the books in this series, In All My Life follows two people who found themselves in Riverbend because of the bad hand life has dealt them.

Helen Simpson and her daughter were first introduced in the last book. Helen was integral in bringing her husband to justice and stopping his sex trade. Now she is living with a new name and running a battered women’s shelter. I like Helen. She’s a strong woman who doesn’t let her past rule her present. If I had been through what this woman has, I would have buried my head in the sand and never reemerged. She was tortured and kept a prisoner by her husband, someone you should be able to trust. So obviously she has trust issues, and no one can fault her for them.

Larson Raeder though, he stole my heart! A former cop now university security guard, Raeder keeps his heart on lockdown and trusts no one. He is given the task by the dean to help with security at the women’s shelter, a job he takes seriously but doesn’t know if he wants. His own sister, a woman like these women, betrayed him and cost him his life when he tried to help her out of her relationship. Now he watches these women with a wary eye. And like with Helen, you can’t fault him. He has a heart of gold, but has been so broken by sister that he keeps everyone at arm’s distance.

I think you can probably guess where this is heading 😉 One of the things I love about Ciara Knight‘s contemporary romance is her ability to make you fall in love with the characters, to root them on, and cry with them when things go sour. Also the dual POV is amazing! I love the dramatic irony it brings, where we the readers know what the characters do not.

Overall I enjoyed this book, reading it in one afternoon. It’s a sweet, contemporary romance with some suspense thrown in for good measure. If you’ve enjoyed the Riverbend series so far, I highly recommend it. If you’re new to the series, that’s okay. Each novella can be read as a standalone without spoiling the others, though I do recommend reading in order as I like the other characters 😀

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