On His Six by Patricia Eddy

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

Publication date: 10/06/2018
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Cliffhanger: No

Audiobook narrators: Aiden Snow, Grace Grant
Length: 9 hours, 39 minutes

I struggle with romantic suspense. There’s so much I don’t like about the category, and yet...that’s where so many of the awesome, tortured, scarred alpha heroes live. And sometimes they’re GRUMPY, tortured, scarred alpha heroes...and those are my kryptonite. It’s the eternal struggle. Sigh. What’s a girl to do? ​

Well, in this case, just like in so many other romantic suspense novels I’ve read, I loved the grumpy, tortured, scarred alpha hero, and hated the heroine he’d been paired with. If I could fix Ryker up with a heroine from a different book, this would’ve been a 5-star read. But since I’m stuck with Wren, this one’s only getting 3.5 stars.

Here’s what worked and earned the book it’s stars:

1. Ryker is sexy and tortured and kind of broken, but he still functions in a high-stakes, high-stress job, and he still cares about his team of former military badasses. And while he’s alpha, he’s never a bossy, jerkish alphahole. He’s just an all around good guy.
2. Dax, a secondary character in this book is SUPER interesting and I’d most likely read a story about him. Inara was a pretty cool badass, as well. I’ll probably take a look at her story, too.   
3. The pacing was good, and the action scenes were sufficiently...action-y.
4. The story was gritty without being so graphic that I was scarred for life. I appreciated the balance that was required to accomplish that.
5. The writing itself is strong, I think. It’s compelling and engaging and held my interest to the end.     

Now for what didn’t work:

1. Wren is supposedly some kind of hacker genius, but I didn’t get to see a lot of what she could do. She mostly spent her time a) needing to be rescued, and b) popping Xanax like they were Tic Tacs.
2. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the Russian mob is after me and wants me dead. If the big scary former military badass who is protecting me tells me it’d be safer if I stayed in the house, I’d stay in the house. No questions asked. No WAY would I argue with him, insist I can take of myself, and go out on the town. I think you can probably guess which option Wren, our intrepid heroine, chose. Yep. She went out and got herself kidnapped, beaten, and drugged.
3. And as if the FIRST time she didn’t listen to Ryker wasn’t lesson enough, Wren throws herself into danger A SECOND TIME towards the end of the book and requires rescuing yet again. At that point, I was kind of hoping Ryker and his team would just declare her a lost cause and let the bad guys have her.
4. Ryker is almost 7 feet tall. Really? How in the hell is a guy that huge supposed to function in clandestine military ops? I’m thinking his size would be a HUGE impediment.
5. Ryker has been through horrific torture and is understandably a little reluctant to chat about his past. (Or anything else, for that matter. He’s a quiet dude, OK?) Wren is constantly harping on him to “let her in.” Every time she pushed him to spill his guts to her, I wanted to reach through my Kindle and smack the crap out of her. He just met you 2 days ago and you expect him to completely open his heart to you? Really? Ease up there, stalker chick. Give the dude some space.
6. There’s no way around it: this is a case of instalove. (Completely inexplicable instalove, in my opinion. Ryker can do better.)             

So, long-story-short, with a different heroine, this could’ve been a 5-star read. But Wren’s an anchor around the book’s neck. It’s a shame, really. Ryker had such potential...

Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
It’s stigma-free. No rehab needed.

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