Synopsis

Romancing the Stone meets The Mountain Between Us in an enemies to lovers, grumpy sunshine romantic adventure set in the mountains of Nepal.

After losing his fiancée in a tragedy he can neither forgive nor forget, Luke Caldwell has spent years turning grief into vengeance. Now the hunter has become the hunted, forced to lie low in Nepal while the mountains punish him for surviving.

Dr. Marie Taylor is a talented biochemist who loves her work, despises the institute that pays her salary, and has purged her life of complications, namely people.

But her carefully structured world is shaken when she receives a distress signal from a colleague who vanished into the remote Himalayas of Nepal, taking with him the solution to a clandestine project.

Traveling to Nepal, Marie is forced to hire the only pilot reckless enough to attempt the flight: Luke Caldwell, a man with murder in his eyes and a past he has no intention of sharing.

When their plane goes down, Luke and Marie must fight to stay alive in a perilously beautiful wilderness and face ruthless forces who will stop at nothing to seize the project.

Survival means trusting each other. For a man who’s sworn off love and a woman who doesn’t believe in it, trust may be the most impossible choice of all.

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Review

I have read multiple books by this author, and her books never fail to hold my attention from start to finish.

This book is a little darker than some of her others. There are some aspects that could trigger people depending on how sensitive they are to violence. So if that bothers you, don’t pick this one up.

While the romance of this book is on the lighter side, and it is more action and suspense, there are still some aspects that will bring out the romantic. Two people who don’t believe they are capable, or deserve happiness, are brought together in this adventure across Nepal.

Marie is a fiery redhead, who has had some hard times in her past, including a mentor who stole her research and claimed it as his own. Luke lost his fiancée and has turned to mercenary work to get by. These two would be the least likely pair you could imagine. But for them, it works. It takes time to trust each other, and that is the focus of their story, learning trust.

There is also government agencies out to take over the world with a formula that could control minds. We all know this would be a huge mistake, and it is a race against time to save themselves and the fate of humanity.

I enjoyed the multiple points of view. It is primarily from Marie’s POV, but there are a few chapters from Luke’s POV. This gives us a look into his thoughts and how this experience is changing him. There is humor despite the situation they find themselves in, and the supporting cast of Jake and Gordon adds depth to the story.

I was not disappointed in this read, and can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

We give this book 5 paws up.

About the Author

Lara Martin writes books about imperfect people living messy lives, falling in love, and getting their perfect happily-ever-after. She’s lived in South Africa and Australia and now calls a cozy village in England her home. She’s tried a variety of amazing and awful jobs: video game reviewer, graphic designer, insurance claims agent (she has no idea how she landed this one), proofreader, feature writer, and magazine editor. She lives with her husband (always the first reader of her novels), two slightly terrifying teenagers, and the requisite psychotic cat. When she’s not writing, she can be found haunting local coffee shops.

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