Summary

Two uncles from vastly different worlds. One orphaned child. Will a conspiracy that bridges an ocean somehow build a family, or will state secrets keep Eric and Dan apart forever?

Eric is a genius. He’s a professor of environmental studies at an Ivy League university, an inventor, and one of the most respected scientists in his field. He doesn’t think about his birth family much, and the feeling is mutual – or he thinks it is, until a call from a local hospital throws his carefully ordered world into chaos.

Dan has seen and done a lot in his time as an Army Ranger. Thrown into civilian life by an injury, he’s happy to work for Five Star Security doing what he does best – until he gets a call from his hometown with devastating news.

His beloved older brother, Chris, has been killed in a car accident, along with his bride, Selene. Custody of their amazing four-year-old daughter has been left not to Dan, with whom all three were close, but to Selene’s younger half-brother, Eric – a man Dan has never met and who didn’t bother showing up for the wedding.

Dan is devastated. Finding Eric to be handsome and kind, if reserved, doesn’t help. Selene was wonderful, but her whole family was a pack of vipers. Eric can’t be any different, can he?

It doesn’t take long for Dan’s boss to figure out why Selene and Chris would leave Ada in Eric’s custody. Selene was a member of the royal family of Corvia, and Eric has managed to avoid the spotlight for the past decade and more. As the investigation into the car wreck shows it was no accident, Dan and Eric must join forces to keep their shared niece safe.

But can they keep their hearts safe from each other – especially when old secrets come to light that threaten their newfound love?

Review

I’m starting to think J.V. Speyer has a thing for a random out-of-the-blue kiss and then it being sort of ignored… So far two of two books in this series have one, I’m interested to see if book 3 does as well, haha.

This felt a little instalove-y, and I’m not big on royals (I’d totally leave Eric alone, haha!). Still I was really intrigued by the various suspense storylines in this book – what actually happened to Eric and Dan’s siblings, the various custody battles over their surviving child Ada, and what underhanded, evil thing Andreas will try next.

I love the way Eric and Dan work together to take care of and protect Ada. Eric thinks he’s not good with kids, but he speaks to Ada in such a way that he’s treating her as a person who has the understanding to accept real, rational explanations. He doesn’t baby her, but he also doesn’t treat her in a way that expects her to be above her level. For someone who squashes down all of his own emotions, he is so intuitive about recognizing and accepting the feelings of others – and letting them know it’s okay and normal to feel the way they do. It was just really lovely to see someone confirming the validity of people’s feelings, and understanding that their actions – which are often negative towards himself – are driven by a place of emotion. I also wanted to hug him and tell him that even though someone is dealing with pain, it doesn’t mean he should have to take the brunt of that.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are unbiased and my own.