Reviewed by Vicki

 TITLE: A Reason To Stay

SERIES: Heroes #1

AUTHOR: R.J. Scott

PUBLISHER: Love Lane Books

LENGTH: 267 pages

BLURB:

When SEAL, Viktor Zavodny, left small town America for the Navy he made sure he never had a reason to return for anything other than visiting family. He wanted to see the world and fight for his country and nothing, or no one, was getting in his way. He fights hard, and plays harder, and a succession of men and women share his bed.

But a phone call from his sister has him using his thirty day down time to go home instead of enjoying his usual thirty nights of random sex and sleep.

What he finds is a mystery on the Green Mountains and the only man attempting to make sense of seemingly unrelated deaths. His childhood friend and first love… Lieutenant Aiden Coleman, Sheriff.

There were reasons Viktor left his home. Not least Aiden Coleman with his small town innocence and his dreams of forever. Now Adam and Viktor need to work together to save lives and prove there is a hero in all of us.
When it’s done, if they make it out alive, can Aiden persuade Viktor that he has a reason to stay? Maybe forever?

REVIEW:

Oh boy… Viktor and Aiden have some long history! In high school a 16 year old Aiden professed his love to an 18 year old Viktor. Unfortunately Viktor was set on becoming a SEAL and nothing would keep him in a small town, even Aiden. 14 years later they reunite while Viktor is home recovering from an injury. Viktor thinks he’s in trouble for walking out on Aiden, which he is, but the spark is still there. They spend a couple of hot weeks together, but the Navy calls and Viktor goes. Again, leaving a hurting, in love Aiden behind.

Two years later they are brought back together again, when Ben, Viktor’s nephew is found injured in the woods. Aiden is a Sheriffs Deputy and has stayed close to Viktor’s family. He is on the scene when Ben is found and is the contact between the Sheriffs Department and the family. Of course Viktor returns home to be with his family and can’t avoid seeing Aiden. This is really the beginning of the story at the heart of this book.

There is serious anger and tension between the two men, they get caught up in a nasty story involving missing ATF agents, hunters, and a very dangerous mountain. Aiden is trying to keep Viktor out of the investigation, partly because he’s being a jackass, partly because he wants Viktor to stay with his family. Viktor is also being a jackass and throwing his weight around and calling in favors to figure out what is going on. Rightly so, Ben is his nephew, but he just goes about it the wrong way. They are both stubborn and want to get to the bottom of this mess, but not with the help of the other. They do finally get their act together and head out in to the woods. Alone. In the snow. Mad at each other. And in love. Drama happens, no spoilers here, and we get a great ending.

The story is just complex enough to be interesting,  but not bogged down with lots of background and details. RJ’s Sanctuary books are closely related to these, there are a couple of cross over characters, but I liked this one more. The Sanctuary books are very good, don’t get me wrong, but they are all tangled up in this big plot and I honestly forgot what was going on from the earlier books by the later books. I think if I had read them one after the other I would have been fine, but spread out over a couple of years was hard. Anyway, back to this fabulous book. The characters were great, not just Aiden and Viktor, but Monika, Sam, Lucas, and Ben all played a part in building this story. The tension between Aiden and Viktor felt justified to me, although I think Aiden was a little quick to forgive. I would have made Viktor work a bit harder…. The mystery/action part of the story was well thought out and interesting. It worked for me. Again, it was exciting but not so huge it got garbled. It was just perfect. Good good guys, and good bad guys. And a great ending.

So what we have here is an awesome story, quite possible my favorite RJ Scott book. Some of my issues with her other books were totally missing in this one. Her military bits felt right to me, she had her sailor correct someone who called him a soldier (pet peeve of mine), and there were no British words or phrases used in a book set in the US. The writing was excellent. I’ve been reading RJ’s books for several years now, I’ve liked most of them, loved some of them, and had issues with a couple here and there… But with this one I can see how she has grown as a writer. I loved it! It may just be me, but I think this may be her best book yet!

RATING:

BUY LINKS: Love Lane Books Amazon