Reviewed by Amber

TITLE: Arctic Absolution

AUTHOR: Lynn Kelling

PUBLISHER: Fantastic Fiction Publishing

LENGTH: 240 pages

BLURB:

Dixon Rowe is a good man and a good cop who keeps finding himself in bed with the enemy. After he picks up a young ex-con named Jaye Larson for stealing food, Dixon is seduced by the possibility of helping someone truly in need. He tells himself he’s assisting young Jaye out of the goodness of his heart–not because of how sexy Jaye is under all of the tattoos and defiance. But temptation entangles them as the malicious ghosts of Jaye’s past returns to haunt their every step. Jaye’s ghosts are bad enough, but the demon from Dixon’s past is real enough to put both of their lives in danger.

REVIEW:

You know those books that are really, really good? The ones where the writing is superb, the characters are well thought out and basically just jump out at you, the ones that you start and do not put down until the book is completely finished? Well, this is that book and if you feel like there is a huge “BUT” coming you are right. I really LOVED this book BUT I really HATED it too. It was so painful, and I read pain and I can appreciate pain in a story because I think authors have to put readers through that to get to the end which usually makes it all worth it. With this story I couldn’t reconcile in myself why these characters allowed themselves to be victims in the way that they were.

The two main characters are like night and day. Dixon is an Alaska State Trooper, sworn to uphold and protect society. Jaye is an ex-con, having done two years for manslaughter having killed the two men who targeted him for a hate crime. They meet when Jaye tries to steal food from a local convenience store. The spark between the two is immediate and electric. I loved the chemistry between these two. This author really knew how to build this up. She’s meticulous about drawing it out, giving us a little just to keep up coming back for more. I just wanted to marinate in the juicy goodness.

They both have really troubling histories, however. Dixon is just getting out of an extremely abusive relationship. His ex, Marcus, physically and mentally abused him for years. So much so that he had Dixon completely brainwashed that he deserved it and even asked for it. This is what caused so much frustration for me because I wanted Dixon to be stronger. I felt like he should have been able to control all situations but when push came to shove he buckled and that made me so angry.

We have a similar situation with Jaye. He comes from hard knocks and he gets so angry when Dixon tells him his trouble with Marcus. He makes us believe that if he ever comes into contact with Marcus, he’ll kill him, and he does try but when he came face to face with him, he became another victim.

A good 40% of this book my stomach was in knots. I was sick over some of the situations but I think that is the mark of a great story teller when they can actually get us to run through basically every emotion possible and feel the effects of it.

I would without a doubt recommend this book. I was just so angry for Dixon and Jaye that I think it clouded some aspects I couldn’t really appreciate.

This author is amazing and just because there were parts that I truly hated doesn’t take away from the fact that this book is remarkable.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Fantastic Fiction

Amazon

Amazon.UK

ARe