Reviewed by Anna Lynn
TITLE: Salvation
SERIES: The Protectors
AUTHOR: Sloane Kennedy
NARRATOR: Joel Leslie
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
RELEASE DATE: May 01, 2017
LENGTH: 7 hours 57 minutes
BLURB:
“I lifted my gaze to tell Seth no but then I saw it. The thing I’d feared I’d lost. It wasn’t hero worship or the wayward emotions of an innocent child. And it wasn’t some distorted reflection of a man who no longer existed. All I saw was me…the way he saw me.” (Ronan)
Trauma surgeon Ronan Grisham lost everything the day the man he loved was stolen from him in a brutal attack. Driven by a thirst for vengeance, he turns his hatred into building an underground group that can do what he couldn’t that fateful day…take the lives of the guilty to save the lives of the innocent. But years later, he’s forced to confront the one link to his past that he can’t sever.
Seven years after the loss of his parents in a violent home invasion that left him permanently scarred both inside and out, 21-year-old Seth Nichols is trying to put his life back together so he can take over the reins of his father’s global shipping empire. But the last person he expects to come back into his life is the man he drove away with one innocent, stolen kiss.
With one brush of his lips, Seth managed to do to Ronan what no other had since the day Ronan watched the light in his fiancé’s eyes go out forever. He made him need again. But Ronan can’t need anyone, least of all his dead fiancé’s younger brother. Because even one touch from Seth could shatter Ronan’s carefully constructed world and Ronan knows there’s no coming back from that a second time.
But when a series of escalating attacks against Seth forces Ronan back into his life, Seth knows it’s his last chance to show Ronan he can be the man the broken surgeon needs. Only the Ronan who returns isn’t the Ronan Seth fell in love with so long ago….
Can Seth be Ronan’s salvation or will he end up destroying them both?
REVIEW:
This is the second book in the series The Protectors written by Ms. Sloane Kennedy. This second installment is also voiced over by Mr. Joel Leslie. We all know, for those who are familiar with the work of Ms. Sloane Kennedy, that this series is much loved. It is about a group of men who have sworn to protect those who have been abused sexually, kidnapped and sold through human trafficking, sexually-slaved and other such heinous crimes. They are the ones who take care of those who have escaped the arms of the law. They take care of those who have repeatedly committed the crime even after being incarcerated for it and somehow released again.
Book two is about Dr. Ronan Grisham, the leader of this organization. He has experienced firsthand how brutal and evil man could be. In fact, this is the main reason why he started said underground organization. At first, he just wanted to die when it happened to him and his fiance. He wanted to drown himself in pills and booze. What happened to them made him angry but he felt hopeless after losing the love of his life. He was on a downward spiral when one man saved him. Michael “Hawke” Hawkins somehow found him, bringing with him the man who hurt his fiancé. From then on, with Hawke’s help, and using what inheritance his fiancé left him, he started the underground vigilante organization.
When Seth’s family home was invaded by thieves when he was just fourteen, he experienced a nightmare he wouldn’t wish on anyone. He, together with his Mom and Dad, were tied up, tortured and his Mom was violated. He was stabbed repeatedly to torture his Dad into giving up where he kept the safe in the house. He was left for dead with his parents. His older brother, Trace (Ronan’s fiancé) came home to take care of him but readily went back on tour two months after leaving Seth in the care of their ailing grandmother. These all happened when he was just fourteen years old. Barely a few months passed when he learned that his brother died during a training exercise. Little did he know that that was the furthest truth from what really happened. At the age of sixteen, he lost his grandmother so he emancipated himself and learned how to run the very successful shipping company that his father started.
Ronan has been watching Seth off and on, but the last time Ronan saw him was three years ago when Seth kissed him. Seth has always been in loved with him, it started with a crush but blossomed into something else through time. But Seth knows that Ronan will always see him as the younger brother of his Trace, Ronan’s fiancé. But now Ronan is back because someone mugged Seth in the parking area of his building. Someone is determined to hurt Seth for some reason.
What these men went through, same as with the other men in the organization, are so devastating that for weaker men, it would have destroyed them. But these men found the courage to stand up time and time again, and found ways to rid this world of the scums of the earth, those vile and loathsome beings (they are not even human) who are pure evil.
Once again, Mr. Joel Leslie rendered me speechless with his voice. Injecting pain into the voices of each character is one of the hardest part in portraying a character. Your talent is undeniable when you are able to interject all those pain when you portray Ronan, or Seth, even Hawke. Being able to stay in the role while voicing the different characters in the story requires some serious meticulousness and talent. When an author writes a story and you live through it with the characters, the author’s talent is unquestionable. And when that story is voiced over by someone who is able to infuse all those feelings in each of the character, then I think you have created a bestseller twice over. Thank you Ms. Sloane Kennedy and Mr. Joel Leslie for your talent. We do appreciate and love it so much!
RATING: 
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