RITA Reader Challenge Review

Tall, Dark and Damaged by Sarah Andre

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Shoppermom. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romantic Suspense category.

The summary:

His Life Changed in a Heartbeat
Disinherited as a teen, Devon Ashby returns home twelve years later as a ruthless CEO, brilliant at negotiating deals, but emotionally stunted. In an instant all he’s struggled to build implodes. Amid the turmoil of saving his company from a hostile takeover, his engagement to a business partner’s high-society daughter hits the rocks. Compounding his troubles, he encounters his high school sweetheart, whose heart he smashed. The vulnerability she awakens leaves him at greater risk than all the crises he faces.

Her Dream Job May Get Her Killed
While restoring art in a billionaire’s private gallery, Hannah Moore is unwittingly drawn into the dysfunctional family’s confidences. When she discovers the rich developer behind her and her sick aunt’s eviction is the family’s black-sheep son—the lover she’s never gotten over—her desire turns to fury. Always one to avoid conflict, Hannah must stand up to Devon and the growing menace of someone who thinks she knows too much.

A Decades-Old Secret Turns Deadly
When a family member is murdered, Devon and Hannah become ensnared in sibling greed, festering jealousy, and a tragic secret that’s divided the family. Amid their reigniting passion they race to expose the killer before they become the next victims in this cat-and-mouse game of survival.

Here is Shoppermom's review:

Tall, dark, and damaged are three good adjectives used to describe Sarah Andre’s hero, Devon Ashby. Or Devon Wickham, depending on which villain you choose to support in this fast moving family-based romantic intrigue.

Other adjectives that might serve: drop-dead gorgeous, resilient, ruthless, and afraid. Because Devon is afraid to expose his heart to more pain. At the age of nine, he had to cope with a distant and forbidding father, but his day-to-day existence with a beloved younger sister and a devoted mother was a pampered young boy’s dream. Then his mother died, falling from a lakeside cliff on the Wickham family estate outside Chicago. Though her death was ruled a suicide, Devon knows for certain that his father pushed his mother, and in her absence, the rift between father and son became irreparable and vicious.

The only bright spot in young Devon’s life was his love for the beautiful Hannah Moore, whose simple, shy goodness provided solace for his tortured soul and passion for his enthusiastically virile body. But when all hell broke loose between father and son during Devon’s senior year of high school, Devon abandoned Hannah. He needed to cut all ties with his past, and if love got in the way of that final break, then love would have to be sacrificed as well.

This is a romantic suspense novel, though, right? So naturally, twelve years later Devon and Hannah’s worlds collide again. Devon’s father is as ruthless and wicked as ever, now determined to destroy the hard-won economic success Devon has achieved. Hannah has spent the intervening years doing her utmost to forget Devon, but no one she has met has ever touched her heart or body the way he did. Events come to a climax on a dark and stormy night, when everything Devon believes is tossed asunder, and he has to fight to save the life of the only woman he has ever truly loved.

Tall, Dark and Damaged kept me up wayyyy past my bedtime, and that was after I found myself so absorbed that I barely noticed horrible turbulence that left other passengers shaken during a particularly bad flight. I had to find out what would happen, and the surprises at the end were well worth my perseverance. Even the dark and stormy night was gloriously conveyed—I could almost smell the electricity in the air as the lightning flashed and the thunder cracked through the sound of the pounding rain.

All that said, I was just the tiniest bit disappointed in the rapid conclusion on the last pages and the paucity of the romantic resolution. There was no truly satisfying mutual “I love you” moment, and a few of the minor plot conflicts that kept Devon and Hannah apart were not addressed. One or two other plot incongruities niggled a bit, and those, combined with just a few typos/copy errors might have been fixed through a traditional publishing/editing process. All in all, though, Tall, Dark and Damaged was a thoroughly engrossing and satisfying read, and I look forward to reading more from Sarah Andre.

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Tall, Dark and Damaged by Sarah Andre

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Add Your Comment →

  1. Sarah Andre says:

    Thank you so much!

  2. DonnaMarie says:

    Any book that can keep a body distracted during a bad flight must be a winner. Thanks for the review!

  3. Amy DeLuca says:

    Wow! I totally needed this book during my rough flight last week. Will definitely check it out.

  4. Kristina says:

    I quick-read the post title as “Tall, Dark, and Deranged” and thought – wow, people really want a deranged hero in a non-comic (based on the cover image) romance?

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