Wicked Games - Book Review

By A.D Justice

Synopsis

She has the story of a lifetime every investigative reporter dreams of landing.
But the trail of incriminating evidence leads back to the only man she’s ever loved.
When she misses her flight, she watches the plane explode in mid-air, knowing the bomb was onboard to silence her.
Who can she trust?

He hasn’t been the same since the day he lost her.
Then he catches an intruder in his house, only to find his long-dead love is still alive.
Lust, love, betrayal, and loyalty war inside him.
Treachery, deceit, and danger threaten them.

When an unknown enemy holds all the cards, how can they survive the wicked games?

Review

WICKED GAMES is the first book in the Steele Security series and the first book I’ve read from A.D. Justice. It is told in the past and present day, with a good portion of the story taking place between three to five years ago. I can’t say much about the main characters because I felt the arms trafficking side of the story overshadowed them. Or maybe that was the part of the story I was most interested in and enjoyed the most. I will say that the person behind the arms trafficking was obvious and I hope it was supposed to be.

I could be wrong, but I believe this may be the author’s debut novel, which would explain the few technical issues I had problems with. The story is told in multiple POVs, with the POV changing without notice, often several times within the same chapter. There were occasional gaps in time that also came without notice. One chapter, told in Brianna’s POV, takes place over several months, then the very next chapter, told in Noah’s POV, starts all the way back from where the previous chapter started. These things disrupted the flow of the story, and overall I struggled with this style of writing. Moving on, I thought it was odd that when Brianna was thinking about her parents, she would refer to them by their first names instead of Mom and Dad. She would do the same with Noah, one minute calling him Noah and then switching to Reaper. Lastly, Reaper’s team was called out several days before Brianna was to go home, but later on she says his team was called out just hours before she left. While this is not a huge mistake, it is a sloppy one.

Despite what I’ve said above, overall I thought WICKED GAMES was an okay read, one that came with a HEA for Noah and Brianna. I bought the first four books in this series as a box-set, and I will give the second book a try before deciding whether or not I will continue with the series.