Book Review: A Promise to Protect

I was recently offered the chance to read another of Liz Johnson's romantic suspense novels - since I love romantic suspense and she's not let me down yet, I jumped at the chance! I'm glad I did.

Since it's a Love Inspired novel, it's shorter than most of the books I've been reading lately, and it made a great afternoon interlude with just enough romance and just enough suspense to transport you out of your chaotic life for a few hours.

Summary: Navy SEAL Matt Waterstone knows about keeping people safe. When his best friend’s sister is attacked, Matt promises no harm will come to Ashley Sawyer–not on his watch. But Matt’s not the only protective one. Ashley will do anything to safeguard the residents of the battered women’s shelter she runs. She’s sure she can handle the threats she gets in return. What she can’t handle is the way Matt scales the walls around her heart. Yet when she falls prey to a crime web more sinister than she’d realized, trusting Matt could be the only way to survive.

I enjoyed this quite a bit - it's fairly light and predictable on the romance end of things (though there was one twist in this that I didn't actually see coming, so that was great.) There are some deeper issues like abusive relationships (and another that factors into the big twist, so I'm not going to ruin it) that are touched on with enough depth to make you think but not so much that you get bogged down. It was nice to have that extra facet in the story.

If you've got a romantic suspense reader on your Christmas list, this'd be a good stocking stuffer!