PROTECTING YOU BY ROBIN PATCHEN

Review by Gina Holder

In a high-stakes game of deception, two rivals must work together to bring down a ruthless terrorist.

After Alyssa’s dream of working in US intelligence is thwarted, she leaves her mundane profession to pursue a career as a cyber investigator. Though she aces every case she gets, securing enough customers to stay afloat proves challenging. When a lucrative commission comes along, she thinks she’s hit the jackpot. But this client isn’t the British entrepreneur he claims to be. And then her old nemesis interrupts their meeting with a startling move.

CIA agent Callan Templeton is floundering in his new role as a single father to a surprise daughter, but he still has a job to do. He follows a tip about a terrorist, only to be shocked when he finds his old college adversary dining with the notorious killer. Maybe there was a better way to step in than by posing as Alyssa’s fiancé, but it was the best excuse he could come up with to insert himself into their meeting.

Callan once stole the job Alyssa coveted, and now the last thing she wants is his help. But when he explains who her client really is, she realizes she’s in way over her head. Dariush Ghazi knew exactly what he was doing when he targeted her. She’s trapped. She must go along with a dangerous scheme, pretending to help him while working with Callan…or end up dead.

In their quest to dismantle Dariush’s network of evil, Callan and Alyssa risk sacrificing each other—and everything they hold dear.

Prepare to dive into this gripping tale of enemies turned allies, a fake engagement, and a deadly conspiracy.

My Thoughts:

PROTECTING YOU presents this question—Who are you living to please? It’s easy to focus on the human beings in our lives—the ones that surround us daily. Our parents, children, bosses, pastors, spouses… We get caught up with wanting to please these people, to hear praise from their lips, and to savor the knowledge that they’re proud of us and appreciate all that we do. We want the praise of man and to be successful in the eyes of man.

But who should we be working to please? Our Heavenly Father. It’s far more important that we live our lives in a way that not only pleases Him but brings honor and glory to His holy name. We should care more about what He thinks of us than what others think of us.

PROTECTING YOU was my first read by Robin Patchen, and it will not be my last. PROTECTING YOU was an intriguing, edge-of-your-seat novel, with some amazing twists and turns throughout, but especially at the climax. She had me convinced… and I shed tears over the emotional ending.

The main characters are Alyssa Wright and Callan Templeton. Alyssa is a cyber detective trying to get her business off the ground, which makes her an easy target for nefarious clients who might not be as sincere and wholesome as they make out.

Callan is a government agent, whose life took a hairpin turn in the form of an eight-year-old child, he never knew existed. He’s trying to adjust to being a father and having a “safe” desk job, but a phone call urges him to put everything at risk.

This is a fake engagement trope, which in fact, is one of my favorites. It also uses a rivals-to-lovers trope, not quite enemies, but hiding their former attractions with each other. It’s also a forced proximity trope as Callan is determined not to leave Alyssa alone until she’s safe. The mention of armed drones felt a little too real—if you know what I mean.

The story works well as a standalone—I never felt like I was missing anything, though the brief mentions and interactions with other characters from the previous books sparked a desire to read them. The theme of the novel focused on “Who am I trying to please?” Our earthly parents or our Heavenly Father?

PROTECTING YOU was engaging, pulse-pounding romantic suspense novel from a talented author, and I highly recommend it for lovers of other romantic suspense authors and encourage you to read the entire series and check out others by Robin.

Note: Some readers may not like the use of several euphemisms that might be considered mild cuss words. Also, there are some conversations that mention people sleeping together. None of this happens on page and are referred to as past mistakes and some questions from a child based on her own mother’s poor behavior.

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Robin Patchen is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of Christian romantic suspense. She grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, the setting of her Nutfield Saga books, and then headed to Boston to earn a journalism degree. After college, working in marketing and public relations, she discovered how much she loathed the nine-to-five ball-and-chain. After relocating to the Southwest, she started writing her first novel while she homeschooled her three children. The novel was dreadful, but her passion for storytelling didn’t wane. Thankfully, as her children grew, so did her writing ability. Now that her kids are adults, she has more time to play with the lives of fictional heroes and heroines, wreaking havoc and working magic to give her characters happy endings. When she’s not writing, she’s editing or reading, proving most of her life revolves around the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

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