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Review: Entice (#3, Eagle Elite) by Rachel Van Dyken

My Thoughts

One of the most exciting stories of the year!
Sexy and suspenseful, this is one heart-pounding page turner that keeps you clamoring for more!

Related Posts: 2014 Favorites, Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

From #1 New York Times Bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken comes the third book in the bestselling Eagle Elite Series…

“As burns this saint, so burns my soul. I enter alive, and I will have to get out dead.”

Chase Winter let the love of his life slip through his fingers and into the hands of his best friend and mafia boss of the Abandanato family. Now that he’s been given a second chance to right a wrong–he refuses to let his own selfishness stand in the way. The only problem? He’s not fully in possession of his heart, so when Mil De Lange, the girl who’s innocence he stole, and heir to the worst of the worst mafia families in the US, asks him for a favor. He actually says yes, not realizing that that one yes has the power to destroy them all.

Mil’s been in love with Chase as long as she can remember, but as the years went by, the love turned to hate, and now that he’s agreed to help her, she’s wondering if she made a fatal error. Because Chase isn’t a teenager anymore. He’s a hot blooded male, bent on owning every part of her body and soul, and willing to kill anyone in his path who dares stand in the way.
It’s time for secrets to finally be revealed…but make no mistake, it’s going to take a lot of bloodshed for those truths to be discovered.

You’ve never read a New Adult Mafia story like this before…loyalties will be tested, lovers reunited, and friendships obliterated. Welcome to the Family. Blood in–No out.

My Review

Rachel Van Dyken can write one hell of a book. That’s the truth. In fact, she may be the most versatile writer I’ve read. From light-hearted romantic comedy to heart-wrenching, emotional romance to thrilling mafia stories such as this series, she has always delivered. Always. I devour her books. Swoon at her male protagonists who love their women so completely. She writes these epic lines, that when delivered by our hero, literally make my heart melt into girly goo. I’ve loved the Eagle Elite series, but to date, this has been the most exciting installment of them all. This is Chase and Mil’s story, and heck, who didn’t love Chase already? All the attributes we’ve come to love about him are highlighted in all their glory. His loyalty. His heart. His fearlessness. But the story is also more than Chase and Mil too… We get more Nixon and Trace, more Tex and Mo drama, and a more tangled Mafia web that never ceases to surprise me with its unexpected twists and jaw-dropping turns.

“I don’t even know how it happened, how she’d maneuvered her way into my should, how she’d made it so that I was overcome with madness for her — a type of obsession that I never wanted to be done with. She had destroyed me, and in my destruction, I’d found my salvation.”

Chase Winters. In love with Trace. Best friend to Nixon. Fiancé to Mil, the new boss of the De Lange family. He promised to protect her. To keep her safe. To make things right for one year.

“I won’t let you down. I may be a lot of things, and I may be a terrible husband, since I’m still nursing a broken heart and all that, but I’ll be loyal. I’ll help you. I’ll protect you.”

Emiliana De Lange. Beautiful. Lethal. Wanted. People want to kill her and now, she’s had to marry the boy she loved since she was fourteen. The boy who broke her heart. The boy who was in love with someone else. Marrying him promised to be her own personal hell.

“I wasn’t a bride on her wedding day — I was a prisoner on death row, and they’d just unlocked my cell.”

From the beginning, however, their time together is charged. Half sexual energy. Half merciless tenacity. They bicker constantly, but the air is fraught with a turmoil of raging emotions. On top of that, their thoughts must be sharp and readied to counter the danger that looms. We realize that as tough as Mil is, and in a role dominated by men, she’s still very much a woman. One who never got over her first love… the boy that had inadvertently saved her at the darkest point in her life. I loved her strength juxtaposed with her emotional vulnerability. She is so affected by Chase. His touch. His gaze. His presence. It’s all entirely disarming and she struggles to keep her distance as well as her cool.

“Chase was anything but safe. In fact, he was damn hazardous to my health.”

Almost immediately, danger comes knocking and Chase is in a position to save her again. Chase is determined to not let her down and soon he begins to see how amazing Mil is. He sees her toughness, her beauty, her resilience and grit. I could see Chase fall for Mil, moment by moment. Piece by piece. His feelings transitioning from what he thought he felt for Trace to what he truly began to feel for Mil. An obsession began to intensify. He would protect her at all costs. Particularly since he started to see Mil had gone through more than she was willing to admit. The charged energy between them was killing me. I absolutely loved them together and loved seeing Chase begin to break through her defenses.

“I chose to be with you… I wasn’t forced, nor will I ever be forced. And if I am, I’ll take the punishment with open arms. So pick up the broken pieces to your tragically shattered heart. Let me glue them back together again so you can get that damn look off your face and let me kiss you.”

The stakes are high in this book and as truths are gradually revealed, we realize they are all in grave danger. So much more danger than they had been in the past and Mil is the key to it all. We meet some chilling new characters that have the power to bury them all six-feet under and as you might expect, we see explosions and blood and torture and kidnappings… everything that had my heart furiously racing. And with each showdown, these crazy bad boys fall for their women even harder.

“I wanted a future with her. I wanted a present with her. I just wanted her.”

A riotous venture ensues as they plot to beat impending death and I was furiously flipping the pages to see what would happen next. The end of the novel is one that left me wide-eyed, shocked and frankly, one that had me messaging the author promising her the world to tell me what would happen next. The story does give us a Chase/Mil conclusion, but Tex’s story is coming next and oh em geeeeee. Get ready.

There’s is not a single negative thing I could say about this book. It was the perfect thrill that left me on such a reading high. It had romance, mystery, danger, wit and a whole lot of sexy. This is definitely one of my favorite reads this year and I simply CANNOT wait to get my greedy little hands on Elicit.