To The Brink

- Cindy Gerard -

Third in the "Bodyguards" series, and my favorite by a country mile, I think.

The fact that Ethan and Darcy have a history is what did it for me, I think. They used to be married, and in the course of flashing back to their meeting, marriage and breakup, along with the present-day adventure as Ethan and his brothers rescue Darcy after she was abducted in the Phillipinnes, there is just a lot of opportunities for character details to come out in the course of the story without seeming forced. The reasons for their initial break up were just as believable as their reasons for coming back together and it was fun to read.

To The Brink also had much more characterization and development of the other characters, particularly with the B-story of Ethan's brother, Dallas, and Darcy's fellow abductee, Amy. Despite being a very secondary thread in this book, I felt like I got a lot of information about them and am really looking forward to their story (book 6). We also got to see a fair bit of Nolan, from To The Limit, who is a lot more cheerful now that he's got his happy ending. I really enjoyed that book too, so fun to see those characters again (and to know that Jillian's father is well and truly on board with his son in law's career and adventures now, to the point of paying for them).

The second book was really the weak link in this series for me, the characterization in the other two is just so much better.