Dangerous Beauty (2022)

About the Book

Book: Dangerous Beauty

Author: Melissa Koslin

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Release Date: September 6, 2022

Liliana Vela hates the term victim. She’s not a victim, she’s a fighter. Stubborn and strong with a quiet elegance, she’s determined to take back her life after escaping the clutches of human traffickers in her poor Mexican village. But she can’t stay safely over the border in America–unless the man who aided in her rescue is serious about his unconventional proposal to marry her.

Meric Toledan was just stopping at a service station for a bottle of water. Assessing the situation, he steps in to rescue Liliana from traffickers. If he can keep his secrets at bay, his wealth and position afford him many resources to help her. But the mysterious buyer who funded her capture will not sit idly by while his prize is stolen from him.

Melissa Koslin throws you right into the middle of the action in this high-stakes thriller that poses the question: What is the price of freedom?

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My Thoughts

Dangerous Beauty by Melissa Koslin is a solid 3-STAR read for me. I liked this story and I am very glad I read it. It has many excellent qualities I love to see in a book. First, it’s seriously engaging from the very first line. I was hooked and did not want to put the book down. This story is also quite unique — it discusses in a very respectful and thoughtful manner a topic that personally fills me with dread and fear, and does it through a sort-of Beauty and the Beast re-telling. I very much enjoyed the way Koslin utilizes and twists this famous fairytale into a seriously engaging new variant. What I loved the most about this book is Koslin’s fantastic world-building. This story feels very real, as if I could step into the pages myself and join the characters on their very scary adventures. It was fun to be in the action, so to speak.

While I enjoyed Dangerous Beauty as a whole, I did slightly struggle in one regard. When I read Romantic Suspense I expect the author to allow me to be a sort-of detective reader. I expect clues, puzzle pieces if you will, from the author and then the space to put those pieces together to attempt to deduce whodunit. I don’t want to be told everything as that takes some of the fun and guesswork out of solving the suspenseful mystery. I want suspense. I want to make guesses — educated ones based on the trail of crumbs left by the author. For me, there is too much telling and not enough showing in Dangerous Beauty. I want to be very clear that this “too much telling, not enough showing” didn’t make me love the story and it’s characters any less. This is a good book. But it did take me out of the story a few times and make me think, “Little more clues, less telling, please.”

Overall, Dangerous Beauty is a riveting read that I highly recommend, especially if you are a fan of unique Romantic Suspense.

I purchased a copy of this novel in eBook form from Amazon.com on September 5, 2022, in order to review. In no way has any of this influenced my review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.