Rachel begs her dead husband’s best friend, Saul, to help her and her son escape from her abusive brother. Saul, a Navy SEAL Sniper, happens to be on his way out of town, and decides to take them with him.

I didn’t like this book as much as I hoped I would. After reading the first book in the series, Returning to Eden, I decided to break the rules and skip to the third book—this one—because I was intrigued by Saul’s character. Returning to Eden had its quirks that I was expecting to continue in this one, but I felt like the awkward and unrealistic word choice might have been worse. All of the conversations about religion also didn’t make as much sense/feel as natural and unscripted in the moment as Returning to Eden did.

I liked the storyline of running away from the abusive brother (interesting twist), and spending some time at Saul’s childhood home/ranch/large plot of land. Them fixing the house while not trying to draw attention to themselves was nice. There were two suspense/plot situations going on, and I didn’t necessarily love that. It almost made both of the resolutions feel too easy because the hype was split between them—I wasn’t double as worried as I would be for a book with one suspense situation.

As for the characters, I didn’t love Rachel. Maybe that’s because she had been so passive in her life, and when she did try to take some action, it still felt like she was taking a back seat and letting everybody else do everything for her. Like submitting her will to God meant she didn’t have to try to do anything; if it was meant to be, it would work out. Saul said that a lot too. He was having a war with himself during the book, which I wasn’t totally invested in. It made some sense, him feeling guilty for taking people’s lives, but it also didn’t. I guess I ended the book feeling like both Saul and Rachel think all snipers should go to hell… and maybe there could have been a better way to word things to say that it was okay for Saul to not want to be a sniper anymore.

So, I didn’t love the book. But… did I already check out another book in the series from the library? Uhh…yeah?

*Side note, while looking into the series, I made the discovery that the author, Rebecca Hartt, is a pen name for Marliss Melton who writes/wrote non-Christian romantic suspense. The Acts of Valor series is essentially a rewrite of her Navy SEAL Team Twelve series with Christian elements added in.