Review: Into the Storm

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Xavier Rivera planned the exercise down to the smallest detail, but he didn't plan the arrival of archaeologist Audrey Kendrick—a woman he shared a passionate night with before betraying her in the worst way. As the storm is unleashed on the historic lodge it becomes clear the training has been compromised. Trapped by weather, isolated by the remote wilderness, and silenced as communication with the world has been severed, unarmed SEALs face an unexpected and deadly foe. Audrey and Xavier must set aside their distrust and desire and work together to save a team under fire and survive in a battle against the wild.

Genre: romantic suspense / military romance

Publication date: October 2022

Mature content: yes

Review: I really wanted to like this book, but the truth is that I struggled with it right from the start. First, I felt I had landed in the middle of an already ongoing story (which I had, but I only discovered there was a prequel to Into the Storm after I had finished reading it). Second, I really disliked Xavier and Audrey in those first few pages - they both come across as stubborn, rude and anti-social. During the entire first part of the book they keep repeating the same things (whether in their speech or their thoughts) over and over again - she wants to tell him she's pregnant but it's not the right time, he wants to apologize but doesn't want to share anything classified.   

The suspense isn't all that bad, but while everything will be explained at the end, there are lot's of details that don't seem to add up as you go along, others that I felt maybe I should know about beforehand and I didn't, and the whole set up is a bit hard to believe it could happen in real life.

 

Lots of different points of view and secondary characters added randomly throughout the story make it difficult to follow. Overall, instead of being drawn to the pages, I got bored. 

After I read the prequel, a lot of things became more clear, so much that I believe the prequel should actually be a prologue to Into the Storm and not a separate story. 

In any case, Into the Storm isn't a book I feel I can actively recommend. I did read the prequel (review coming soon) and maybe I'll give another of the author's books a try, to see if there's an improvement.

Happy readings otherwise!

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