Customer Reviews

Trust Me (The Last Stand Trilogy, Book 1)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Four years ago, Skye Kellerman was viciously attacked in her own home by a rapist with a knife. She narrowly escaped and testified to put her attacker behind bars for what she hoped was a very long time. However, the attack brought Detective David Willis into her life. Skye has loved David almost since she met him, although the most they have shared was conversation and one stolen kiss. David is a man torn between the responsibility he feels toward his son and his sick ex-wife (who never lets him forget she's sick) and the love he has for Skye. But when Oliver Burke, the man who attacked Skye, is awarded early release from prison, David is determined to do whatever it takes to keep Skye safe. Because in Oliver's twisted mind, Skye is to blame for all that has happened to him and he's determined that she has to pay. Can David keep Skye safe?

Once again Brenda Novak has proven that she knows how to write romantic suspense! Trust Me is a wide open ride that starts on the first page and doesn't slow down until the ending. The emotional angst of a man torn between the responsibility he feels for his ex-wife and son and the woman who he is filled with love and his need to protect her keeps the reader totally immersed in Skye and David's lives. Trust Me is the prefect beginning to what appears to be another must have series by Brenda Novak. I can't Joyfully Recommended Trust Me highly enough!


Melissa
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Four years ago Skye Kellerman was attacked with a knife in her own bed by Dr. Oliver Burke, a dentist. He was sentenced to serve eight-to-ten years. Sacramento Detective David Willis handled the case. David believed the good dentist was also responsible for several other deaths in the area, but no hard evidence had been found. Due to that horrible night, Skye, along with her two friends Jasmine and Sheridan, started The Last Stand (TLS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping victims of violent crime. TLS and the trio of ladies get a lot of publicity. This is good for the organization and for letting the public become aware that TLS exists and will help. However, it also means a lot of people hate the trio, especially the abusers of the victims TLS helps. Burke's entire extended family believes him innocent of Skye's charges; since Skye and TLS are often in the papers or on television, their anger simmers.

Now, in one week, Burke will be released on parole and he has not forgotten Skye. She cost him his dental practice, his reputation, and his freedom. In hope of keeping Burke behind bars, Skye and David search for evidence that Burke had been involved in prior rapes and murders. However, the search will take longer than a week; and during that week, someone has begun stalking Skye. The mind games and attacks could not be perpetrated by Burke, since he is still in prison, yet it could easily be someone acting in Burke's name. Once he is free, Burke will begin his crimes anew, beginning with Skye.

**** There is more going on than I mention in my synopsis. This story has a couple of sub-plots continuously running, which gives much depth to Skye and David's blooming romance. There are several secondary characters as well. Jasmine and Sheridan, Skye's friends and co-founders of TLS, are survivors of violent crimes. Readers get a little back ground on Jas and Sher, which not only blends into this story and makes it more believable, but also gives readers an idea of what their stories will entail. You will not have long to wait either. Jasmine's story is titled "STOP ME" and comes out in July 2008. Sheridan's story is titled "WATCH ME" and is will be released in August 2008. Three titles in as many months. Excellent!

The author did an outstanding job in showing how Burke's conviction affected his family, especially his wife, Jane. I could easily understand Jane's belief of Burke's innocence, her devastation at how neighbors and friends treated her once Burke was imprisoned, how her life drastically changed forever, and her confusion about Burke finally being released from prison. No one can send chills down my spine as Brenda Novak can! ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Really 4 1/2 stars.
I absolutely could NOT put this book down. It took off running from the first page and held me till the very end. Wonderful characters, intelligent and complex relationships, very high suspense. I really felt for David, trying to be honorable and do the right thing while falling more and more for Skye. Skye was a strong yet vulnerable heroine who stood up for herself and didn't chase after David, but tried to do the right thing also. Great characters.
Spoiler alert:
The reason I didn't give it 5 stars - I wanted a bigger romance payoff at the end. The big romantic climatic scene occurred over the phone. Also, I wanted David to be at her side at the end when she needed him most, not him in the car driving, but arriving too late for an emotional romantic scene. But that's me. In a romantic suspense novel I like a good balance between the romance and the action/suspense, but if it has to tip one way or another I prefer it to lean more towards romance. Trust Me had great balance, but just slightly less romantic payoff for my tastes.

Overall, I loved this book and highly recommend it. I can't wait to read Jasmine's story next. She was my favorite secondary character.

I guess the only reason why this book was just good is because I wanted a bigger romance payoff at the end, as well. The over the phone ending between the two characters felt so quick and so rushed through. Really disappointing, especially after reading what the lead characters have gone through. The sacrifices that they made to stay apart, and the challenges they faced (with the ex-wife) to try to be together and be happy. But overall, this book is a solid 3 stars.

For a book that was classified as Romantic Suspense, I was unfortunately disappointed in both the romance and suspense departments.

I really liked the initial plot set-up, the main characters, and the complicated life dilemmas that the main characters and supporting ones were facing. However, as the story unfolded, I never got completely invested in the characters...

There were a number of reasons this probably happened, but I'll point out one that really jumped out at me. AT LEAST one third (maybe more) of this book unfold via phone conversations. Skye (the heroine) talks with David (the hero/cop) on the phone half a dozen times...Skye talks to both her best friends & her step-sister numerous times on the phone...Oliver (the villian) talks to wife on the phone...his wife talks to her lover on the phone...David talks to numerous witnesses/people connected to the case via the phone, etc. Many of these phone conversations went on for 6+ pages. That adds up to a lot of character interaction that doesn't involve eye contact, body language, touching, or anything action-oriented. For me, it made it dry and impersonal.

Nothing particularly suspenseful happened until after page 200. The first 200 pages were devoted primarily to the heroine and hero gathering evidence - unfortunately usually separately, not together. There wasn't the appeal of it being a mystery either. They always knew who the bad guy was. They were just out trying to interview people who knew the rapist/murderer and trying to find additional evidence to pin on him for a conviction, so it started to get a little boring...alot of question and answer sessions.

I really would have liked the hero and heroine to be together more often to build up the tension and romance.

I will avoid including any spoilers, but I was also disappointed by what I saw as pretty cliche thing involving the ex-wife at the end. It felt like a cop-out to me to make things neat and tidy for the hero & heroine.

I'll finish with a few positive notes: Both the hero and the heroine are strong characters. Several of the supporting characters, including the villian's wife, had interesting and sympathetic sub-storylines. The pacing picked up for the last 150 pages of the book.

But all in all, it was just okay, and I won't be reading the next 2 in the trilogy.

Four years ago, a masked assailant broke into Skye Kellerman's bedroom window with the intent to rape and murder. But with animalistic sense of survival, Skye fought back, grabbing a pair of scissors that she'd left with her cross-stitch on her night table and stabbed/cut him in return. With DNA testing, it was proven it was Dr. Oliver Burke's blood, but he insisted she was the one who attacked him, claiming that he went home with her and she turned violent on him, suggesting she was on drugs. The judge didn't buy that, however, and Burke was sentenced to 8 to 10 years in San Quentin. However, after becoming an informant, and for his dental services to inmates, Burke is getting out in 3.

Burke is obsessed with Skye; if it hadn't been for her, he'd never had been caught, would never have spent time in prison, losing his reputation as a great dentist, would never have lost 3 years of life with his wife and daughter. He plans on getting back at her for that, and making sure she's dead this time.

Detective David Willis is convinced that Burke is also responsible for three other rape/murders, but there's not enough evidence to bring charges against him. He was the one who had to break the news to Skye, and he's worried that Burke will get his revenge when he gets out. Not only has Willis fallen in love with Skye, he's determined to make sure Burke never gets to Skye again. But can he hold that promise?

Not without a lack of trying. Skye Kellerman was an account executive with a carpet company, someone who hadn't a care in the world, with a blind-eye toward crime and violence. All that changed the night she was attacked by Burke. With two friends, Sheridan and Jasmine, women she met at a victims of violence support group, they started The Last Stand, and hoped to help as many victims as they could. Skye wanted to fight back, exercise, self-defence classes, guns and ammunitions classes, and became a good enough shot should she ever need to be. Now she teaches those classes, and takes cases for victims who need help. Strong and self-reliant, she still suffers from insomnia and anxiety attacks, especially at night, when she feels the most vulnerable.

David Willis has had strong feelings for Skye since the night she was attacked, when he met her in the hospital and took her statement. Only, his wife was diagnosed with MS, plus they have a son, and failure wasn't an option. Divorced, reconciled, separated, David wants to be able to work things out with his wife, but he hasn't loved her for a long time, and knows there's no use trying for another reconciliation, especially after his wife suggests he find another job - that it was his job as a homicide detective the came between them.

And while the sexual tension between Skye and David mounts, both know that it's only a matter of time before Burke comes after her again.

Skye is a strong woman, still vulnerable even after three years of Burke's incarceration. She wonders if there will ever be a time were she will be able to lead as normal a life as possible. You can feel her vulnerability, her anxiety, and how she handles herself is nothing short of spectacular. David has fallen for Skye, and now knowing that he and his wife can never be together again, accepts that failure, and believes that he and Skye could have something beautiful together. He's worried about her, and I believe it. While I do feel tension between them, I think it could've been heightened a little more, maybe adding a little more romance to what is supposed to be a romantic suspense novel.

And just when you're sure it's Burke behind recent attacks, phone calls and notes from toward Skye, a sub-plot adds a twist that I actually should have suspected and didn't see coming. That was well played.

I thought Ms. Novak excellently wrote victims feelings. The actions of one person can destroy so many lives, and you get a lot of those feelings through Burke's wife, Jane.

Plus, you get background information on her two best friends and co-founders of The Last Stand, Sheridan and Jasmine, setting up the next two novels beautifully, understanding them already before their own books are released.

A great read, I would recommend it to any romantic suspense lover.

Skye Kellerman's rapist Oliver Burke is about to be released from prison after squealing on a fellow inmate. When she starts receiving messages and odd events start happening, she is convinced that he'll be back to finish her off. She forged a relationship with David Willis, the lead detective on the case, and the two are smitten with each other David feels compelled to stand by his ex-wife due to a recent illness. He races against the clock to find evidence linking Burke to some unsolved murders to keep him behind bars so he won't wreak havoc in Skye's world again.

Novak's intro novel in the "Last Stand" trilogy is filled with suspense, longing, and so much romantic tension that you can cut it with a knife. David is a flawed and sexy hero willing to sacrifice his own chance for happiness out of obligation. With a truly chilling, narcissistic, and unrepentant villain, this is a trilogy sure to be on par with her "Stillwater" saga.

This book is the first in a trilogy. It's about women who run an organisation to help survivors of different attacks and disasters. In this one, the man who tried to rape and murder the heroine is being released from prison before the hero can pin a series of murders on him and keep him behind bars. On top of that, someone is targeting Skye on the outside too.

This was not what I expected at all. Call me crazy, but when your `romantic' suspense book features only one vaguely romantic scene - and that scene takes place in a public toilet - I leave the book disappointed.
Trust Me started off okay - not great, but decent enough to keep me reading. However as it went on it turned in directions I didn't like, and then the story pretty much abandoned the two main characters in the last third, leading to one of the most unsatisfying and unemotional conclusions I've ever read.

The suspense was fairly interesting, but it all fell flat without the emotional impact. The romance is woeful. I bought this book based on the excerpt on the author's website; it introduced a victim trying to overcome her demons, and the detective who was not only trying to keep her safe, but also trying to deal with his conflicting emotions about both her and his ex-wife.

David may well be fighting his feelings for Skye, but not only are they hardly in a scene together, he also spends almost the entire book telling her he's returning to his ex-wife, and brushing Skye off. Then about two-thirds of the way through the story Skye attends a charity event with another man and David follows her, boinking her in the unisex toilet without protection - and leaving Skye certain she's pregnant (and telling everyone about it) literally only a few days later(??!!). It's the only boink in the book too. I don't need sex in a story, but I need something to explain the white picket fence ending!
To me there's not much that's romantic about unisex toilet action while the woman's on a date with another man and the man's committed to another woman! Immediately after the toilet romp, David again insists he's returning to his ex.

Skye and David part ways on page 358, and are not in a scene together for the rest of the book (which finishes on page 435!). Unless my maths skills have gone out the window, that's 77 pages at the end of the book without the supposed main couple in a scene! Not only that, but they barely factor in the story at all in this - the last and most important - part of the book.
We catch up with them during a phone conversation, where Skye tells David he got her pregnant in the toilet, and he replies with the oddest and vaguest marriage proposal I've ever heard. Over the phone. David is off in another city with his son for the entire climax of the story; while Skye is literally fighting for her life as she's attacked by the killer, David's cruising along the highway, completely oblivious to the situation. David isn't even in the epilogue! I have never felt so short-changed by a book in my life.

David is a complete nonentity throughout the novel. There's not a single thing he achieves that furthers the plot. It's especially disappointing seeing as how he's supposed to be the detective in charge of the case! Twice Skye is attacked in her home and forced to kill her attacker. Twice. Both times David is off with his son, leaving her unprotected even though he's supposed to have a commitment to Skye.
As this trilogy is about an agency run by women `survivors', perhaps the author was trying to show us a `girl power' angle. But there's using an angle and then there's massive overkill. If you create a grossly incompetent hero, then your story's better off without the hero.

Now I have no problem with a book without romance in it, but in this case it was indicative of the lack of emotion in general throughout. The first time Skye is forced to kill a man who attacks her in her house, and David doesn't even stick around to support her when the police arrive. He just ups and abandons her even though she's obviously in danger. Now, he does have the conflict of having to care for his son, but surely there was another solution there (and perhaps this is the perfect example of why I generally dislike children in books).

There could have been a great story in here, but I'm getting very tired of these books that lose focus. By the end Brenda Novak seemed far more interested in getting into the mind of her serial killer than in focusing on the characters in the blurb. Perhaps she should have done away with Skye and David entirely - the book would have worked just fine with the story about the killer and his confused, depressed wife.
I suppose then they couldn't have marketed it as romance, but it wasn't a romance novel anyway. I am perplexed why it's even sold under that genre, as readers will come into it with certain expectations, and they will not be met.

If Trust Me was rewritten as a thriller that gave us a peek into the mind of a serial killer it would be quite a good book. As it is now, with a small veneer of romance involving characters who contribute little to the plot, it does not work. My rating dropped and dropped, and dropped as I read. The non-ending was the final straw, and I closed this book extremely disappointed.

Trust Me (The Last Stand Trilogy, Book 1)

I am a huge fan of Ms. Novak's; she's an automatic buy for me. Notwithstanding, I had a few moments when I felt the pace of this story was a tad slow, the tone a bit explainy because of the background details being fed in.

Skye Kellerman was the victim of an attack in her bedroom four years earlier and her testimony sent dentist Oliver Burke to prison. Among Burke's family and friends, Skye was the villain, Burke the innocent. Because of the viciousness of the crime, the repercussions to Skye, she and two other victims of violence started The Last Stand (TLS) a support and self-defence group dedicated to helping others. (Jasmine's and Sheridan's stories will be told in books two and three of the trilogy.) TLS has garnered much support, but also its share of detractors, including the local police chief.

Skye immerses herself in TLS, partly to help others, partly to focus on something other than her attraction to Detective David Willis, the policeman on the case that put Burke in prison, and partly to try to recover from the mental trauma she went through because of Burke.

Willis is strongly attracted to Skye, an attraction that borders on preoccupation, but he feels the right thing to do is get back with his divorced wife for the sake of their son. His wife, whom he does not love, suffers from MS and is constantly reminding Willis of her illness. She is also jealous that his work takes him away from the family.

The story opens with Burke, having turned informer, about to be released from prison early. Both Skye and Willis know he's a murderer and dangerous, and they search frantically to piece together cold case evidence that will put him away for good.

The mystery here is not who did it but how to prove him guilty.

Novak gives readers glimpses into the lives of Burke's family--his wife, his brother, his parents, as well as that of Willis' wife. By the end of chapter four, what began slow quickly morphed into a story I could not put down. I particularly liked that Trust Me centered on the psychological drama, kept the romance in perspective but didn't overwhelm with the touchy feely details of so many romantic suspense stories. Ms. Novak has turned into a consummate author of gritty crime novels.

I cannot wait to read Stop Me and Watch Me, both of which await on my nightstand.

This is the first book of the trilogy of the Last Stand Victims.It deals with how Skye deals with life after she successfully stopped herself from being rapped and killed.Both David(The hero) a detective in the police force and skye are in love.But David is trying his best not to be in love with Skye and try to get back with his ex-wife so that his 8 year old son can have a stable family.
There is no suspence in this book as the killer is already reveiled to us in thefirt half of the book itself.If you like knowing who the killer is and are just waiting to see how his mind works , read about the path he takes to kill again and how they cathch him , then this book definitely delivers.But if you are looking for a suspence thriller with a mystery (where in you love to guess who the killer is and are waiting for it to be found in the end) then the book is not for you .hence i have given the book a 4 star.