Elizabeth Stephens is a master of literary foreplay. The Hunted Rise achieves a perfect balance between action, erotica, love and all the bits in between. The action scenes are grippingly intense. The violence is intense without being nightmare inducing. The love scenes! Oh the love scenes! They are graphically gorgeous. Every moment of passion is precisely calibrated to tug at your heartstrings along with your clothing. Other books might torture you with laughable descriptions of sex, or gloss over it and just skip over it entirely. The Hunted Rise dives in deep. Cheek blushing, heart achingly deep!

My only negative issue: the book ended.

Why did it have to end?
Why isn't this on the bestseller lists?
Why isn't there more by Elizabeth Stephens?

I read a lot. I rarely re-read books. This is one book that I know I will be reading again.

I highlighted 27 passages in this book. The best one, the one that continues to run through my head, weeks after I turned the final page is this one: 'There is only this. Me. You. Here. Now'. 8 words which gripped my heart and forced me to forget the world around me.

This is why I read. ( )