This book sold me on the blurb alone. No reviews necessary. Does the rest of the book live up to it?

Sera Williams is an undercover FBI agent. On the day her cover is blown, she is dragged into a bank heist (ala Patty Hearst) by the terrorist gang she had infiltrated. Sera isn't sure what they're after--money or something else more sinister--but when her ex-gf steps into view, she is forced to point a gun at her to keep her safe.

The book is structured very similarly to a recent read--Andrea Bramhall's Nightingale--in that the present action is told in alternating chapters with past flashbacks. It worked much better in Nightingale than here. In the former, the past was just as interesting as the present because we want to know how a very spirited and driven woman ended up a virtual prisoner in a god-forsaken place. On the other hand, Sera and Tor here had a rather vanilla romance. They broke up. Sera became a cop; Tor a bank manager. Good for them! :) The flashbacks just aren't compelling enough and literally stop the action dead in its tracks. And this is supposed to be a very thrilling, down-to-the-wire, action-filled book. Much more so than Nightingale. But even during the bank robbery, there were many instances where action is delayed in favor of romance, reminiscing about the past, an LQ** or two, etc, etc. while the clock is counting down to a massive explosion. A little too many eye-roll/groan-worthy moments and not enough heart-stopping ones.

Bottom line, it's a thriller that romance readers can get into. BUT, a reader looking for a logical, non-stop, page-turning thriller will find this very frustrating.

** Yep, 45 minutes to go before the end of their lives, they are having a fight and making up LOL
( )

I think that this book has a really catchy and memorable hook for sure. What if you found your Ex-Girlfriend robbing the bank that you manage, and she even points a gun at you?

That's sorta where the book starts and then the rest of the novel is part romance with a surprising amount of thriller mixed in there as well.

There are two main characters. Sera, an undercover FBI agent, and her ex-girlfriend Tor, who's the bank manager. There's also Marcus, a man in the same organization that Sera's undercover in. and when he decides that he's going to rob a bank (or is it just about robbing the bank, that's definitely one of the thriller-y aspects of the novel) he manages to put Sera in one after another sticky situation, and Tor gets caught in some of those situations as well.

At the same time that we have the bank robbery plot, the author also gives us a look into Tor and Sera's past in college.

For the most part I liked the plot, both the one in the present, and the one in Sera and Tor's past. Neither plot was super surprising, but they did complement each other very well.

I also liked the characters. The two main characters were interesting and they as well as the secondary and minor characters were each unique within the story.

I did have a problem with picturing the characters, especially the two main characters, but also the other characters as well. They were well rounded when it came to their internal lives, back stories, feelings, but the whole time I was reading I just couldn't see them in my head at all, and that, for me, definitely took away from the story a bit.

Over all though, it was an enjoyable read, and a pretty fast read, although it didn't keep me guessing as much as other thrillers have in the past.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books. ( )