ARC Review: Off the Edge by Carolyn Crane

… that is what I like about Carolyn Crane, she finds a genre and shakes it up a bit and gives it a twist, presenting you with something new and exciting to read ~ Under the Covers

Laney has been hiding in Bangkok from her abusive husband for the last two years, living and working as a singer in a hotel run by her friends. But something doesn’t feel right and although her husband is in jail and not due out anytime soon, she can’t help feeling he is right on her tail, especially when she thinks she spots his right hand man in Bangkok. Peter Macmillan is an agent for the Association, his secret talent: linguistics. He can track a man just by the way he speaks and at the moment he is on the hunt for Jazzman, a dangerous man who is auctioning a deadly weapon to the highest bidder. His hunt brings him to Laney, seducing her should be easy, but she manages to break through is detachment and bring out a side of him he thought long dead.

I am not normally a fan of the romantic suspense genre, but I am hooked on Carolyn Cranes Associates series. Her secret agents all have unique abilities that you wouldn’t normally associate with a 007 type, in Against the Dark it was an agent specialising in logistics and in this book it was linguistics. But that is what I like about Carolyn Crane, she finds a genre and shakes it up a bit and gives it a twist, presenting you with something new and exciting to read.

Macmillan made an interesting hero and not what you would normally expect, he was brains rather than brawn and did actually spend a lot of this book beaten up and half dead, yet persevering anyways. Not that he always seemed heroic nor was he a dry and dusty scholarly type, he had a sharp and sometimes cruel wit and used humour at the darkest time. I loved seeing reluctantly him fall for Laney, it was both incredibly poignant and really steamy. Laney was almost the opposite to Macmillan, although they both have an avid interest in words, she is all about connection and emotion, she was also strangely naieve for someone on the run from a dangerously abusive ex husband. But it all seemed to work. She did make some questionable decisions, which put her in a dangerous position and yet I never felt myself getting exasperated with her as you could see why and emphasis with her.

Maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised when this is a book where a poet and a linguist pair up, but the writing in this book was also beautiful. They way Carolyn Crane described and built the connection between Laney and Macmillan, with their mutual love of words and writing was brilliant, vivid and full of emotion and the dialogue between them was clever and exciting as they sparked off each other; they really brought Off the Edge to life.

Another fantastic book by Carolyn Crane, her books just keep getting better and better and I can’t wait to see what she brings out next.

* ARC provided by author

Reading Order & Buy Links

[foogallery id=”58121″]

What did you think of our review? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below!

[about-author author=”Carolyn Crane”]