Review: Anything He Wants: Castaway by Sara Fawkes

“Fawkes is finding her stride as an established author.” ~Under the Covers

WARNING – while I won’t give spoilers for CASTAWAY, if you haven’t read the first five books in the series, you will be spoiled about events that took place in them.

CASTAWAY picks up immediately after THE BETRAYAL leaves readers hankering for more, and while I still had a few issues with the book, I think that Fawkes is finding her stride as an established author.

So THE BETRAYAL had a huge cliffhanger in the love and lives of Lucy and Jeremiah. After only a very short time together, Lucy’s emotions get the best of her, and she drops the L-bomb to Jeremiah, who reacts poorly, dismisses the emotions, and then leaves the house. Naturally, Lucy is bereft, and then she suddenly finds herself the victim of a kidnapping. The culprit? That’s right – Jeremiah’s not-so-beloved brother, Lucas.

CASTAWAY then begins with Lucy in Lucas’ clutches, and he uses her for translations needed in his gunrunning schemes now that Anya is dead. He promises to return her to Jeremiah as soon as she helps him with one more transaction, but of course, things do not go according to plan, and Lucy finds herself aboard a cargo ship, accompanying Lucas, his gunrunning cartel, and his buyers, where of course, more trouble ensues.

While I like the mechanics of Fawkes’ writing – I think she has a lot of promise – and I do think that this installment in the series is an improvement over the first five, there were still quite a few things in this book that I didn’t particularly care for. Primarily is the fact that as much as I always try to “mesh” with the female lead in a story, I dislike Lucy so much that I cannot do it. Her words, her thoughts, and her actions are all over the place, and she really just drives me crazy. She professes her love to Jeremiah only days ago, and while his reaction was a sure blow to her ego, she behaves in a way of someone who is NOT in love. In short, she comes across pretty slutty. Now, I am fine with having multiple partners as long as you are true to that without declarations of love. It’s the 21st century, people can sleep around – that’s fine. But her words do not match her actions. Secondly, much like the previous books, Lucy behaves in ways that really are just not smart. She doesn’t listen to Lucas when he tells her to do things to protect her safety, and of course, she then later finds herself in awful predicaments.

Now Lucas is another story. Lucas is a total baddy, and I really am not sure if Fawkes wants the reader to love Jeremiah or Lucas, but it is all about Lucas for me. Jeremiah is a wooden, domineering, one-dimensional character to me, but his bad-ass brother is not. There are so many facets to what we have seen of Lucas, and I really hope that Fawkes takes more time to flush out his character and give the reader some more. Is he using Lucy, or does he actually have some feelings for her? I really would like to get to know him much better.

Like the last book, CASTAWAY ends with a great cliffhanger, and I do look forward to seeing how it pans out. I just hope that I am not disappointed with the results – there seems to be only two ways this could go, and only one of them will work for me. Guess I will have to wait and see!

*Review copy provided by author

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[about-author author=”Sara Fawkes”]