Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: Every Waking Moment
Author: Brenda Novak
Publisher: HQN Books
ISBN: 0-373-77045-6
Release Date: July 2005
Genre/Sub-genre: Romantic Suspense
Year/Setting: Current/United States
Overall rating: 4.85
Sexual content rating: Sensual/Sexual
Brenda's Website:
www.brendanovak.com
Emma Wright is a woman looking over her shoulder. In actuality, her name is Vanessa and she has every reason to run scared. She is finally running away from an abusive, dominating boyfriend. To make things even worse, she is running with two items that will make her soon-to-be ex furious. One is their son, Dominick, and the other is evidence that will put his family in jail for a very long time (although she doesn’t realize what she has at the time).
What Emma hadn’t counted on was how connected her ex is nor exactly how far he would go to get them back – her to teach her a lesson and his son to train up in his image. Emma was determined he wouldn’t get the chance to ruin Dominick so she planned for over two years on how to get away. When Manuel was supposed to be in Mexico, she got into her wreck of a car and drove; packing only the barest of necessities and the money she had carefully hidden for those two years.
Along the way, however, life intervened and the hopes she had planned for didn’t happen; including Manuel finding out about the car and reporting it as stolen. When the police find the car and stake it out to find her (Manuel has reported that Vanessa abducted his son as well), she runs on foot and crashes into the hotel room of her neighbor. The cigarette burn on her arm was enough for Preston Holman to get involved. Granted, it went against his better judgment at the time because he, himself, is a man with a mission – to track down the man who killed his son.
Together they go on the run and form an interesting alliance as they both strive to bring to fruition their individual missions. Together, they help to heal each other’s hearts.
I found this book to be extremely intriguing. In the back of your mind, you always knew that Manuel would keep showing up like a bad penny. However, what you didn’t know is how he would find out where they were and what he would do when he got there. The only down side to this entire book is that Emma is just a bit naïve in her thinking, however, it also has to be remembered that she has been absolutely dominated for the last few years and allowed to make no decisions whatsoever. She has to work on getting that skill back.
While I enjoyed immensely getting to know the character of Emma and seeing her find the strength within herself that she didn’t know she had, I particularly relished the character of Preston. This is a man who has had the lowest blows that life can deal – he lost his best friend, his wife, his home, his job but mostly importantly, his son. This man develops from a vengeful, empty carcass into a loving, compassionate man and begins to open his world up again.
I found Brenda Novak to be an extremely well written author and very easy to read. She kept the suspense up but still allowed the reader a few chances to "catch their breath". The scenes laid out were very realistic and imaginative. The drama unfolded through many facets of intrigue that made perfect sense thereby creating a movie in my mind. I look forward to future books from Brenda!!
Lori
Question or comment regarding the review or the book? Click here and let Lori know.
Top
Reviews
Featured Reviews
Archived Reviews