REVIEW: Fine Print

I love reading new-to-me authors and Susan H. Stanley is no different.  This is the first book I read by this author and it won’t be the last.  I cannot wait for the next book!

Fine Print

Five Against the World, #1

Author: Susan H. Stanley

Synopsis 

Beatrix knows there’s something wrong with the world. She knows the injustices she sees every day are part of an order that’s rotten to the core. She wants to fight, but she doesn’t know how, or if she even can. She’s just a geek girl who would settle for a normal life if, only the normal life wasn’t so keen to reject her. A chance meeting and a series of life-changing events send her tumbling into a spiral of lies and secrecy, a web of intrigue that spans the world.

Four men, worldly-wise but pure of heart, are out to unravel it. They are like brothers, each unique, all united: the soul, caring, good-hearted, and moral; the brawn, powerful, strong, and determined to atone for the mistakes he has made in his past; the passion, dark, driven, obsessed and brooding; and the brain, intellectual, mysterious, and unfathomable. They threw aside the rules of society and made their own a long time ago. They don’t know her, they don’t know if they can trust her, but they know they need her.

As she peels back the layers of mystery, she learns not only who they really are, but who she really is herself. She can never go back. The only way out is through—with them. And nothing will ever be the same again.

Fine Print is a contemporary, non-paranormal reverse harem novel, and the first in the four-book Five Against the World series. It contains few steamy scenes but is explicit and graphic; subsequent books in this series are steamier. It uses language some may find offensive (i.e. swear words).

ADD TO GOODREADS

PURCHASE LINKS
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MY REVIEW  

GAH!  This book took me by surprise and obliterated everything I was beginning to think and feel about it.  This book started off really slow but once it caught its rhythm, my GOD I couldn’t get enough.  I kept turning the pages becoming more and more engrossed until I hit the very end and DIED!  It’s a cliff-hanger and I’m sitting here not comprehending that it’s over and that I’ll have to wait for this intriguing and suspense-escalating story to continue.

Beatrix is a woman down on her luck.  Being shunned and treated inferior by mysogynistic men, she has become ok with status quo.  Never truly fighting any battles-simply accepting.

After a fateful meeting with Anton, a helpful stranger, she has no idea her life is about to change.

On her first day at Sandoval-Carr, she bumps into Anton once again.  He affords her with an opportunity to work in the IT field that she has been shut out of so many times before for being a female.  Here, she meets the director of Special Projects, Noa Bruce.  He says he will quadruple her salary but she must prove herself first and trust the team in all things.

Although Noa, sends them all on a team-building trip, she feels separate and knows that they are hiding something.  It doesn’t help that she is attracted to her three gorgeous co-workers.  Nor does it help that Wilder, one of her co-workers is adamantly against her joining the team.

Will Beatrix be able to prove herself?  What do they actually want from her?  Who are they really?

This story is told only through Beatrix’s point of view.  The slow pace in the beginning almost turned me away but I powered through and I’m so glad I did.  This was an amazing read that fully captured all of my attention and exceeded my expectations.

I loved seeing Beatrix grow as a character and I cannot wait to see further developments.  I just know she is going to be on helluva firecracker and a force to be reckoned with.

The men in this book?  Sigh!  I don’t know how this author did it, but she made me fall in love with each of them.

Anton is so friendly and down to earth.  He makes Beatrix feel wanted, beautiful and like she belongs.

Noa is curt and blows hot and cold.  But when he blows hot, you have not choice but to melt.

I think my favorite of all however is Wilder.  There is so much anger in him but there’s something about him that makes me believe he’s one of the most passionate men.  I need and want to know more about him.

This is a perfect beginning for what will be a suspenseful, compelling and page-turning series.

I received an ARC of this book.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.

EXCERPT

The BB was an upscale cocktail lounge downtown in an old brick industrial building. They’d ripped half the front off and replaced it with glass so everyone could see what a young, hip crowd went there. I felt terribly underdressed in my jeans and my leather jacket, but they let me in anyway, and once I was inside, I saw that they’d probably mistaken me for one of the tech company execs who were getting into their after-work drinks, fitted t-shirts mingling freely with dark suits.

I tried not to look awkward and lost as I stood near the entrance, awkward and lost, looking for a familiar face. I saw a mane of hair on a man towering over everyone around him, and as he half-turned, the light caught his face. That was Noa. He disappeared from view as he sat down, but I slipped through the crowd to where I’d seen him.

Anton’s face lit up to see me again, but shadows hid the third man at the table. I could only make out a dark pair of eyes that watched me carefully as I sat down. When he moved, the light caught a strong, dark-stubbled chin which he rubbed thoughtfully with long fingers. As I sat down, he leaned forward slightly to look at me more closely. The soft light above him glinted off strands of thick, jet-black hair and threw shadows under his sharp cheekbones and angular jaw. He was handsome, so handsome it gave me chills—or that might have been the cold and dangerous way he was looking at me. I shivered, even though it was warm, and tried to break away from his intense, penetrating gaze.

Noa smiled. “Beatrix. Glad you could make it. I believe you know Anton.”

I nodded quickly.

“This is my associate, Wilder Redcliffe,” he added, gesturing at the dark-eyed man.

“Hello,” I managed. Wilder nodded curtly, saying nothing. He leaned back into the shadows again, but I could feel his eyes on me.

A brassy blonde server arrived beside the table. “Can I get you something?” she asked.

“Another double, thanks,” Noa answered. Wilder shook his head, half a glass of something dark still in front of him.

Don’t drink at a job interview. “Can I just have, um, a diet coke? Please?” I asked, as though it might be refused.

“Of course!” The server smiled brightly and disappeared.

Noa leaned forward towards me and clasped his rugged, hulking hands on the table. “So, Beatrix. We have a lot to talk about.”

I swallowed nervously. His manner wasn’t helping to settle my nerves at all. Perhaps I should have ordered a stronger drink.

“How did you get on with that assignment?”

I looked quickly at Wilder and Anton. Noa saw it.

“Relax,” he said, his deep voice almost mesmerizing. “There are no secrets between the three of us. They know what I asked you to find and they know why.”

Well, I thought, that means they know more than I do.

I took a deep breath. I just had to jump in and hope I could swim.

“I got what you asked for,” I said, pulling a USB key out of my purse. I set it on the table between us and slid it over to him with one finger.

“How long did it take you?”

“Maybe half an hour to download, but that’s all to do with the speed of the connection.”

“How long to break in?”

“Maybe five minutes?” I said, hoping that was a good answer.

Noa whistled and leaned back in his seat.

“I told you,” Anton said. I snuck a glance sideways at him. He was looking at Noa, a soft smile on his face. “She’s good.”

“So,” Noa said, also smiling now, “what did you find out?” He picked up the USB key between finger and thumb and regarded it with narrowed eyes.

“Um… it seems he’s sleeping with his secretary,” I said. He was going to find out when he looked through the files anyway.

“Yes, he is,” Wilder intoned from the shadows. His voice was husky and deep, with a rough, raw quality to it. If Noa’s was like whiskey, his would have been bootleg moonshine. “For a couple of years now. I’d feel bad for his wife, but I’m pretty sure she’s doing the same to him.”

I looked at him. “You knew?”

Wilder simply shot me a wry smile in response. It was Noa who spoke. “Yes. We knew. I wanted to know if you could find out, and how fast you could find out, and if you could keep it quiet.”

I looked at Anton. He said nothing, but smiled at me, a warm smile that made me melt a little, sweeter and hotter than a mug of cocoa on a cold day. I looked back at Noa.

“Did I pass?”

He nodded slowly. Anton spoke up. “Noa,” he said, “she’s perfect for us. 

She can do what we need, she’s trustworthy… and she has a good soul. She wants to do good things.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susan Stanley writes romance novels, as you've probably figured out. She  loves stories that are believable and even gritty, featuring strong  characters who earn their happy endings and steam the windows up along the  way.

She has a thing for good-looking British men, which is good, because she's  married to one, and she hopes you'll forgive her if good-looking British  men should appear in her novels from time to time. If her own good-looking  British man should predecease her, her plan is to move to Tashirojima, an  island off Japan where cats outnumber people, on the assumption that Tom  Hardy will be unavailable. She lives in Canada with her aforementioned  husband and an insufficient number of cats.