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).
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.
