Publisher Description
A year ago, she begged me to stay.
A year later, it’s my turn to beg her not to go.
My obsession. My downfall.
I tried to resist, to keep her at a distance.
I tried to save myself.
But no one will be saved here, not even a selfish bastard like me.
My life has always been about sport and family, including my stupid brothers. Until that night, the night I made the worst decision of my life. And I’m still paying the price for it.
We both are.
But the time has come to take back control of the situation, to risk it all, to convince her to let me in, because she can’t be anything other than mine.
I am Ian O’Connor, and I’m about to accept this challenge: to try and hold on to the only woman I’ll ever be able to love.
And even if I already know how this badly written romance is going to end, I won’t back away. This time, I’m going all the way. Because I only want her.
And I have no intention of losing her.
I’m an O’Connor, and the O’Connors never lose.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kelly pens a novel with a medieval setting, writing under her initials to distinguish it from her historical Depression-era inspirational fiction under the name Leisha Kelly (Julia's Hope; Katie's Dream; Emma's Gift). The lovely Lady Netta Trilett is kidnapped by a cold-blooded killer, Tahn Dorn, who slew her husband several years before. This time, however, Dorn is acting out of a somewhat unexplained newfound desire to turn over a new leaf. After Dorn stashes Netta in a cave for her safety, the evil Samis, Dorn's former leader, burns her family's home. Dorn rounds up eight children Samis had tutored in villainy and spirits them away to the cave, where he and Netta care for them and Netta wrestles with forgiving Dorn and understanding her newfound feelings for him. Kelly develops her story well in the first half, and her characters, especially the children, are sweet and vulnerable. Some light sexual tension and violence mark Kelly's change of genre. The pace slows in the second half, and readers may struggle with the idea of a woman romantically interested in her husband's killer, no matter how much Christians believe in forgiveness. Yet Kelly's tender touch will endear her to those CBA market readers who like their historicals heavily salted with salvation themes.