Escape to You (Montana Heat) by Jennifer Ryan (thoughts)

Summary from Goodreads:

"He discovered her during a Montana blizzard, freezing cold, impossibly vulnerable, a little boy by her side. Undercover DEA Agent Beck “Trigger” Cooke is astonished to recognize Ashley Swan—award-winning actress, famous beauty—and missing for over a year. To keep her and the child hidden from a sadistic madman, he secrets the pair away to his isolated home.

No longer a prisoner, and protected at Hope Ranch, Ashley recovers and learns the tall, tempting federal agent may have a dark past, but it hasn’t destroyed his sense of honor.

As they shed past roles and find common ground, Ashley and Trigger can’t help but fall slowly, carefully, in love. But danger still lurks outside the boundaries of Hope Ranch, for until her crazed captor is brought to justice, and Trigger’s undercover past is laid to rest, none of them will ever be truly safe…"

My Thoughts:

My feelings for this book were kinda all over the place so my apologies ahead of time if my review is all over the place as well.  I wanted to love this book, I really did.  The summary sounded right up my alley, and as I love a good romantic suspense I was really looking forward to this one.  The suspense portions of this book were super good and were what made this such a fast read.  This author has created such a creepy "bad guy" and the idea of him finding Ashley again gave me chills.  I honestly feel like if this just had been a suspense/mystery read I probably would have given the book four stars.  That's how much I liked those portions of this book.  What I just couldn't get behind though was the insta-love between Ashley and Trigger.  I never connected to them as a couple even when I really wanted to.  It wasn't that I didn't like them together because I actually did.  I just didn't find their relationship believable in how instantly they came together and fell in love.  After everything that Ashley went through, you would think it would take time for her to trust another man let alone fall in love.  And from reading that above summary, I totally thought that was how it was going to happen.  Honestly, this could be a "it's not you, it's me" type of thing.  I don't usually care for insta-love romances in general.  I much prefer the slow burns where the couple have to really get to know each and build a relationship instead.  For me, Ashley and Trigger's relationship didn't add to my enjoyment of this book which is why this book is only a three star read for me.

All of that being said, I really do want to read more by this author.  I've heard from other readers that this wasn't their favorite book as well so maybe I just picked the wrong one to begin with.  I could definitely get behind the suspense and tense atmosphere that the author created with this book though!  It had me thoroughly creeped out at times - especially at the beginning before Ashley makes her escape.  I also really loved the snowstorm setting in this book!  I felt like this was the perfect time of year to pick this book up even if I didn't love it as much as I had hoped to.  I'm going to recommend this one but with hesitations.  If you don't mind relationships between characters that develop almost instantly, this is a book that you will probably enjoy more than I did.  For me, I will check out some of this author's other books instead.

Bottom Line:  A romantic suspense read that was better for me on the suspense portion, less so on the actual romance.

Disclosure:  I checked this book out from my local library.