Saturday, June 17, 2017

Review: Run to Ground by Katie Ruggle

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Title: Run to Ground
Series: Rocky Mountain K9 Unit
Author: Katie Ruggle
Read copy: eBook (Kindle)
Published: June 6, 2017
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
ASIN: B01LZWMH8T


He lost his mentor.
He lost his K9 partner.
He almost lost his will to live.
But when a ruthless killer targets a woman on the run, Theo and his new K9 companion will do whatever it takes to survive—and save the woman neither can live without.

Grieving the death of his partner, Theo Bosco has no room in his life for distractions. Though his instincts scream that he should avoid Juliet 'Jules' Jackson, he can't seem to stay away. It doesn't help that Theo's new K9 companion has fallen head over paws with Jules's rambunctious family.

Or that when he's with her, Theo finally knows peace.

When Jules rescued her siblings, whisking them away to the safety of the beautifully rugged Colorado Rockies, she never expected to catch the eye—or the heart—of a cop. Yet as Jules struggles to fight her growing attraction to the brooding K9 officer, another threat lurks much closer to home...

And this time, there's no escape.

My rating:

Saving her siblings being her topmost priority, Juliet "Jules" Young suddenly realizes she's willing to do anything to accomplish that goal. Even if it means kidnapping the kids and taking them to Colorado, assuming new identities, and working in a small-town diner. It's the latter that proves to be a problem, since she immediately catches the eye of K9 officer Theodore "Theo" Bosco.

There's just something about the woman that draws him in. At first it was the squirrelly behavior clearly indicating she's hiding something or running from something, or someone, yet, as he gets to know her, Theo realizes there's more to her than just fidgety behavior and obvious lies...Both he and his new canine partner are at peace when they're with Jules and her family, letting go of their grief little by little.


Okay, that's a strange summary, but it's the best I can come up with. Because it was a slightly strange book, if I'm honest. Not strange in strange-plotline way, it just strangely didn't inspire much at all in me as I was reading it.

The first problem was the heroine and her idiotically erratic behavior. I know she's kidnapped her siblings (to protect them, mind you), but if you want to keep a low profile, especially as a newcomer in a small town, you shouldn't act like you have something to hide. Actually, you should bring attention to yourself as little as possible. In the first scene at the diner, when she and Theo first meet, all was missing was a red blinking arrow pointing at her, or maybe her jumping up and down and going "look at me, look at me, I'm shifty, I'm hiding something, look at me".
And since that behavior didn't actually improve (not one iota) for more than half a book, I simply couldn't stand her.

The hero was a little better, I like my heroes brooding and taciturn, only coming out of their shell when the right woman comes along, but I thought the whole guilt thing, coupled with the grieving dog was a bit much. It sounded too overdone, too contrived to be believable.

I loved the secondary cast, though. The kids were great, and I'm looking forward to reading more about them, now that they're finally safe and at peace with the brooding, hulking cop and his rehabilitated dog keeping watch. But what I'm looking forward to the most, is reading Theo's friends's stories. Otto and Hugh were the absolute best and their relationship and friendship was a real beauty to read about. I could feel their connection, and I'm glad they have each other's back, because I think they will need it when the truth about Jules and her siblings comes out and the villainous Courtney comes to town.

I'm looking forward to that particular confrontation, at least to cleanse my palate of the suspense in this story. What the heck was that?! A complete non sequitur, the baddie and the motive came out of the left field without any particular forewarning in the previous chapters. There was no build up, it just happened. For some reason or another. It had nothing to do with Jules and the kids moving into town, nothing to do with the evil they were escaping, Jules simply found herself in the cross-hairs because of her connection to the hero...It was flimsy, disappointing, and somewhat insulting.

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