Dangerous Beauty by Melissa Koslin is a standalone Christian romantic suspense novel. This was a birthday book haul and a new to me author.

What happens when you escape your captors and run for the safety of a brightly lit truck stop in south Texas? If you Lilianna Vela, you are blessed to be approached by Meric Toledan and find yourself married that same night to escape your captors. The mysterious, distant, and aloof Meric gives Lilianna everything she could want, and yet, she still wants more. Lilianna wants to unravel the stoic and distant Meric.

This book grabs you from the opening chapter and proceeds to take you on a suspenseful journey. The chapters are short and yet, action packed. Lilianna is a female protagonist who refuses to be a victim of her past and who is observant and confident. She doesn’t wallow in past, rather she deals with it and doesn’t allow it to control her future. But, there is a caveat here, at least for me, that same past she deals with in the book has huge traumatic events in it that directly involved her, and she somehow processes and deals with those events in the span of a few short weeks.

Without discussing spoilers, we aren’t talking about a broken fingernail or broken heart here, this would be earth-shattering trauma that would send the most well-adjusted person into a spiral of grief, rage, and fear for a good long while. That part of the book did not sit well with me. Meric has his own unprocessed trauma, which he has dealt with by becoming an aloof, isolated, and distant human being.

I didn’t find to remotely believable that these two deeply broken people actually loved one another. I understand why God placed them in one another’s path, and I can see why over time they might fall in love. However, in the time span of the story and it’s ending, I don’t believe they love each other. For me, they found refuge and solace in each other. They have the potential to fall in love. But true, enduring love? I don’t buy it.

I enjoyed this book but it wasn’t as amazing for me as it has been for others. I would read another by the author. Lilianna and Meric are welcome into the pub.