This is the first book by this author that I've read. I like protector books and here we have Nick, who is an ex-SEAL, being asked to protect Morgan. Morgan's father and three brothers are all in the military or FBI, so although she's a romance writer, they've taught her to take care of herself and she's pretty capable. No TSTL moves here, hallelujah!
There's a lot of push and pull between Nick and Morgan, firstly because Morgan's late brother was Nick's teammate in the SEALs and Nick still feels survivor's guilt. Nick also suffers from PTSD which mainly hits in the form of unexpected flashbacks. Plus, there's the "buddies' sisters are off-limits" thing which I've never really understood. I mean, granted, it wouldn't be right to just f*ck around with a buddy's sister, but there's nothing wrong with being with her if you want to build something serious with her.
On Morgan's side, because her father and brothers can't seem to hold down a committed relationship and one of her brothers keeps cheating on his wife, she's jaded about military types. So throughout the whole book, they're attracted to each other but both of them are trying not to act on that attraction for their own various reasons.
I agreed with Nick when he said that being distracted by Morgan's hotness was going to compromise his focus and his ability to protect her. Yet, although he knew that, he didn't do anything about it. He didn't ask his team to stick closer, or hand her over to someone else. It was annoying, because you know he's definitely going to miss something due to his distraction, and he does, and then of course he beats himself up about it. This is the thing I hate about so many protector books -- all these highly trained military and special ops types compromising their own missions and getting distracted by a hot female body. I really liked Quiet Man by Kristen Ashley because Mo straight up tells Lottie that they are not going to get physically involved: he basically says he's not going to put himself in the position where someone could get the drop on him while he's buried inside her and all distracted, and then, having put him out of commission, the villain then is able to get to her.
The romance was kinda meh. It was mostly built on the physical attraction and sexual chemistry. They're drawn to each other and have the hots for each other from the first moment they meet. As I said, Nick was distracted because he kept thinking about wanting to bone her and wondering how her mouth would taste and how she would look bent over the sofa and so on, so forth. Morgan also found him hot and lickable, but she was more controlled and didn't wander off into daydreams about him as much as he did about her, which was ironic because he was supposed to be the stoic and responsible ex-SEAL.
They did know some things about each other prior to meeting, as Morgan's brother had told her a lot about his best friend, and at the same time, he used to read Morgan's letters to Nick while they were deployed and talk about her work with Nick. So in that sense they're not total strangers, but still I wanted to see more connection and personal sharing between them. Like, Morgan never actually gets to explain the "broken" remark to Nick or tell him about her misgivings regarding military men making faithful and committed spouses.
Some other minor issues with the story:
a) I felt the issue of Nick's PTSD was sort of swept under the carpet. He's having lots of flashbacks, then suddenly they're just gone and never mentioned again? It was treated too cavalierly.
b) When Nick didn't want to let Morgan see images of the stalker, I just KNEW it would be someone that Morgan would have been able to immediately identify, and because he hadn't wanted to involve her, the investigation stalled for days. Pffft. That was so obvious. It was also obvious who the stalker was. Honestly, the foreshadowing was a bit heavy-handed.
c) There were a lot of people mentioned in this book; a whole lot of side characters, which was occasionally confusing. Admittedly, I didn't read book #1 and #2 prior to this, so maybe that was why. I might have gotten a better feel of who all these people were if I'd read the earlier books first.
Overall an enjoyable read but it's lacking in the feels and in what makes a romance memorable to me. It's 3.5 stars, but I rounded down.