Author: Kennedy L. Mitchell
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Steam: 🔥🔥
Tropes: Romantic Suspense, Thriller
Trigger/Content Warnings: Graphic sexual scenes of uncomfortable nature, mentions of a cult, degradation of women
Release Date: December 14th, 2020
Goodreads | Amazon.in (Available on KU)
Synopsis: Her tragic destiny was written long before he came into town.
Ellie longs to leave the small town she’s restricted to, but nothing and no one can change her bleak future. Every day is the same, until a trail of bodies is found just inside the town’s borders. When the sexy stranger steps into the bar, her body and hormones thrum on overdrive, making her desperately wish he was there to save her from more than just the killer.
FBI profiler Chandler Peters is broken in all the wrong places and searching for the one person who could save him from himself. Little does he know the urgent call that sends him to help hunt for a serial killer will also lead him to her. Ellie’s mysterious past, wit, and hidden scars speak to him unlike any other, making him wonder if they could save each other.
When all the evidence points to Ellie being in danger, Chandler races to find the killer before the woman who makes him live again becomes the next victim.
Review: The book starts out really dark and maybe even a little unsettling for some, but there are trigger warnings in place for that. And there is absolutely no doubt that Kennedy L. Mitchell writes great romantic suspense. But this book wasn’t entirely for me. It might sound wrong to say, but I’ve always been fascinated by cults and why people fall into those traps. And in Mine to Save, one of the central factors is a cult that is taking in young girls and making them submissive and brainwashing them. I mean, that is the whole point of any cult, but it’s still so strangely fascinating, to understand why these people exist and why others fall for it.
Mine to Save follows Chandler Peters as he arrives in a small town in Texas on a case. As an FBI profiler, he’s sent to find the person responsible for a whole string of murders. He’s a little jaded and a whole lot exhausted by humans in general, but it’s his job and he’s going to do a damn good job of it, no matter what. Ellie is a bit of a nobody in this small town. She’s got history tied to the cult, but she’s making a new life for herself with the help of a few people.
When Chandler and Ellie meet, it’s instant attraction. They can sense the brokenness inside each other and somehow that draws them together. The age difference is clear, to an extent, but it’s everything else that really just sucks you in about their relationship.
“Your story is your own. Your future is unwritten. Don’t give up because this chapter is harder than you expected.”
Ellie is precious and I absolutely adored the character. She’s been in the ‘real world’ for a short period of time and she’s still figuring her way through the wild world that we all live in. She’s obsessed with Criminal Minds and other procedurals, so to meet an FBI agent in her small town would definitely blow her tiny mind. But she is also incredibly strong and determined. Now that she’s out of the cult and she’s had her mind cleared up, Ellie is determined to never go back and to never let what happened to her happen to anyone else. The entire book rests on Ellie’s shoulders and I love how much of her we get to experience. Her struggles to come to terms with who she is and what her purpose is in the grand scheme of things and what she’s meant to do with life…it’s all just brilliant to watch.
I loved the suspense and thriller side of it more than I did the romance. Chandler as an FBI agent is fantastic. There’s so much more to him that we don’t know and even though he has gone through some pretty bad things, the extent of that is still unknown. I guess with putting the focus on Ellie, all we need to know about Chandler is that he’s been through hell and back again. He promised dirty things and fell short, in my opinion. Granted, this book is more about the crime aspect and the serial killer, but with a promise like that, you definitely want to see all of it.
“For the first time, a person’s brokenness didn’t invoke pity. No, hers called to me.”
The tension is high in this book! I definitely loved how the story was crafted and how you’re kept waiting for the big reveal. While I definitely figured out the twist halfway through the book, I was still pretty unconvinced about my findings till it all came together. Kennedy L. Mitchell is truly a master at the suspenseful writing and every moment will keep you on the edge of your seat. Just when you think you’ve solved the mystery, you’re faced with another twist and it makes you rethink everything!
I was introduced to Kennedy L. Mitchell through her famous Power Play series and it’s not fair to compare those books to Mine to Save, but still I went into this expecting a little more. However, for fans of thrillers and crime fiction, this will definitely whet your appetite, because it gives you all of that and lots more.
Thanks to Kennedy L. Mitchell and Wildfire Marketing Solutions for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
anna reads here 