Review: Into the Dark by Karen Rose

Into the Dark (Romantic Suspense #23) by Karen Rose

Publication Date: November 26th 2019 by Berkley

Pages: 621 Audio Length: 21 Hrs and 21 mins
Narrator: Hillary Huber
Source: Publisher & Audible Purchase
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Audible

About the book:

Michael Rowland is not your typical teenager. Deaf from birth, he’s always looked out for his five-year-old brother, Joshua. When his stepfather comes after Joshua, Michael takes the child and runs. He’s determined to protect his brother at all costs, even if that means making himself vulnerable to a danger he can’t hear coming. And the danger intensifies when Michael witnesses a stranger kill his stepfather.

Desperate and afraid, the boys have nowhere else to go but to Joshua’s soccer coach, journalist and ex-Army ranger Diesel Kennedy. When Diesel sees that Michael is injured, he takes them to see Dr. Dani Novak—not only because she’s fluent in American Sign Language, but because he’s drawn to her and everything she stands for. She never refuses Diesel’s requests—because she, too, feels their connection—but she resists him for reasons she doesn’t want to confess.

When Dani and Diesel learn that Michael saw the face of his stepfather’s killer, they fear for his safety. But they quickly discover that it’s even worse than they feared: They may have a serial killer on their hands—and all signs point to Michael as the next target.

My Thoughts:

Fourteen-year-old Michael witnesses the murder of his stepfather.  His stepfather was a pedophile and abused Michael, so I wasn’t too broken up over his death. My heart truly went out to Michael growing up with a neglectful, selfish mother.  She didn’t even bother to learn sign language even though Michael was deaf from birth. On top of all that, she marries an abusive asshole leaving her kids vulnerable! 

When the police start to investigate the murder, the killer realizes he may have left a witness, so Michael and his five year-old-brother are in danger.  That’s when Joshua’s soccer coach, Diesel, gets involved.  Diesel is a coach in his free time to give back to the community and help kids out, but he’s mainly a hacker for The Ledger, an investigative news/website.

When Diesel realizes Michael is injured and these kids may be victims of neglect or worse, he takes them to Dr. Dani Novak, not only because Dani’s is partially deaf and fluent in sign language, but because she’s the most compassionate and kind doctor he knows. His heart aches every time he lays eyes on her, because she has made it clear a relationship is off the table. Diesel knows there’s a mutual attraction, though so he’s not sure what’s holding Dani back.

Diesel and Dani’s attraction can’t be ignored when they’re thrown together to look after Michael and Joshua when they have no place to go.  However, they’ll have to deal with their feelings in between dodging a killer bent on eliminating Michael. 

I found that the romance drama was low, because Dani and Diesel didn’t have time to wishy washy back and forth, they had to just get their shit sorted and concentrate on not dying, lol! Dani might have tried my patience otherwise. There are a few reasons she’d held back, reasons she felt were valid, but any outsider could’ve told her they were BS.

There were a lot of heartbreaking moments here since Michael was the victim of abuse. Diesel has his own story to tell, and he helped Michael deal with the feelings of guilt, shame and anger.  

Despite Into the Dark being over six hundred pages long, I felt like I breezed through the story pretty quickly. Lots of action and danger, they kept me turning the pages, and I cared about what happened to Dani, Diesel, Michael and Joshua!

I switched back and forth from e-book to audio and I'm happy I did that because I didn't want to put the book down when I had to get real-life stuff done.  Hillary Huber did an excellent job with both the male and female voices.

4.5 Suns