The Darkest Hour, released on September 7, 2010.Ethan's wife Rachel had died, been over a year and he receives a packet showing what could be her with some militants. I'll definitely be continuing with the series, as I loved all the characters introduced and the first half had a gritty, thrilling, and emotional beat that sucked me right in. Just not sure it flowed right out of the story. Having the villain identity and reasoning not being revealed until the last 15% made it feel very rushed and meh, do I understand who, what, where, and why? Yes. I also have to say that the chemistry between the hero and heroine was lacking, I just happened to like the surrounding cast of characters a lot, so it made up for it. I also thought he disappeared into a one trick pony of repeatedly saying 'baby' and hovering over her. The second half kind of stuttered a bit for me with the hero constantly focused and worried if the heroine would remember the last fight they had there was a lot of back and forth that stagnated the story. Usually, having this many names thrown at me feels overwhelming but it worked here as the author did an amazing job writing them as individuals but knitting them together in a cohesive group. I think there is six total?) and the other men of the KGI group. I also loved the big cast of characters and our hero's million brothers (ok, I'm exaggerating. I loved how this was romantic suspense but flipped a bit with the woman, in this case our former military dude's wife, being the one taken captive and held for a year she was the one dealing with the trauma of that situation. Y'all, the first 50% of this book was insanely good (It looks like the vast majority of you have read this already since I'm Way Late Lana to the party but remember how good it was?!) and I didn't even want to pull myself away to notch an update on here.

The darkest hour by maya banks