series: van doren | Book-Endz

TITLE: ⟫ Noaz
AUTHOR: ⟫ Crea Reitan

SERIES: ⟫ Van Doren Book #2
RATING: ⟫ /5

BLURB: ⟫ Sometimes stars grant you wishes that come covered in blood.

I’ve wanted one thing for as long as I can remember – someone to love, a family, and a happily ever after. I finally found it with the least likely person across the street. Our life together has been dipped in espresso and given a massive jolt forward, but we couldn’t be happier.

That is, until someone threatens that happiness and I’m forced to respond in order to protect my family that’s barely begun. I didn’t mean for this relationship to begin bathed in blood but I will do anything to protect the love I’ve waited decades for.

REVIEW: ⟫ Currently reading – review to follow.

TITLE: ⟫ Loren
AUTHOR: ⟫ Crea Reitan

SERIES: ⟫ Van Doren Book #1
RATING: ⟫ 3.5/5

BLURB: ⟫ I will kill to keep him.

Oakley

It’s a new start – brand new school in a completely different state. For the first time, I now have the freedom to be unapologetically me. But as my luck would have it, I have shit taste in men. The first man to pay me a compliment has so many red flags, I think I’m in a storm. Life can’t get any worse… until he turns into a stalker.

Then my stalker ends up brutally murdered, I walk blindly into a serial killer’s nest, and I catch the attention of a sociopath.

Loren

The moment I see Oakley walk into the cafe, I know he’s mine. I may be here to finish a job, but it’s impossible to concentrate on anything but him. My fascination quickly turns into an obsession, which might be fortunate for him because I think he’s trying to get himself killed.

Which is fine; I’ll protect him. It doesn’t matter how many lives I have to end to make Oakley mine.

REVIEW: ⟫ I know what to expect from Crea Reitan when it comes to those men who are utterly obsessed with their person, and Loren is definitely one of those men. For some reason, it didn’t really work for me in this story. I enjoyed the characters – Loren’s family, Oakley’s found family, the opportunity to find out how people from other stories were doing – but I had a disconnect and found that I just didn’t care enough about what was happening.

I couldn’t suspend disbelief long enough to believe that Loren’s behaviour was viewed as acceptable by Oakley’s friends; that the police were so incredibly inefficient; even, perhaps, that Loren’s family would up sticks and move like that when they were so concerned about his feelings for Oakley, especially as Loren was known for being quite unemotional.

I think that perhaps it was more the mood that I was in than the story, which is why I am going to read the next in the series and only really judge from there.