salythereader

Scorched continues the amazing Tracer series by Laura Griffin and make us revisit the couple Kelsey and Gage who had their own short novella Unstoppable.

Kelsey has a great career at the Delphi Center as the bone expert and she often goes to dangerous places for excavation. Gage is a Navy SEAL which is a dangerous job and for two years their relationship was about the absences and reunions and sex but eight months ago, Kelsey and Gage broke up because Kelsey gave Gage a choice her or the teams and he walked away from her. Kelsey's ultimatum had been precipitated by events Gage was not aware of, like his being injured and not telling her and her desire to be not alone as her mother was when her father died.

They both have regrets and both kind of moved on. When Kelsey's uncle and Gage's commander Joe is killed, Gage finds out that Kelsey is engaged to her ex, Blake of the FBI, a few months later that is off and Gage was angry at this.
The mystery aspect of the book drives the whole story, Kelsey finds something at one of her sites for which she asks Blake for some help and that makes Blake dead and Kelsey goes on the run after she witnesses Blake's own partner murdering him and some terrorist connection. Gage comes into the picture when he is questioned by the FBI since the crime scene is setting Gage up.

Gage leaves everything to track down Kelsey and maybe in the process get a second chance. What I liked was, that Gage reflected back on their relationship and realized that Kelsey's grievances were genuine, they had been all about the sex in some ways from his side, he had never thought about the future, never really visited her work space or realized that she loved him and to me their differences did seem insurmountable but trust Laura to make them work out. I loved how self protective Kelsey was, she had been hurt bad by their breakup and come to see that his job was important and that she too had been unwilling to give up hers.

What I didn't really like was that her engagement was not explained. I mean if she had been so broken up, how could she go back to her womanizing ex Blake. I loved how Gage and Kelsey chased down leads plus the introduction of a new FBI agent Elizabeth and her chemistry with Gage's SEAL buddy Derek has me very interested.

Scorched is another great installment in the Tracer series which mixes romance and suspense really well.

ARC provided by the publisher through Edelweiss.