RAVAGED HEARTS (Team Zulu 5) by Julie Weaver -review

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ABOUT THE BOOK:Release Date October 19, 2024

Vaughn

Protecting Hope is no longer a job; it’s an obsession. And God help the fool who tries to harm what’s mine.

Somehow, this incredible woman doesn’t see me as a monster, brutalized and broken. She makes me want to overcome the debilitating fear of touch that’s gripped me since my captivity. With Hope’s help, maybe I can.

Now, I’m consumed by a new terror: losing the woman I love.

As long as her father’s cartel continues to ravage Mexico, the risk of him finding Hope and dragging her back to his brutal world is a constant threat.

But to eliminate the most powerful man in Mexico, we may both need to face the horrors that plague our nightmares.

Hope

I never dreamed I’d find a man who could look beyond my facial scars and family name to see the real me. Not a victim, not a narco princess. Just a woman with hopes and dreams like any other.

Now that I have Vaughn, I’m never letting him go.

His team of mercenaries think they can take down my father’s cartel like they have all the others. But Carlos Espinoza is no ordinary target, and killing the man who’s made my life a misery will be far more dangerous than anything they’ve tackled before.

When cartel violence escalates and threatens the people I love, one thing is clear: to win this fight, I can’t hide from my father any longer.

But if the battle claims the life of the man who holds my heart, it’ll destroy me.

•••••••

REVIEW: RAVAGED HEARTS is the fifth instalment in Julie Weaver’s contemporary, adult TEAM ZULU erotic, romantic suspense series, and part two of Hope and Vaughn’s story. RAVAGED HEARTS should not be read as a stand alone as it picks up after the events of book four SCARRED SOULS

NOTE: Due to the nature of the story line premise, there WILL BE triggers for more sensitive readers.

Told from dual first person perspectives (Vaughn and Hope) RAVAGED HEARTS continues to follow the building relationship between Hope ‘Elena Espinoza’ Lopez, and former US Navy SEAL Vaughn Decker, and the hunt for the head of the Pacific Coast Cartel headed by Hope’s estranged father Carlos Espinoza, a violent and sadistic man. As Team Zulu, Vaughn and Hope put a plan into action, our heroine goes off script, threatening the life of the man whom she loves. What ensues is the ongoing relationship between Hope and Vaughn, and the fall-out as the Cartel has plans for our story line couple.

The world building follows the continuing relationship between our story line couple, as well as the hunt for Carlos Espinoza but all is not well with the Mexican Cartel, and Hope is about to discover all is not as it appears to be.

The relationship between Hope and Vaughn struggles in the face of secrets and lies. Both Vaughn and Hope have experience horrific abuse at the hands of former captors, and in this, Vaughn battles between head and heart with his attraction to our story line heroine. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate.

There is a large ensemble cast of familiar and colorful secondary and supporting characters including several members of Team Zulu; Hope’s father Carlos Espinoza, and his second in command Jorge Ortega.

RAVAGE HEARTS is a story of betrayal, secrets and lies; power and control, murder and madness, acceptance, forgiveness and love. The premise is dramatic and dark; the romance is provocative; the characters are energetic and dynamic but our heroine is TSTL (Too stupid to live) having placed herself and Team Zulu in the direct line of fire with her actions and need to go it alone.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
The Hit
The Payback
The Heist
Scarred Souls

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

Julie Weaver is a RWAus Emerald Award winner and author of spicy, action-packed romantic suspense novels.
Her Team Zulu series features morally gray, ex-elite military heroes and the feisty, kick-ass heroines who challenge them.
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