Hold Your Breath by Katie Ruggle – Dual Review & Giveaway

HOLD YOUR BREATH
Search and Rescue #1
by Katie Ruggle
Genre: adult, contemporary, romantic suspense
Release Date: April 5, 2016

 

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Description:
As the captain of Field County’s ice rescue dive team, Callum Cook is driven to perfection. But when he meets new diver Louise “Lou” Sparks, all that hard-won order is obliterated in an instant. Lou is a hurricane. A walking disaster. And with her, he’s never felt more alive…even if keeping her safe may just kill him.

Lou’s new to the Rockies, intent on escaping her controlling ex, and she’s determined to make it on her own terms…no matter how tempting Callum may be. But when a routine training exercise unearths a body, Lou and Callum find themselves thrust into a deadly game of cat and mouse with a killer who will stop at nothing to silence Lou-and prove that not even her new Search and Rescue family can keep her safe forever.

 

 

Barb’s Review:

Hold your Breath by Katie Ruggle is the 1^st book in her Search and Rescue series.  What I enjoyed about this book was that it had a bit of everything;  romance, suspense, action, excitement and a mystery.  What can be better, especially if the author does it right, and Katie Ruggle did a wonderful job with this story.

In the prequel, we met Lou and Callum, and in Hold You Breath we get their full story.  Lou Sparks is our heroine, who recently moved to the Rockies and joins the Search and Resuce Ice Dive team.  Lou left her home to escape her demanding parents and an ex boyfriend for the freedom to live her life her way.  While in training, she finds herself attracted to the team captain, Callum Cook, who is our hero.

Callum is tough, no nonsense leader, and Lou is his opposite.  She is nervous learning the diving exercises, but she also is lots of fun, joking around with her teammates.  When she accidently comes across a dead body in the ice, it will be Callum who will step up and help her.  Callum will discover that Lou has had some incidents against her, such as tires slashed and he will begin to protect her against a possible stalker.  More incidents will happen that will raise the danger level, not to mention that Lou and Callum will be thrown together and a romance begins to blossom.

What follows is an exciting dual mystery.  Who is the dead headless man they found in the ice?  Who is stalking Lou? 

Callum and Lou take it upon themselves to try to find the clues to the identity of the victim, and as their relationship gets hotter, the stalker becomes more dangerous.  Callum will stay close to Lou, as the stakes escalate, with her life very much at risk.  The last third of the book was very suspenseful and exciting.  I could not put the book down, as I needed to know what would happen.  I really like Lou and Callum as a couple, as they were perfect for each other.  She was outgoing and lively; it was great to see him fall hard for Lou and enjoy her fun loving ways.  Hold Your Breath was a fun, exciting read, with lots of action, suspense, especially with some of the ice rescue scenes.  I wholly recommend you to read this series.

 

Rachel’s Review:

4 out of 5 for this reader folks!

That was a different read for me .. a really good kind of different that may have opened my eyes to a different kind of contemporary romance … mystery and suspense.

So a small disclaimer here .. I am an veteran Canadian army medic, so this book was extremely enticing and captivating from the first page.  I mean mix a hot guy with a hot girl, add in dashes of secondary characters that you know will get their own story, super mystery and suspense .. AND add rescue/medical/dive team .. ummmm …YES PLEASE!  LOL

Hold Your Breath by Katie Ruggle is the first book of her new series called “Search and Rescue“.  I will say that this book revolves more on the mystery/suspense side than it did the romance, and do not get me wrong, I loved the mystery, but I am a fan of hot smut in my romance books and this one kind of fell short on the heat.  I am always a glass half full kind of reader though, so perhaps the lack of smut made me concentrate of what I would call a slow burn, fun and quirky moments and a heart racing climax.  So you see .. smut would of been the cherry on the sundae, but the sundae was still very yummy!  LOL

Louise Sparks (“Lou” to most) has just moved to the Rockies and joined the Search and Rescue Dive team stationed there.  She is starting a new life away from a past she really wants to forget.  She is a hot mess at times while still being really good at what she does (serious oxymoron there, but it made her absolutely endearing).  If she messes up, it’s seems to always be in front of the one man she wants to impress … her leader.

Callum Cook is one straight up, neat freak, OCD, serious all the time leader of this dive team.  He is intimidating, stand offish, but very good at what he does as well.  He also does not know that this mess of a new team mate is about to change his life.  While he is protective in nature, it is extremely amplified when he learns that Lou is being stalked and may be in danger.

These two start off as team mates trying to solve a case when a corpse in uncovered during a training exercise.  There is a friendship that does bloom, and while a mutual attraction is there, both take this case very serious and make it a priority.  As time passes and mystery and suspense heighten, feelings, attraction and ultimate love comes to surface.  There were many moments I found myself chuckling at their scenes of crazy .. these guys compliment each other so well which made the story in my opinion.

This story was fantastic.  As I am a self confessed smut reader, I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I loved the mystery and suspense here as opposed to the “let’s get it on” moments.  (GASP .. did I just admit that??  LOL) These two bloomed before us with every page flip and I admit I actually read the last chapters half way thru because I had to know what was what so I could enjoy the journey .. yes .. I’m strange!  LOL

Will absolutely read this entire series as it releases and I would recommend this book wholeheartedly!

HAPPY READING! 🙂

 

 

 

Katie’s publisher is graciously offering a paper copy of HOLD YOUR BREATH to ONE (1) lucky commenters at The Reading Cafe.

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7. Giveaway is open to US / Canada only

8. Giveaway runs from April 5 – 9,  2016