Onyx (GEM 3) by Freya Barker-review tour

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date November 6, 2023

GEM: A PRIVATELY-FUNDED ORGANIZATION OPERATING INDEPENDENTLY IN THE SEARCH FOR—AND THE RESCUE AND RECOVERY OF—MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN. ALTHOUGH, AT TIMES WORKING IN CONJUNCTION WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT, GEM AIMS TO ENSURE THE VICTIMS RECEIVE JUSTICE…BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY.
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Operator Onyx; balanced, strong, a guardian

She’s the voice of reason, advocates, and strategizes.

Supporting the team from the background, Onyx rarely goes out in the field. However, when a widespread child exploitation ring is discovered, her particular skill set is needed to get close.

Unfortunately, her boss—a man she’s never laid eyes on before—is dead set against her taking the lead. Outvoted, he finds a way to keep her in his sights, risking his own exposure.

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REVIEW:ONYX is the third (and final?) instalment in Freya Barker’s contemporary, adult GEM dark, erotic, romantic suspense series. This is Rajani ‘Onyx’ Agarwal, and Jacob Branch’s story line. ONYX can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story lines is revealed where necessary but I recommend reading the series in order.

SOME BACKGROUND: GEM stands for Gather, Evaluate, Mobilize

GEM, a group that works independently of other organizations, searching for missing and exploited children; and CARD (Child Abduction Rapid Deployment) is a division of the FBI working to stop those trafficking in children. Approximately twenty years earlier Raj (Onyx), and her fellow GEM agents Kate (Opal) and Janey (Pearl) were abducted from a teen youth center, help captive and abused by a madman who was believed to have died in a fire at the center but their investigations into the missing and exploited all reveal a connection to the center, and the probability the baddest of the bad survived.

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

Told from dual first person perspectives (Onyx and Jacob) ONXY focuses on the take down of the last man that destroyed Onyx, Opal and Pearl’s lives. Raised in a group home for troubled teens, the boys and girls were used and abused by the people in charge but a fire allowed the children to escape, and the survivors are searching for the ones who got away. Fast forward to present day, the members of GEM are all former childhood victims whose duty it is to protect those most vulnerable but as a side proclamation, GEM searches for the men who destroyed their lives, and with only one man still on the run, Onyx goes undercover in the hopes of taking down the remaining abuser who is about to turn the tables on our story line couple. With the help and coordination of GEM’s boss and CEO Jacob Branch, as well as Jacob’s friend Hamish, the trio face down the nightmare who continues to destroy so many lives.

The world building continues to focus GEM, but more specifically the three women and their boss Jacob Branch, who have pledged to help those unable to help themselves. With the number of missing and exploited children on the rise, GEM is kept busy searching for those unable to help themselves.

The relationship between Onyx and Jacob is employee and boss but very few people are truly aware Jacob’s secret or his real identity. As Onyx begins to tumble down the rabbit hole, secrets are revealed, lies are exposed, and Onyx struggles to accept what happened and why. The $ex scenes are intimate, erotic and intense without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.

There is a large ensemble cast of colorful and charismatic secondary and supporting characters including Opal and Mitch, Pearl and Lee, Hamish Adrian, and Jacob’s caretaker Bernice Nelson. The requisite evil has many faces.

ONYX is a story of secrets and lies, betrayal and vengeance, power and control, forgiveness, acceptance and love. ONYX is twisted, passionate and dramatic story of tragedy and recovery; the characters are struggling and broken; the romance is fated but predicated on deceit and deception.

There are several moments of confusion, a couple of twists to the story line that at times left me wondering what happened and why but all will be revealed throughout the story.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Opal
Pearl

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

USA Today bestselling author Freya Barker loves writing about ordinary people with extraordinary stories.

Driven to make her books about ‘real’ people; she creates characters who are perhaps less than perfect, each struggling to find their own slice of happy, but just as deserving of romance, thrills and chills in their lives.

Recipient of the ReadFREE.ly 2019 Best Book We’ve Read All Year Award for “Covering Ollie, the 2015 RomCon “Reader’s Choice” Award for Best First Book, “Slim To None”, and Finalist for the 2017 Kindle Book Award with “From Dust”, Freya continues to add to her rapidly growing collection of published novels as she spins story after story with an endless supply of bruised and dented characters, vying for attention!

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